Lifeboat Foundation

Is time travel possible, and if it is, what sort of civilizations would result? We’ll explore the science that might permit it as well as the classic science fiction examples to see if they make sense.

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Continue reading “Time Travel” »

Strategic agreement calls for fleet of Boston Dynamics robots to be deployed across more than 20 facilities over the next two years, to position retailer for the future.

Hamburg, Germany / Waltham, MA, USA – September 11, 2023 – The Otto Group, one of the world’s largest e-commerce retailers, has signed a strategic agreement with Boston Dynamics, the global leader in mobile robotics, to continue automating its logistics operations. The plan is to deploy Boston Dynamics’ Spot^® robots in more than 10 and Stretch™ robots in more than 20 of the group’s facilities over the next two years, beginning with Hermes Fulfilment. The deployment supports Otto Group’s efforts to improve safety, increase operational efficiency and address labor shortages for specific types of warehouse work and the agreement marks the first time both of Boston Dynamics’ commercially available robots will be deployed together at enterprise scale.

Under the terms of the agreement, Spot, the four-legged mobile robot from Boston Dynamics, will support tunnel inspections and predictive maintenance activities for operations equipment, including thermal monitoring, analog gauge reading and acoustic detection of pressurized air and gas leaks. The Spot fleet will also run autonomous missions, collecting data for machine learning models to support tasks like fire exit egress monitoring and detecting slight changes in storage racks to keep Otto Group’s warehouses even safer. In addition, the Otto Group will be utilizing Stretch, Boston Dynamics’ box-moving robot designed for warehouse applications. Stretch will begin unloading containers at 10 facilities next year, with the goal of having all sites operational by the end of 2025. Stretch, which is particularly useful for unloading heavy packages in the container sector, will provide technological support for physically demanding activities.

Researchers turn to synchrotron imaging of historical and homemade prints to explore possible connections between early printing methods in Korea and Europe.

Observations of air-bubble mergers in water explain why dissolved salt slows this process and leads to foam.

Air bubbles churned up in pure water can easily merge. But bubbles merge far more slowly in seawater or in other liquids containing dissolved impurities, which is why such liquids often generate enduring foams. Now a team of engineers believes that it has identified the fundamental cause of the difference—subtle forces set up by electrolytes, mobile ions created when substances dissolve in liquids [1]. In a collision between two bubbles, these forces greatly reduce the rate at which the liquid separating the bubbles can flow away. This understanding, the researchers say, explains why foams arise so easily in salty seawater and could be useful in many industrial applications.

Solutions with high electrolyte concentrations often produce persisting foams, so researchers have suspected for decades that dissolved electrolytes somehow slow bubble mergers. The effect has remained mysterious, however, and many theories even suggest that electrolytes should speed up bubble mergers, says mechanical engineer Bo Liu of the University of Alberta in Canada.

An area known as Thacker Pass on the Nevada-Oregon border is home to clay that contain tens of millions of tons of lithium.

And appeared in everything from mythology to comic books, but the future might offer technologies that turn these dreams into reality.
Today we’ll explore some of those options, from superstrength and speed to options like telepathy.

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Continue reading “Superpowers: The dream of having superhuman abilities is as old as humanity” »

Alarmed by something popping up on your body that’s clearly not supposed to be there? These pictures from WebMD show you a few strange-bu t-true ailments that are scary looking but — for the most part — nothing to worry about.

The first experiment to produce oxygen on another planet has come to an end on Mars after exceeding NASA’s initial goals and demonstrating capabilities that could help future astronauts explore the red planet.

The microwave-size device called MOXIE, or Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, is on the Perseverance rover.

The experiment kicked off more than two years ago, a few months after the rover landed on Mars. Since then, MOXIE has generated 122 grams of oxygen, equal to what a small dog breathes in 10 hours, according to NASA. The instrument works by converting some of Mars’ plentiful carbon dioxide into oxygen.

The pain is invisible, but it’s there. Here are the stories of what it’s like to live with trigeminal neuralgia.