Lifeboat Foundation

#SyntheticBiology: Robotic lab to custom-make synthetic bacteria.

Imperial College opens UK’s first robotic lab that automates the creation & rebooting of bacteria custom-made to produce pharmaceuticals and other materials. The robots will automate the synthesise of complete DNA strands, which consists millions of base pairs, and transplant entire genomes into bacteria chassis.

H/T: @CSERCambridge

Continue reading “Imperial opens UK’s first synthetic-biology foundry” »

Got a grand burning a hole in your pocket? You could get a new laptop — or you could send this tiny, palm-sized satellite to space. That’s what a team of engineers at Arizona State hope, anyway: their “FemtoSats” are meant to be as cheap a space-bound platform as has ever been devised.

At just 3cm per side and 35 grams (that’s about 1.2 inches and 0.077 pounds, dogs of the Imperial system), the SunCube 1F is the prototype FemtoSat. It’s powered by a salvaged scrap of solar panel (they don’t make them small enough off the shelf), the tiny unit includes propulsion, imaging, communication, and data collection.

Continue reading “Student-designed ‘FemtoSats’ aim to bring cost of satellite deployment below $1,000” »

“Virtually all new fossil fuel-burning power-generation capacity will end up “stranded”. This is the argument of a paper by academics at Oxford university. We have grown used to the idea that it will be impossible to burn a large portion of estimated reserves of fossil fuels if the likely rise in global mean temperatures is to be kept below 2C. But fuels are not the only assets that might be stranded. A similar logic can be applied to parts of the capital stock.”

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My new article for The Hufffington Post on whether transhumanism will change racism in the near future:

A future transhumanist? — CCO Public Domain

Continue reading “Will Transhumanism Change Racism in the Future?” »

High-profile physicists and philosophers gathered to debate whether we are real or virtual—and what it means either way.

By Clara Moskowitz on April 7, 2016.

Spaceplane program looks to public-private effort to enable next-generation space launch.

The Sea Hunter, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s most ambitious unmanned vessel to date, may well be the most advanced self-navigating surface craft in the world. Its 130-foot trimaran hull is designed for a maximum speed of 27 knots and operations in conditions up to sea state five. It can conduct missions of up to 70 days without resupply, and can work unmanned to perform tasks too risky for human sailors. It is even capable of complying with the Rules of the Road, in certain well-defined situations. And it can do all of these things at a construction cost of $23 million, a bit under one percent of the price for a Zumwalt -class destroyer (excluding R&D).

Continue reading “DARPA Christens (Mostly) Autonomous Vessel” »

The remotely piloted aircraft has landed, but there’s still work to be done.

After the launch and recovery element lands the RPA, they taxi it off the runway and in to a hangar, where the maintenance Airmen get right to work.

“Post-flight we do any scheduled maintenance for the aircraft and change any parts that need to be replaced if they are broken, or if the manufacturer has deemed it necessary to change at a specific allotted time,” said Staff Sgt. Matthew, 432nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron MQ-1 Predator crew chief. “We also refuel the aircraft with the required amount for the next mission.”

Continue reading “Piecing the puzzle together, MQ-1 and MQ-9s provide crucial CAP capabilities: Post-flight procedures” »

Nick Walker, an innovation scientist looking to stem cells for an HIV cure, has won the South African edition of the Singularity University Global Impact Competition (GIC), and with it the chance to attend a 10-week course at the prestigious innovation institution.

The scientist currently works at Next Biosciences, Africa’s leading stem cell laboratory and cryogenic biobank, based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Walker completed his BSc, BSc (Hons, Cum Laude) and PhD at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg. In his PhD work he focussed on the role of the extracellular matrix (ECM) on various aspects of myogenesis.

Continue reading “SA innovation scientist wins space at Singularity University, wants to cure HIV” »