Lifeboat Foundation

American astrophysicists have used the Decadal Survey (DS)—also called Astro 2020 and produced by the National Academies of Science—to recommend a space telescope capable of photographing potentially habitable worlds.

The report recommends that a flagship space observatory will need a six-meter mirror to “provide an appropriate balance between scale and feasibility.”

An eight-meter aperture telescope of the scale of LUVOIR-B would be unlikely to launch before the late 2040… See more.

And it could become a flying taxi service by 2025.

SkyDrive, the Tokyo-based startup developing an eVTOL flying car concept, revealed that it has been granted a safety certificate by Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (MLIT), a press statement reveals.

Continue reading “It’s Official. Japan Granted a Safety Certificate to a Flying Car, for the First Time” »

Many people develop Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia as they get older. However, others remain sharp well into old age, even if their brains show underlying signs of neurodegeneration.

Among these cognitively resilient people, researchers have identified education level and amount of time spent on intellectually stimulating activities as factors that help prevent dementia. A new study by MIT researchers shows that this kind of enrichment appears to activate a gene family called MEF2, which controls a genetic program in the brain that promotes resistance to cognitive decline.

The researchers observed this link between MEF2 and cognitive resilience in both humans and mice. The findings suggest that enhancing the activity of MEF2 or its targets might protect against age-related dementia.

It’s been a tumultuous 12 months for mainland China’s richest. Shifts in government policy covering the education and tech industries, along with worries about real estate debt, led to many of the country’s largest private-sector companies experiencing steep share declines. A government push to promote “common prosperity” saw tycoons and tech companies announce billions of dollars in donations to social causes.

Yet overall, China’s 100 Richest saw their collective net worth rise from last year’s list. Their total wealth increased to $1.48 trillion from $1.33 trillion a year earlier. Among the biggest gainers were those who benefited from increased sales at companies tied to green energy industries in which China is a global leader, such as lithium-ion batteries. China, the world’s largest auto market, also leads the world in EV sales. The minimum net worth to make the top 100 rose to $5.74 billion from $5.03 billion a year ago.

The second-biggest increase in wealth went to Robin Zeng, chairman of battery-maker Contemporary Amperex Technology, whose fortune increased to $50.8 billion from $20.1 billion last year. That earned him the No. 3 spot on this year’s list.

Billionaire Elon Musk and his Twitter account have had some adventures.

In 2,018 Musk’s tweet that he was “considering taking Tesla private” invited charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission and a $20 million fine.

As the country was locked down in April 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic, Musk tweeted: “FREE AMERICA NOW.”

A breakthrough by UK researchers could make ultra-high density, 5D optical storage practical for long-term data archiving.

In 1,977 NASA sent out two Voyager probes to study Jupiter and Saturn. The spacecrafts were designed to last about five years, but they are still, to this day, collecting and sending back data from beyond the solar system. But the Voyager mission is living on borrowed time. Today NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce talks about a proposal for an intentionally long mission — what it would take for NASA to actually plan for an interstellar voyage that would pass research and responsibility down through generations.

What would you put on a spacecraft bound for the stars? Email the show at [email protected]!

DeepMind is mostly known for its work in deep reinforcement learning, especially in mastering complicated games and predicting protein structures. Now, it is taking its next step in robotics research.

According to a blog post on DeepMind’s website, the company has acquired the rigid-body physics simulator MuJoCo and has made it freely available to the research community. MuJoCo is now one of several open-source platforms for training artificial intelligence agents used in robotics applications. Its free availability will have a positive impact on the work of scientists who are struggling with the costs of robotics research. It can also be an important factor for DeepMind’s future, both as a science lab seeking artificial general intelligence and as a business unit of one of the largest tech companies in the world.

Continue reading “DeepMind takes next step in robotics research” »

The carmaker aims to expand its operations to the final frontier.

Honda began working on the rocket in late 2019 and already has some serious hardware to show for it — a brand-new engine.