Lifeboat Foundation

Tiny, fuzzy blobs. I’ve spent a lot of time in the last few years looking at images of tiny, fuzzy blobs. They’re only ever a few pixels wide, like smudges on a photo, but they could be the key that unlocks the mystery of dark matter.

The blobs are galaxies: swirling pools of stars and planets suspended in space, millions of light-years away from Earth. The images were collected by an advanced camera with a 1m (3.3ft) lens mounted on the giant Victor M Blanco Telescope, 2,200m (7,200ft) up in the mountains of the Coquimbo Region of Chile.

A team of scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are developing new methods to probe the universe’s minute details at extraordinary speeds.

Some people, like Sam Harris, say that science has values of its own. According to him, even a statement like “Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen” is value-laden. But I don’t think that it is value-laden, it is simply a factual statement. Perhaps demonstrating that statement to be true requires values, but that statement by itself is true whatever your values are. So, then, what have professional philosophers (besides Sam Harris) written or said about this matter, of whether science is value-free, and also whether even basic scientific statements are value-free?

An excellent discussion of the history, strategies, and future of new funding models for science wherein we can Ensure that scientific progress can flourish by removing financial and institutional obstacles for the world’s best scientists, so that they can fully pursue their curiosity and produce…

For those who sit between science and tech, it’s hard not to notice the proliferation of new initiatives launched in the last two years, aimed at making major improvements in the life sciences especially.

While I don’t have a science background, nor any personal relationship to the space (other than knowing and liking many of the folks involved), I became interested in learning why the space changed so suddenly, particularly from a philanthropic lens. Figuring out what worked in science can help us tackle other, similarly-shaped problems in the world.

Continue reading “Understanding science funding in tech, 2011-2021” »

On Truth and Reality — Uniting Metaphysics, Philosophy, Physics and Theology (Science and Art) from One Thing, Absolute Space and the Spherical Standing Wave Structure of Matter. From Matter as ‘Particles’ generating ‘Fields’ in ‘Space-Time’, to Matter as Spherical Standing Waves in Space. The Wave-Center Causes ‘Particle Effect’, Wave Motion of Space Causes ‘Time’, Wave Interactions cause ‘Forces / Fields’

For decades, cannabis has been studied for its potential antitumor properties, but whether it can actually treat cancer is still unknown.

The chemical industry has been using a reaction with explosive chemicals for over 100 years — now Mülheim scientists have discovered a safer alternative.

Explosions and poisoning. Serious injuries and even deaths. In the history of the chemical industry, there have been repeated accidents, sometimes fatal, often caused by dangerous and explosive chemicals that are required for certain reactions.

Aryldiazonium salts, which have been used for 140 years, are such chemicals. They are very reactive and therefore extremely useful for producing other compounds – dyes, for example. However, the high reactivity means that isolated aryldiazonium salts are not very stable and can therefore react unintentionally and sometimes explosively. On December 23, 1969, there was a particularly serious explosion involving these chemicals at Ciba AG in Basel. A building was destroyed and heavy pieces of the reactor flew through the air. Three workers lost their lives and 31 were seriously injured. Despite such horrific reports, work continues with aryldiazonium salts.

A professor at the University of Warwick is exploring the chemistry of the galaxy far, far away this Star Wars Day, May the 4th.

Science fiction is meeting science fact, as Professor Alex Baker discusses the captivating inspiration real-world reactions have had on the Star Wars universe.

The chemist from the University of Warwick explores what may underpin the freezing of Han Solo, the colors of lightsabers, the reactions that power star ships and much more.

Now Princeton researchers have sparked new life into static. Using millions of hours of computational time to run detailed simulations, the researchers found a way to describe static charge atom-by-atom with the mathematics of heat and work. Their paper appeared in Nature Communications on March 23.

The study looked specifically at how charge moves between materials that do not allow the free flow of electrons, called insulating materials, such as vinyl and acrylic. The researchers said there is no established view on what mechanisms drive these jolts, despite the ubiquity of static: the crackle and pop of clothes pulled from a dryer, packing peanuts that cling to a box.

“We know it’s not electrons,” said Mike Webb, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, who led the study. “What is it?”