Lifeboat Foundation

Shelters support biodiversity while also capturing dust to improve air quality and storing rainwater.

Virgin Galactic is preparing to become the first publicly traded spaceflight company, and the venture is setting a course to be profitable by August 2021, which would put it lightyears ahead of the profitability projections of another transportation-based company that simply moves people around on Earth: Uber.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Virgin Galactic is merging with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings (SCH), which will take a 49 percent stake and invest about $800 million into the space tourism endeavor.

By Justin MullinsPass a current or magnetic field through a conducting fluid and it will generate a force. Numerous aerospace engineers have tried and failed to exploit this phenomenon, known as magnetohydrodynamics, as an exotic form of propulsion for aircraft. But perhaps attempts so far have all been too big.

A very small design could have a better chance of taking off, says Subrata Roy, an aerospace engineer at the University of Florida, Gainesville, US.

With a span of less than 15 centimetres, his aircraft qualifies as a micro air vehicle (MAV), but it has an unconventional design to say the least. It is a saucer shape covered with electrodes that ionise air to create a plasma. This plasma is then accelerated by an electric field to push air around and generate lift.

Efficiently moving water upward against gravity is a major feat of human engineering, yet one that trees have mastered for hundreds of millions of years. In a new study, researchers have designed a tree-inspired water transport system that uses capillary forces to drive dirty water upward through a hierarchically structured aerogel, where it can then be converted into steam by solar energy to produce fresh, clean water.

The researchers, led by Aiping Liu at Zhejiang Sci-Tech University and Hao Bai at Zhejiang University, have published a paper on the new water transport and solar steam generation method in a recent issue of ACS Nano. In the future, efficient water transport methods have potential applications in water purification and desalination.

“Our preparation method is universal and can be industrialized,” Liu told Phys.org. “Our materials have excellent properties and good stability, and can be reused many times. This provides the possibility for large-scale desalination and sewage treatment in the future.”

What’s not to like about this concept: high-efficiency solar cells gifting electric cars with mileage.

Bertel Schmitt, The Drive, said, “The solar roof could morph from mostly a marketing-device to a helpful feature.” He noted that, referring to plug-ins, “On a fair-weather day, the juice would be provided by the sun, a big improvement especially for people who don’t have their own garage.”

Toyota has ambitions over the concept and is to start testing an onboard solar recharging system where the hood, the roof, and back are covered with cells. The solar roof can charge while the car is on the move.

DARPA’s Ground X-Vehicle Technologies (GXV-T) program aims to improve mobility, survivability, safety, and effectiveness of future combat vehicles without piling on armor. The demonstrations featured here show progress on technologies for traveling quickly over varied terrain and improving situational awareness and ease of operation.

These demonstrations feature technologies developed for DARPA by:

Continue reading “Demonstrations of DARPA’s Ground X-Vehicle Technologies” »

Elon Musk is a lot of things to a lot of people, but there’s something very interesting about him that drives most others: If he thinks something is worth improving, there’s more than a coin’s toss of a chance he’s going to make a go of it.

Now, Musk is a fantastically creative guy and all, but I’m not here to shower him with accolades (today anyhow). I’m setting the stage to discuss the next so-called improbable thing he might take on in the near future.

Seemingly “intelligent” devices like self-driving trucks aren’t actually all that intelligent. In order to avoid plowing into other cars or making illegal lane changes, they need a lot of help.

In China, that help is increasingly coming from rooms full of college students.

Continue reading “China’s Big AI Advantage: Humans” »

A 7. 1 earthquake has taken place in Ridgecrest, Californa, according to the USGS. The quake happened at 8:19 p. m. According to McCarran Airport, fortunately, there were no operational interruptions and all runways were checked and cleared. According to Las Vegas Fire & Rescue, no calls in the city were related to the earthquake. RELATED | The Latest: Southern California reels from 7. 1 quake. On July 4th, a 6.