Lifeboat Foundation

Today’s extraordinary rate of exponential growth may do much more than just disrupt industries. It may actually give birth to a new species, reinventing humanity over the next 30 years.

I believe we’re rapidly heading towards a human-scale transformation, the next evolutionary step into what I call a “Meta-Intelligence,” a future in which we are all highly connected—brain to brain via the cloud—sharing thoughts, knowledge and actions. In this post, I’m investigating the driving forces behind such an evolutionary step, the historical pattern we are about to repeat, and the implications thereof. Again, I acknowledge that this topic seems far-out, but the forces at play are huge and the implications are vast. Let’s dive in…

Hibernation used in conjunction with radiotherapy could be the key to fighting cancer in the future, according to new research.

Putting cancer patients into a hibernation-like ‘deep sleep’ state could hypothetically slow down their bodily functions and halt the spread of tumours inside their tissues, while also increasing the body’s resistance to radiation, scientists suggest.

The experimental treatment – which is still many years away from being attempted in humans – might sound like science fiction, but does have some grounding in reality.

Continue reading “Scientists Say Induced Hibernation Could Help Us Fight Cancer in the Future” »

(Phys.org)—A quartet of researchers has boldly proposed the addition of six new particles to the standard model to explain five enduring problems. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, Guillermo Ballesteros with Université Paris Saclay, Javier Redondo with Universidad de Zaragoza, Andreas Ringwald with Max-Planck-Institut für Physik and Carlos Tamarit with Durham University describe the six particles they would like to add and why.

The standard theory is, of course, a model that has been developed over the past half-century by physicists to describe how the universe works, and includes such things as the electromagnetic, strong and weak interactions, and also describes what are believed to be the particles that play a role in it all. To date, the theory lists 17 fundamental particles and has stood up against rigorous testing, but it still does not include explanations for what are considered to be some fundamental things.

The researchers are quick to point out that they are not proposing any new physics. Instead, they have assembled what they believe are the most promising theories regarding several problems with the standard model and their possible solutions, and have put them together as an outline of sorts for research moving forward.

Gets too advanced for me, but still interesting.

As the world transitions to a low-carbon energy future, near-term, large-scale deployment of solar power will be critical to mitigating climate change by midcentury. Climate scientists estimate that the world will need 10 terawatts (TW) or more of solar power by 2030—at least 50 times the level deployed today. At the MIT Photovoltaics Research Laboratory (PVLab), teams are working both to define what’s needed to get there and to help make it happen. “Our job is to figure out how to reach a minimum of 10 TW in an economically and environmentally sustainable way through technology innovation,” says Tonio Buonassisi, associate professor of mechanical engineering and lab director.

Their analyses outline a daunting challenge. First they calculated the growth rate of solar required to achieve 10 TW by 2030 and the minimum sustainable price that would elicit that growth without help from subsidies. Current technology is clearly not up to the task. “It would take between $1 trillion and $4 trillion of additional debt to just push current technology into the marketplace to do the job, and that’d be hard,” says Buonassisi. So what needs to change?

Continue reading “Mechanical engineers leading effort to detect defects that reduce efficiency” »

OMG? Are we going to have super cheap electric vehicles in a few years that charge in a few seconds/minutes?

I hope so! This is very exciting.

Australia has supercapacitors made from graphene oxide. They can can store as much energy per kilogram as a lithium battery, but charges in minutes, or even seconds, and uses carbon instead of expensive lithium.

Continue reading “Graphene oxide supercapacitor commercial prototype targeted within 2 years” »

For those scientists that know creativity is important.

Seemingly countless self-help books and seminars tell you to tap into the right side of your brain to stimulate creativity. But forget the “right-brain” myth — a new study suggests it’s how well the two brain hemispheres communicate that sets highly creative people apart.

An interaction between two proteins enables cancer cells to use the physical forces of healthy cells to start spreading to other parts of the body.

The finding by researchers from the Francis Crick Institute in London and the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) in Barcelona is published in the journal Nature Cell Biology.

The process by which cancer cells separate from the original tumour to form new tumours in other organs or tissues of the body is called metastasis, and it is responsible for the majority of deaths in patients with cancer.

Continue reading “Cancer cells hijack healthy cells to help them spread to other organs” »

In Brief

• Canada is spending millions to ensure all citizens have access to home internet with download speeds of at least 50Mbps and upload speeds of 10Mbps in the next 10 to 15 years.
• At a time when so many things we used to do in person or via a physical medium are done digitally, living without the internet inherently puts a person at a disadvantage.

Canada is making some major moves to ensure that every citizen in the country has access to fast broadband speeds. The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced this week that it was setting up a fund of $750 million available over the next five years to expand internet access.

The CRTC is implementing a standard of universal availability of home internet with download speeds of at least 50Mbps and upload speeds of 10Mbps with the option of unlimited data. In doing so, the Canadian government is declaring that broadband internet is a basic telecommunications service, akin to phone service.

Continue reading “Canada to Spend $750 Million to Ensure All Citizens Have Internet Access” »

You’ll want to tell your dentist about this one.