Lifeboat Foundation

A new IMAS-led paper published in the science journal Nature Climate Change has highlighted the challenges faced by scientists, governments and communities as rising levels of CO₂ are absorbed by the world’s oceans.

Researchers have found that in recent centuries surface ocean pH has fallen ten times faster than in the past 300 million years and that impacts are being felt on ecosystems, economies and communities worldwide.

The economic cost to coral reefs, wild fisheries and aquaculture alone of the process known as Ocean Acidification is projected to reach more than US $300 billion per annum.

If you’ve been hacked in recent years, odds are you fell for that perfectly crafted phishing message in your email. Even the most mindful individuals can slip up, but Google’s employees have reportedly had a flawless security record for more than a year thanks to a recent policy requiring them to use physical security keys.

Krebs on Security reports that in early 2017, Google started requiring its 85,000 employees to use a security key device to handle two-factor authentication when logging into their various accounts. Rather than just having a single password, or receiving a secondary access code via text message (or an app such as Google Authenticator), the employees had to use a traditional password as well as plug in a device that only they possessed. The results were stellar. From the report:

A Google spokesperson said Security Keys now form the basis of all account access at Google.

Continue reading “Google Employees’ Secret to Never Getting Phished Is Using Physical Security Keys” »

Using advanced fabrication techniques, engineers at the University of California San Diego have built a nanosized device out of silver crystals that can generate light by efficiently “tunneling” electrons through a tiny barrier. The work brings plasmonics research a step closer to realizing ultra-compact light sources for high-speed, optical data processing and other on-chip applications.

The work is published July 23 in Nature Photonics.

The device emits light by a quantum mechanical phenomenon known as inelastic electron tunneling. In this process, electrons move through a solid barrier that they cannot classically cross. And while crossing, the electrons lose some of their energy, creating either photons or phonons in the process.

Impressive.

Controlling prosthetic limbs through the power of thought and AI.

On Friday 27 July there will be a total lunar eclipse, also known as a blood moon. The blood moon occurs when the sun, Earth and moon align perfectly, putting the moon in the Earth’s shadow. The red colouring is a result of sunlight refracting through the Earth’s atmosphere.

But nuclear weapons experts question why you’d ever build a weapon like this.

In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin described a nuclear-powered torpedo designed to hit coastal targets with a.

You don’t want to miss this!!!

Silicon computer chips have been on a roll for half a century, getting ever more powerful. But the pace of innovation is slowing. Today the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced dozens of new grants totaling $75 million in a program that aims to reinvigorate the chip industry with basic research into new designs and materials, such as carbon nanotubes. Over the next few years, the DARPA program, which supports both academic and industry scientists, will grow to $300 million per year up to a total of $1.5 billion over 5 years.

“It’s a critical time to do this,” says Erica Fuchs, a computer science policy expert at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore made the observation that would become his eponymous “law”: The number of transistors on chips was doubling every 2 years, a time frame later cut to every 18 months. But the gains from miniaturizing the chips are dwindling. Today, chip speeds are stuck in place, and each new generation of chips brings only a 30% improvement in energy efficiency, says Max Shulaker, an electrical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. Fabricators are approaching physical limits of silicon, says Gregory Wright, a wireless communications expert at Nokia Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey. Electrons are confined to patches of silicon just 100 atoms wide, he says, forcing complex designs that prevent electrons from leaking out and causing errors. “We’re running out of room,” he says.

Continue reading “Beyond silicon: $1.5 billion U.S. program aims to spur new types of computer chips” »

Elon Musk’s rocket company launched the final iteration of its workhorse rocket carrying the biggest communications satellite ever.