Lifeboat Foundation

Graphene light sail of 3mm in diameter with a mass of 0.25 mg ‘sets sail’ when pointed with a 1W laser. The prototype has a graphene micromembrane design that reduces the overall mass while keeping functional the complete area of the sail. Credit: Dr. Santiago Jose Cartamil-Bueno.

Overseas exploration and trade during the Age of Discovery (15th-17th centuries) were possible by sail technology, and deep-space exploration will require the same for the coming Age of NewSpace. This time, however, the new sails shall move with light instead of wind, for which these light sails need to be extremely large, thin, lightweight, reflective, and strong.

In a light-hearted leap for humankind, ESA-backed researchers demonstrate the laser-propulsion of graphene sails in microgravity.

https://paper.li/e-1437691924

From the editor: So far, the primary purpose of this site has been to serve as a “central point of information about anime and manga studies”, and a collection of resources that would be useful to the anime and manga studies community. However, I also gladly welcome new material, such as actual original commentary on anime/manga. If you would like to contribute an essay on any topic related to anime/manga, whether commentary or original research, please feel free to contact me.

The first such essay that I am happy to feature is “Towards a New Posthuman Ontology – The Anti-Anthropocentrism of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence”.

Continue reading “Guest Essay: Towards A New Posthuman Ontology – The Anti-Anthropocentrism of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence” »

Circa 2015

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering and the Russian Academy of Sciences have successfully demonstrated pattern recognition using a magnonic holographic memory device, a development that could greatly improve speech and image recognition hardware.

Pattern recognition focuses on finding patterns and regularities in data. The uniqueness of the demonstrated work is that the input patterns are encoded into the phases of the input spin waves.

Continue reading “Researchers demonstrate pattern recognition using magnonic holographic memory device” »

Circa 2017 o.,o.

Philip Ross is an artist and lecturer at Stanford University who focuses on an unlikely sustainable design element: mushrooms. After years of growing mushrooms, Ross has learned that there’s far more than meets the eye to mycelium — the extensive and tangled network of rootlike fibers that grow beneath the ground. According to our fungus expert, when left to dry the mycelium can become an excellent raw material for various constructions. For instance, Ross used the mycelium to fashion bricks out of.

Among its many properties, the mycelium bricks are:

Researchers said this building material has structural load-bearing function, is capable of self-healing and is more environmentally friendly than concrete – which is the second most-consumed material on Earth after water.

The team from the University of Colorado Boulder believe their work paves the way for future building structures that could “heal their own cracks, suck up dangerous toxins from the air or even glow on command”.

Wil Srubar, who heads the Living Materials Laboratory at the University of Colorado Boulder and is one of the study authors, said: “We already use biological materials in our buildings, like wood, but those materials are no longer alive.

Scientists working at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have announced the approval of a new high-temperature metal after 12 years and a $15 million Department of Energy investment. Alloy 617, a “combination of nickel, chromium, cobalt and molybdenum,” is tolerant and strong at temperatures of more than 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit. The scientists say this means it could be used in existing high temperature nuclear facilities as well as cutting-edge applications like molten salt reactors.

For any new nuclear plant material, making the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code is like qualifying for the Olympics. Alloy 617 is the first new material to get into “The Code” in 30 years.

Question: When you’ve designed the world’s most efficient metamaterial, one that could change the way cars, planes and even space exploration vehicles are built, is mostly air yet reaches the theoretical bounds for stiffness and strength and can equally resist forces coming from any direction, what do you do next?

Answer: You break it.

At least, that’s what a team of material scientists including Jonathan Berger of UC Santa Barbara and Jens Bauer of UC Irvine did. Their goal? To learn what boundaries could be pushed with a novel metamaterial called plate-nanolattice. The research findings are published in a paper in the journal Nature Communications (“Plate-nanolattices at the theoretical limit of stiffness and strength”).

New observations could boost understanding of multiple-impurity systems such as Kondo lattices, spin glasses and high transition-temperature superconductors.

Depending on who you ask and where you are, wearing a mask can be an important part of the strategy to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2.

With the CDC recommending surgical and N95 masks should be kept for medical personnel on the front line, if you do want or need a mask, you should be purchasing or making a cloth one.

But when looking at cloth masks, which materials work best for keeping your germs in and other people’s germs out?