Lifeboat Foundation

In Brief

• “Cloaking” or invisibility technology is a kind of scientific Holy Grail; but actually concealing objects in direct light is notoriously difficult.
• A team of researchers has now found a way to achieve potential perfect invisibility by bending light—but only in “diffusive” atmospheres.

Concealing objects in direct light is already a difficult feat. While there is ongoing research into invisibility cloaks of some form or other, researchers at the Public University of Navarre (NUP/UPNA) and the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) are taking a not-so-straightforward approach. In particular, they are interested in developing a cloaking mechanism that works by bending light.

The team, whose work is published in the journal Physical Review A, has worked on simulations of an invisibility technology that conceals objects in diffusive atmospheres. This kind of invisibility, based on their study, can be achieved by surrounding an object with a special material that’s capable of bending light around it.

Continue reading “Scientists Have Made a New Kind of Invisibility Cloak” »

Bullfights arouse strong feelings on both sides. Their aficionados see them as a place of near reverence, where animal and man engage in an athletic dance summoning the shadows of mankind’s struggles for both dominance over and stewardship of his natural counterparts. Opponents of the sport decry its violence and bloodshed, the unnecessary cruelty of what they see as a prolonged infliction of torture upon one of our planet’s fellow creatures. In 2012, Catalonia, the region of Spain that contains Barcelona, agreed more with the latter characterization than the former and banned the sport.

One Overall Winning Submission Receives: Story turned into visualization | Invitation to present story at Mad Scientist Conference in Washington DC |

Continue reading “APAN Community” »

Google and others think software that learns to learn could take over some work done by AI experts.

The future of nuclear power might look very different than we thought, with a US-based company presenting plans for miniature, modular nuclear power plants that are so small, they can fit on the back of a truck.

NuScale Power, the company behind the power plants, says each modular device is completely self-contained, and capable of producing 50-megawatts of electricity — enough to power thousands of homes.

The power plants stand 29.7 metres tall, so aren’t really that ‘miniature’, except relative to an acutal nuclear power plant. They also haven’t been tested as yet, so we need to reserve our excitment for when we can actually see these things in action.

Continue reading “‘Miniature’, Modular Nuclear Power Plants Could Be Rolled Out in the US” »

Aging fosters sickness and disability, increases human suffering, and makes us more likely to die. Previously, I argued that curing aging must be a top priority for society, yet there are also a number of possible objections to this endeavor. Most of these are unfounded myths that can be disproved while others raise relevant social, philosophical and ethical issues. This essay draws on my own lectures, and publications (Sethe and de Magalhaes, 2013), on this subject and attempts to answer the most commonly raised questions and concerns about the work of gerontologists and a possible cure for aging.

There 7.68 billion acres of arable land. if everyone did this and lived one one tenth of an acre then that’s room for 76 billion people just on the arable land where there is actually 36 billion acres of land on the planet.

If farming were turned into vertical farming building with ten floors a piece at 1/10th and acre per level that’s 760 billion. At 100 floors that’d be 7.6 trillion. I would need to review an Isaac Arthur video about the maximum occupancy of the planet, there may be heat problems with trillions of people on the planet.

Continue reading “Learn How This Family Grows 6,000 Lbs Of Food on Just 1/10th Acre – Urban Homestead” »

Here’s why you’ll be seeing that word a lot in the future.