Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Blog – Page 9943

A massive sinkhole recently collapsed nearby Mulberry, Florida, draining approximately 215 million gallons of radioactive and contaminated water into Florida’s aquifer. The sinkhole was located directly below a wastewater storage pond used by Mosaic, the largest phosphate fertilizer producer in the world.

There is local outcry that the event in fact took place three weeks before the local community was notified, despite the fact that this is Florida’s largest and primary aquifer for potable water. The fertilizer company is currently working on pumping out the contaminated water and believes the wastewater is slow moving in the aquifer and has yet to reach public households. Mosaic’s phosphate fertilizer plant was storing its “gypsum stack” containing sulfate, gypsum, sodium and radioactive phosphogypsum in a pond nearby the plant.

Florida is known for sinkholes, this one however was larger than normal at 45 feet in diameter. The ground collapsed down to the aquifer below, a source of fresh water for most of Florida. Mosaic diverted the wastewater pond but not until 215 million gallons were lost down the sinkhole.

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Researchers at CSIRO & Queensland University of Technology have recently carried out a study aimed at automatically evolving the physical structure of robots to enhance their performance in different environments. This project, funded by CSIRO’s Active Integrated Matter Future Science Platform, was conceived by David Howard, research scientist at Data61’s Robotics and Autonomous Systems Group (RASG).

“RASG focuses on field robotics, which means we need our robots to go out into remote places and conduct missions in adverse, difficult environmental conditions,” David Howard told TechXplore. “The research came about through an identified opportunity, as RASG makes extensive use of 3D printing to build and customise our robots. This research demonstrates a design algorithm that can automatically generate 3D printable components so that our robots are better equipped to function in different environments.”

The main objective of the study was to generate components automatically that can improve a robot’s environment-specific performance, with minimal constraints on what these components look like. The researchers particularly focused on the legs of a hexapod (6-legged) robot, which can be deployed in a variety of environments, including industrial settings, rainforests, and beaches.

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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers are working to make better electronic devices by delving into the way nanocrystals are arranged inside of them.

Nanocrystals are promising building blocks for new and improved electronic devices, due to their size-tunable properties and ability to integrate into devices at low-cost.

While the structure of nanocrystals has been extensively studied, no one has been able to watch the full assembly process.

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In this interview, Vera Gorbunova, Professor of Biology at the University of Rochester and a co-director of the Rochester Aging Research Center, talks about our current understanding of the mechanisms behind the longevity and genome stability of exceptionally long-lived mammals and how this knowledge could be used to create therapies to extend healthy human lifespan.

The interview was made by Steve Hill and Elena Milova, members of the board of Lifespan.io.

►This video is presented by LEAF. Please support us by becoming a “Lifespan Hero”: http://lifespan.io/hero

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