Lifeboat Foundation

An Australian company by the name of HyperPower Technologies has developed an electric motor that generates a mammoth 1,340 horsepower.

The electric motor, code-named the QFM-360-X, measures about 17 inches in diameter and is designed to be scalable. HyperPower said ten of them could be mounted on a common shaft to deliver 13,400 hp.

To demonstrate the performance, HyperPower teamed up with electric drag racers Top EV Racing and built a Top Fuel-style dragster powered by four of the motors for a combined output of 5,360 hp. Performance estimates for the electric beast include a 0–124 mph time of 0.8 seconds, a 0–330 mph time of 3.7 seconds, and a top speed of 380 mph.

We’re going to need to store 175 zettabytes per year by 2025.

While there are plenty of companies using insects to manage waste, including Goterra, Better Origin and AgriProtein, Insectta is extracting more than agricultural products from black soldier flies. With funding from Trendlines Agrifood Fund and government grants, Insectta is procuring high-value biomaterials from the byproducts of these larvae.

In Singapore, the amount of generated food waste has increased 20% over the past decade. Startup Insectta is turning to maggots to take a bite out of the problem.

Tools for altering gene expression—CRISPRi, CRISPRa, CRISPRoff, and CRISPRon—and CRISPR-compatible cellular models are opening new research possibilities.

As if humanoids weren’t hard enough, try getting one to fly.

A hair-like protein hidden inside bacteria serves as a sort of on-off switch for nature’s “electric grid,” a global web of bacteria-generated nanowires that permeates all oxygen-less soil and deep ocean beds, Yale researchers report in the journal Nature. “The ground beneath our feet, the entire globe, is electrically wired,” said Nikhil Malvankar, assistant professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at the Microbial Sciences Institute at Yale’s West Campus and senior author of the paper. “These previously hidden bacterial hairs are the molecular switch controlling the release of nanowires that make up nature’s electrical grid.”

Almost all living things breathe oxygen to get rid of excess electrons when converting nutrients into energy. Without access to oxygen, however, soil bacteria living deep under oceans or buried underground over billions of years have developed a way to respire by “breathing minerals,” like snorkeling, through tiny protein filaments called nanowires.

Continue reading “Hidden bacterial hairs power nature’s ‘electric grid’” »

I actually like this program.

“It watches what you’ve done in the past, what you’ve gotten right, and what you’ve gotten wrong,” he explained. “And then it tries to give you things that are not too easy or not too hard, but are sort of what educational psychologists would say are in your ‘zone of proximal development.’”.

In the wake of a noted IPO, EdTech player Duolingo showed off AI-infused updates to its language lesson platform.

Circa 2017

Lasers that ‘softly’ burn paper could be the next evolution in printing. Former students of the University of Technology in Delft, Netherlands, have developed a technology that can print on any kind of paper without consumables, such as toner or ink.

This technique is not unlike burning paper using a magnifying glass and sunlight.

Continue reading “A laser printer without ink or toner” »

Circa 2015 Clues of the genetic material in vultures could give rise to humans that have immunity to nearly all bacteria and viruses.

WASHINGTON WASHINGTON (Reuters) — A diet of putrid rotting flesh may not be your cup of tea, but to the cinereous vulture, found across southern Europe and Asia, it is positively delightful. This tough bird, it turns out, is genetically wired to thrive on the stuff.

Researchers on Tuesday said they have sequenced the genome of this big scavenger, also called the Eurasian black vulture, identifying genetic traits that account for a stalwart stomach and powerful immune system that let it carry on eating carrion.

Continue reading “One tough bird: vulture’s genes help it thrive on rotting flesh” »