Lifeboat Foundation

Little did he know that we would one day have telescopes powerful enough to image distant galaxies.

“[Einstein] had a sense of the natural sublime.”

The first known image of an Einstein ring was captured in 1987 at the Very Large Array radio observatory in New Mexico. A little over a decade later, Hubble found the first complete one. Since then astronomers have found many more of Einstein Rings including this one, which Tommaso Treu’s group in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Californa, Los Angeles, produced with the Hubble.

Fully vaccinated people will need a fourth shot later in 2022, according to the head of Pfizer Inc., who said that COVID-19 is not going to just go away in the coming years.

Albert Bourla told CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” that people are going to have to learn to live with the virus.

He said a fourth dose — that is, a second booster — is necessary “right now.”

Circa 2019

When Ken-Ichiro Kamei, a microengineer at Kyoto University, goes out drinking with his friends, he usually brings along one of his “bodies on a chip.” When the topic of work inevitably comes up, he’ll whip out the chip – which looks like a lab slide, but with an added crystal-clear silicone rubber layer containing faintly visible troughs and channels – and declare, “I’m making these devices to recreate humans and animals.”

Wows inevitably ensue. “It’s like I’m a magician and my friends have asked me to do some tricks,” Kamei chuckles.

Continue reading “How ‘bodies on a chip’ can transform animal welfare” »

Circa 2021

Seoul National University Hospital completed a liver transplant procedure using a robot and a laparoscope that left no huge abdominal scars for both the donor and recipient.

Suh Kyung-suk, a professor on the liver transplant team, noted that the new surgical procedure also reduces complications associated with the lungs and scars and shortens the recovery time.

Continue reading “Seoul hospital completes robotic liver transplant surgery” »

Circa 2011

Oil that’s used to make Big Macs and fries will be converted into bio-diesel to power the fast-food giant’s trucks in the middle-east.

New governance models and new ways for us to interact are needed to help address existential challenges like climate change.

Summary: Histone H4 mutations in the spool cause intellectual disabilities and developmental delays, a new study reports.

Source: University of Otago.

University of Otago-led research has identified a new rare genetic mutation which will finally give families around the world answers as to what is affecting their loved one.

The plan is there is no plan.

So it turns out we may be America’s worst-designed city. Lack of “official” zoning. Messy roads and meager public transportation options. Complete chaos. We get it, our predecessors sucked at design. But that may not necessarily be a bad thing. In fact, there are a bunch of ways in which the city totally (and unintentionally) came out ahead in the whole “the plan is there is no plan” deal.

Love it or hate it, Houston’s lack of zoning may actually be what shielded it from the popped housing bubble that rocked the rest of the country. Picture Margot Robbie explaining this all whilst in a bubble bath drinking champagne. While housing prices soared as the national bubble inflated, Houston’s costs remained modest; and when all hell broke loose when the bubble burst, H-town remained largely unaffected.

Continue reading “Unintended Benefits of Houston Being America’s Worst-Designed City” »