Lifeboat Foundation

China has launched the first mission to land a robotic craft on the far side of the Moon, Chinese media say.

The Chang’e-4 mission will see a static lander and rover touch down in Von Kármán crater, located on the side of the Moon which never faces Earth.

The payload blasted off atop a Long March 3B rocket from Xichang Satellite Launch Center.

Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and deep learning have made huge strides in 2018. In this post we look at some of the key AI predictions for 2019, where is will be used, how it will make the biggest impact, as well as the key challenges we have to address.

This mesmerizing comet landscape was captured by the Rosetta probe as it zoomed by Comet 67P.

But business challenges and technical problems remain.

BREAKING: Humans have never before heard the sound of wind on Mars until now! Listen to #SoundsOfMars as recorded by NASA InSight as Martian winds swept over our lander. Best with headphones or a subwoofer. https://go.nasa.gov/2BWeong&h=AT2phR-fnwaC50oFKYLmQGoDEJ8_fV…fWhAfd9mNw

A new way to make arrays of nanofibers that gets its inspiration from polar bear fur, lotus leaves, and gecko feet could lead to coatings that are sticky, repellant, insulating, or light emitting.

“This is so removed from anything I’ve ever seen that I would have thought it was impossible,” says Joerg Lahann, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan and senior author of the paper, which appears in Science.

Polar bear hairs are structured to let light in while keeping heat from escaping. Water-repelling lotus leaves are coated with arrays of microscopic waxy tubules. And the nanoscale hairs on the bottoms of gravity-defying gecko feet get so close to other surfaces that atomic forces of attraction come into play.

Today, we want to highlight results from human trials in which stem cell transplants have been shown to reduce age-related frailty.

Age-related frailty and stem cell transplants

Currently, there are no specific approved therapies to address age-related frailty, which can cause elderly people to suffer potentially fatal falls and injuries. There has been considerable interest in stem cell therapies to combat frailty in recent years, and the results we will discuss today are from one of the more advanced human clinical trials exploring mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) transplants [1].

Tesla launched a new ‘Enhanced Anti-theft’ system as an aftermarket product last month and we now take a first look at one of the very first installations on a Model X.

There have been strings of Tesla thefts earlier this year that prompt the automaker to offer several new security features.

We reported on several Tesla vehicle thefts through relay attacks in Europe earlier this year.

Learn about the historic space shuttle mission that saved the Hubble Space Telescope as described by veteran astronauts Jeffrey Hoffman and Kathryn Thornton, who conducted spacewalks to install the instruments and corrective optics that cured Hubble’s blurred vision.