Lifeboat Foundation

Critics of the militarization of marine life say the problem with a new DARPA program is moral, not practical.

WASHINGTON ― Rapid advances in artificial intelligence and military robotics have some concerned that the development of Terminator-like killer robots will be humankind’s downfall. But that doesn’t seem to worry Eric Schmidt, the former executive chairman of Google parent company Alphabet, who addressed the impact of technology on democracy at the Feb. 16–18 Munich Security Conference.

As hemp makes a comeback in the U.S. after a decades-long ban on its cultivation, scientists are reporting that fibers from the plant can pack as much energy and power as graphene, long-touted as the model material for supercapacitors. They’re presenting their research, which a Canadian start-up company is working on scaling up, at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

David Mitlin, Ph.D., explains that supercapacitors are energy storage devices that have huge potential to transform the way future electronics are powered. Unlike today’s rechargeable batteries, which sip up energy over several hours, supercapacitors can charge and discharge within seconds. But they normally can’t store nearly as much energy as batteries, an important property known as energy density. One approach researchers are taking to boost supercapacitors’ energy density is to design better electrodes. Mitlin’s team has figured out how to make them from certain hemp fibers—and they can hold as much energy as the current top contender: graphene.

“Our device’s electrochemical performance is on par with or better than graphene-based devices,” Mitlin says. “The key advantage is that our electrodes are made from biowaste using a simple process, and therefore, are much cheaper than graphene.”

Continue reading “Could hemp nanosheets topple graphene for making the ideal supercapacitor?” »

The longest-lived bats—those belonging to the Myotis genus—may have their telomeres to thank for their slow aging process, according to a study published yesterday (Feb 7) in Science Advances.

“In the longest-lived species of bats telomeres don’t shorten with age,” study coauthor Emma Teeling, a professor of biology and environmental science at University College Dublin, tells The Irish Times. “Whereas in other bats species, humans and other animals they do, causing the age-related breakdown of cells that over the course of a lifetime can drive tissue deterioration and ultimately death.”

Teeling and her colleagues conducted wing biopsies on close to 500 bats of four different species at field sites across Europe. Tissue analysis revealed that while the telomeres shortened with age in two bat species, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum and Miniopterus schreibersii, no such change occurred in species belonging to Myotis, the bat genus with the greatest longevity.

Continue reading “Study: Telomeres Don’t Shorten with Age in Longest-Lived Bats” »

This bionic knee brace will give you superhuman strength…and it’s available to everyone!

In a few months, astronomers are going to be pointing their telescopes to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

That’s because it’s going to be buzzed by a closely orbiting star — providing another context for testing Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Continue reading “A Star Passing The Black Hole at The Centre of Our Galaxy Is About to Test Einstein’s Theory” »

Google believes you don’t have to be a virtuoso to make decent music as evident by their Chrome Music Lab initiative. If you’re not aware, Chrome Music Lab is, in Google’s own words, “a website that makes learning music more accessible through fun, hands-on experiments.”

The latest of these experiments is Google’s “Song Maker” tool which, as the name suggests, allows you to create your own unique melodies quickly and easily from within your mobile or desktop browser. To use Song Maker, simply visit the official experiment page and begin “painting” notes on the large grid provided by Google.

Continue reading “Google’s new Song Maker tool lets you create original music right in your browser” »

Google Cloud and AGI (a.k.a. Analytical Graphics Inc.) have gotten on board with the B612 Asteroid Institute to develop a cloud-based platform for keeping track of asteroid discoveries.

The two companies have become technology partners for the Asteroid Decision Analysis and Mapping project, or ADAM, which aims to provide the software infrastructure for analyzing the trajectories of near-Earth objects, identifying potential threats, and sizing up the scenarios for taking action if necessary.

Continue reading “Asteroid Institute adds Google Cloud and AGI as tech partners for asteroid tracking” »

A powerful new weather satellite launched today (March 1) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, heading toward a perch above the eastern Pacific Ocean to monitor extreme weather as it develops.

The satellite, called GOES-S (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-S), lifted off on ULA’s Atlas V rocket at 5:02 p.m. EST (2202 GMT).

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will operate GOES-S in partnership with NASA. The Lockheed Martin-built satellite will join GOES-East, currently in orbit, to provide a broad, high-definition view of weather on Earth. It is the second in a series of four advanced weather satellites that will reside in geostationary orbit — hanging in place over one spot on Earth as they orbit and the world turns. [GOES-S: NOAA’s Next-Gen Weather Satellite in Photos].

Continue reading “Next-Generation Weather Satellite Launches to Track Extreme Storms” »