Lifeboat Foundation

The future of learning is untethered.

Facility would enable U.S. engineers to perform tests without going overseas.

Whether Chinese will take over the world is missing the point: If you want to follow future trends, look at what Chinese companies are doing in the developing world. And with the U.S. waging a trade war, it’s even more important to look at China’s activity outside mature markets.

The Atlas robot has some new bipedal competition.

Updated at 6:40 a.m. Friday

You might think the world’s biggest bee would be easy to find. But that’s not the case: Until recently, the last time anyone had reported seeing a Wallace’s giant bee living in the wild was in 1981. That changed in January, when the rare bee was spotted on an island of Indonesia.

The Wallace’s giant bee — Megachile pluto — towers over European honeybees. The female’s size has been recorded as at least an inch and a half long, with a tongue that’s nearly an inch long. Add to that a pair of gigantic mandibles, and it’s a bee like no other.

Continue reading “World’s Largest Bee Is Spotted For First Time In Decades” »

Six of the top 10 nations are in Europe.

Very few people are going to want to leave this planet permanently — it’s just too amazing.

“Ultimately what will happen, is this planet will be zoned residential and light industry,” he said. “This is the gem of the Solar System. Why would we do heavy industry here? It’s nonsense.”

Bezos also referenced the work of physicist Gerard O’Neill, who came up with the idea of a cylinder-shaped space settlement design known as an “O’Neill cylinder,” in which two counter-rotating cylinders would provide gravity for human settlers while mitigating gyroscopic effects.

Continue reading “Jeff Bezos: In the Future, We’ll Live In ‘Giant Space Colonies’” »

The 42-foot research vessel (R/V) Bob and Beyster was underwritten by a $1.2 million philanthropic campaign.