Lifeboat Foundation

If true, we started out as a “baby universe.” Cute.

Could our universe have been created in a petri dish? Avi Loeb seems to think so. The Harvard astronomer posits that a higher “class” of civilization may have conjured up our universe in a laboratory far, far away.

“Since our universe has a flat geometry with a zero net energy, an advanced civilization could have developed a technology that created a baby universe out of nothing through quantum tunneling,” Loeb writes in an op-ed published by Scientific American last year.

Continue reading “Aliens Created Our Universe in a Lab, Scientist Suggests” »

Design studio Daytrip has taken a less-is-more approach to the renovation and extension of this Victorian terrace house in London’s Clapton, which is now home to three separate apartments.

The 250-square-metre Reighton Road development was designed as a “minimalist sanctuary” that could act as a blank canvas for residents’ belongings.

“A good home should be flexible and speak of its owners,” explained Hackney-based Daytrip. “The ability to cultivate and populate it over time with art, objects and personal items makes the home unique.”

Facebook, now Meta, wants to pivot into virtual reality. But it won’t be able to escape its sins.

The best picture ever❤.

Despite nearly a decade of effort, no one has been able to design a working prototype.

SpaceX’s GO Searcher Dragon recovery ship got a new name before leaving port. She goes by Megan now.

Thomas Fuller, an African sold into slavery in 1,724 at age 14, was sometimes known as the “Virginia Calculator” for his extraordinary ability to solve complex mathematical problems in his head. He was asked how many seconds there were in a year, he briefly answered 31,536,000 seconds.

He was asked again how many seconds a man who is 70 years old, 17 days and 12 hours lived, he answered in a minute and a half 2,210,500,800. One of the men was doing the problems on paper and informed Fuller that he was wrong because the answer was much smaller. Fuller hastily responded, “Nah, you forgot about leap years. When leap years were added to the account, the sums matched up.”

Fuller was one of the first cases recorded in the literature of the wise man syndrome, when in 1,789, Benjamin Rush, the father of American psychiatry, described his incredible ability to calculate, without having an education and training in mathematics, his ability was used as proof that enslaved African Americans were equal to whites in intelligence, fueling some pro-abolitionist discussions.

Ion drives, like the NEXIS thruster shown here, could propel astronomical bodies large distances over long periods of time. Could they be used to migrate the entire planet?