Lifeboat Foundation

We’ve been trying for a long time to make a tiny Sun on Earth, one that would sustainably produce energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen or similar atoms. Come to think of it, I’d like one for my basement.

Fusion requires quite a bit of heat to get going, but once it does, it starts producing its own heat. If you can keep that system contained so it doesn’t expand too much or allow too much heat to escape, further fusion happens. If it reaches a point where self-heating becomes the primary driver of fusion, you have yourself a “burning plasma”.

Continue reading “Burning plasma! Controlled nuclear fusion on Earth briefly sustains itself” »

“It is what I would call a dippy process,” Richard Feynman later wrote. “Having to resort to such hocus-pocus has prevented us from proving that the theory of quantum electrodynamics is mathematically self-consistent.”

Justification came decades later from a seemingly unrelated branch of physics. Researchers studying magnetization discovered that renormalization wasn’t about infinities at all. Instead, it spoke to the universe’s separation into kingdoms of independent sizes, a perspective that guides many corners of physics today.

Renormalization, writes David Tong, a theorist at the University of Cambridge, is “arguably the single most important advance in theoretical physics in the past 50 years.”

As Jess Bezos becomes the latest billionaire to attempt to conquer ageing, Gemma Askham meets those on the front line of the quest to delay death.

Mathematician and computer scientist, is considered one of the fathers of Artificial Intelligence. He was Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; cofounder of MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory; and the author of eight books, including The Society of Mind. Recorded: 2002.

While renewable energy sources like wind and solar have become more common across the United States, fossil fuels remain the main source of energy. According to the U.S. Information Administration’s (EIA) International Energy Outlook 2021 (IEO2021), the global supply of fossil fuels and biofuels is expected to adequately meet global demands for liquid fuel through 2050. Renewable energy technologies have improved to become more efficient and less costly, however most renewable energies are unable to provide a constant supply of energy.

This issue inspired Shriya Tailor, a middle school student from Duluth, Georgia, to find a constant renewable energy supply that created energy at all hours of the day and in any weather condition.

She looked to space for this solution, leading her to design a prototype for a “Solar Energy Station.” Shriya says the station, made of solar cells, would need to be around 50 miles away from earth for the energy waves to be transmitted back to earth via electromagnetic fields, then collected by an antenna and converted back to electricity. Consisting of a small solar panel, switching circuit, and transmitting and receiving coils, Shriya’s prototype allowed her to test her process here on earth.

Executives are missing out on a crucial pathway to smarter and more efficient decision-making with explainable machine learning.

Ivan Miranda is back with a compact 3D-printed, metal-cutting CNC mill.

Study of 116 research papers finds significant daytime heating.

Continue reading “Watch Ivan Miranda 3D Print another Metal-Cutting CNC Mill” »

Study of 116 research papers finds significant daytime heating.

After making history with the world’s first pizza delivery by drone from a New Zealand store in 2016, Domino’s is once again exploring the viability of commercial drone delivery on the island country in Oceania.

But what have these companies been up to since their 2016 landmark achievement?