Lifeboat Foundation

New capacitors offer big power storage and transmission in a mini-package, with benefits beyond electro-cannons.

The U.S. Navy’s shipboard railgun is moving from the lab to the testing range, a big step for a weapon designed to fire massive bullets at hypersonic speeds. But a separate breakthrough in electrical pulse generation — capacitors that provide a bigger jolt in a smaller package — that may reshape the future of naval power.

The railgun’s electromagnets are designed to accelerate a Hyper Velocity Projectile from zero to some 8,600 kmph, about Mach 7. That velocity requires a lot of power. In early testing, the Office of Naval Research had relied on banks of commercial capacitors to pulse electricity to the gun. But they were “not suitable for integration aboard a ship” — too large to fit aboard Zumwalt-class destroyers, as Thomas Beutner, head of ONR’s Naval Air Warfare and Weapons Department, explained during a July event in Washington.

Continue reading “The US Navy’s Railgun Breakthrough Could Change Energy Storage” »

Groundbreaking project corrects faulty DNA linked to fatal heart condition and raises hopes for parents who risk passing on genetic diseases.

SGI-DNA has launched the world’s first DNA printer. The BioXp 3200 system is an automated personal genomic workstation that builds and clones DNA fragments virtually hands-free. Source: SGI-DNA. A Synthetic Genomics Inc. Company.

Firmamentum, a division of Tethers Unlimited Inc. in Bothell. Wash… says it has won $750.000 in NASA funding to build a combination 3D printer and plastic recycler for the International Space Station.

The device, known as the Refabricator, is due to be delivered to NASA next year, said Rob Hoyt, president of TUI/Firmamentum.

Continue reading “NASA picks Firmamentum to build a 3D printer/recycler for use in space” »

A new paper shows

Robert Stark and co-host Sam Kevorkian talk to Zoltan Istvan about his proposal for a California State Basic Income. Zoltan is a Trans-Humanist and futurist writer, philosopher, and journalist. He was the Transhumanist Party’s candidate for president in 2016, has written for Vice, Newsweek, the Huffington Post, and Psychology Today, was a reporter for the National Geographic Channel, and is the author of The Transhumanist Wager.

Topics:

Zoltan’s campaign for President

Continue reading “Robert Stark talks to Zoltan Istvan about his Proposal for a California State Basic Income” »

Analysis connects Greeks to the famed Mycenaeans and Minoans.

Two researchers are impressed with a pioneering study showing that it may be both safe and effective to edit out diseases in human embryos.