Lifeboat Foundation

This story originally appeared on Time.com.

An idyllic Thai island has been so despoiled by tourists that local authorities are being forced to close it to prevent further damage.

Koh Tachai in Thailand’s Ranong Province was rated last year by specialist website beachmeter.com as Thailand’s most beautiful island. However, according to the Bangkok Post, the tourist-ravaged beaches of Koh Tachai will have to close indefinitely from Oct. 15.

Continue reading “One of Thailand’s most beautiful islands is closing before it’s ruined forever” »

A new study released by NASA on Tuesday shows that oceans on Europa, one of Jupiter’s 67 known moons, might have a lot in common with our own oceans, including a chemical balance capable of harboring life.

Scientists have been eyeing the mysterious water world as one of the most promising places to find alien life for a while now, and this study suggests they’re on the right track.

The moon, which is only a quarter the size of Earth, is covered in a thick shell of ice. But there is strong evidence that there could be a salty ocean deep beneath its surface.

Continue reading “Scientists just found evidence that there could be alien life lurking beneath the surface of this mysterious water world” »

About ten years ago scientist Dave Bacon, now at Google, presented that a time-travelling quantum computer could rapidly solve a bunch of problems, known as NP-complete, which mathematicians have lumped together as being hard. The problem was, Bacon’s quantum computer was travelling around ‘closed timelike curves’. These are paths through the fabric of spacetime that loop back on themselves. General relativity lets such paths to exist through contortions in spacetime identified as wormholes.

Why send a message back in time, but lock it so that no one can ever read the contents? As it may be the key to resolving presently intractable problems. That’s the claim of an international collaboration.

A team of Australian researchers just built solar cells that harvest 43% more efficient than the previous record-holder.

Today’s conference emphasizes virtual reality and machine learning.

Live Feed

Friends have been asking me to write something on space exploration and my campaign policy on it, so here it is just out on TechCrunch:

When people think about rocket ships and space exploration, they often imagine traveling across the Milky Way, landing on mysterious planets and even meeting alien life forms.

In reality, humans’ drive to get off Planet Earth has led to tremendous technological advances in our mundane daily lives — ones we use right here at home on terra firma.

Continue reading “Space exploration will spur transhumanism and mitigate existential risk” »

Definitely getting a pair. Now, I will know all the gossip in any language-lol.

VIDEO: So long, language barriers.

Continue reading “This smart earpiece translates languages as they are spoken” »

A tool able to generate remote forces would allow us to handle dangerous or fragile materials without contact or occlusions. Acoustic levitation is a suitable technology since it can trap particles in air or water. However, no approach has tried to endow humans with an intertwined way of controlling it. Previously, the acoustic elements were static, had to surround the particles and only translation was possible. Here, we present the basic manoeuvres that can be performed when levitators are attached to our moving hands. A Gauntlet of Levitation and a Sonic Screwdriver are presented with their manoeuvres for capturing, moving, transferring and combining particles. Manoeuvres can be performed manually or assisted by a computer for repeating patterns, stabilization and enhanced accuracy or speed. The presented prototypes still have limited forces but symbolize a milestone in our expectations of future technology.

Here’s a mobile screen that knows what you want to do BEFORE you touch it.