Lifeboat Foundation

What if solar cells worked at night? That’s no joke, according to Jeremy Munday, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC Davis. In fact, a specially designed photovoltaic cell could generate up to 50 watts of power per square meter under ideal conditions at night, about a quarter of what a conventional solar panel can generate in daytime, according to a concept paper by Munday and graduate student Tristan Deppe. The article was published in, and featured on the cover of, the January 2020 issue of ACS Photonics.

Munday, who recently joined UC Davis from the University of Maryland, is developing prototypes of these nighttime solar cells that can generate small amounts of power. The researchers hope to improve the power output and efficiency of the devices.

Munday said that the process is similar to the way a normal solar cell works, but in reverse. An object that is hot compared to its surroundings will radiate heat as infrared light. A conventional solar cell is cool compared to the sun, so it absorbs light.

A team of roboticists and divers used an AI-powered drone to explore underwater caves farther than humans ever have.

The moon’s water could serve as a precious resource for deep space exploration, but how do we actually turn it into rocket fuel?
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To be a space miner, there are a few things you might need: the sun, some lunar soil, a pretty powerful mirror, and the perfect angle.

Continue reading “Inside the Lab That’s Turning Moon Water Into Rocket Fuel” »

The World Health Organization has recently declared the China coronavirus a global health emergency. ¹ What’s worse is that cases of the coronavirus have jumped tenfold. The death toll is 304 and rising. ²

It would be an understatement to say that there is a growing sense of panic. The best advice I’ve heard is to stay calm and take pratical measures to protect yourself.

Overall, India’s science ministry, which oversees the department of science and technology; biotechnology; and scientific and industrial research, received 144 billion rupees in the 2020–21 budget, a 10.8% increase over promised funds in the 2019–20 budget.

Latest budget includes more than a billion dollars in funding for quantum computing, communications and cryptography.

RNA secondary structure is critical to RNA regulation and function. We report a new N3-kethoxal reagent that allows fast and reversible labeling of single-stranded guanine bases in live cells. This N3-kethoxal-based chemistry allows efficient RNA labeling under mild conditions and transcriptome-wide RNA secondary structure mapping. The authors designed a chemical probe, azido-kethoxal, to specifically label guanosine in single-strand RNAs in live cells that could be used to determine transcriptome-wide RNA secondary structures.

Princess Cruises to host a series of events in 2020 to demonstrate elite global connectivity.

LUXEMBOURG & SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — Princess Cruises, a leading brand of the Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK), has announced a new dimension in its connectivity partnership with SES (PAR/LuxSE: SESG) and will become the first global cruise ship fleet with early access to SES’s ground-breaking O3b mPOWER network augmenting the Princess MedallionClass™ experience as it scales across the fleet.

SES is enabling global, high-performance connectivity to Princess Cruises using its hybrid medium earth orbit (MEO) and geostationary (GEO) network. The combination of the globally-deployed Princess MedallionClass ships, the Ocean Guest Experience “Cloud Connected” Platform and SES’s multi-constellations satellite network not only creates unmatched and ubiquitous global Wi-Fi service levels, but ensures seamless land/sea digital experience enablement including OceanView® TV (OTT, Mobile and VOD) and is disrupting the traditional commodity satellite bandwidth model.

Elon Musk is recruiting for his AI team at Tesla, and he says education is “irrelevant.” The team members will report “directly” to Musk and “meet/email/text” with Musk “almost every day.” Musk will also throw a “super fun” party at his house with the Tesla artificial intelligence and autopilot teams.

The company’s protein powder, “Solein,” is similar in form and taste to wheat flour.