Lifeboat Foundation

Potential for small science missions … “Small satellites will play a crucial role in science and exploration, as well as providing communications and navigation infrastructure to support returning humans to the Moon,” Rocket Lab head honcho Peter Beck said. “They play a vital role as pathfinders to retire risk and lay down infrastructure for future missions. We think this could be useful for CubeSat science around the Moon or possibly communications relay capability on the cheap.” (submitted by 3ch0 and ADU)

Firefly considering AR1 engine for its Beta rocket. Firefly Aerospace has said it is collaborating with engine-maker Aerojet Rocketdyne to increase the performance of its upcoming Alpha launch vehicle, and the company is also considering Aerojet Rocketdyne’s AR1 engine for a future launch vehicle, SpaceNews reports. In a statement, Firefly CEO Tom Markusic praised the AR1 as an engine well suited for Beta but stopped short of saying the engine’s selection is a done deal.

How far along is AR1 really? … Markusic: “Aerojet Rocketdyne’s AR1 engine, which incorporates the latest advances in propulsion technology, materials science, and manufacturing techniques, is incredibly well-suited to power Beta given its cost-effective, high-performance capabilities.” It is not at all clear to us how close Aerojet is to completing and qualifying the AR1 engine. It also seems like Firefly should get Alpha up and running before it worries too much about the larger Beta rocket. (submitted by Unrulycow)

Newly-discovered comet gateway links icy bodies from the outer solar system into near-Earth trajectories, says paper.

With its whirring rotary blades and extendable cutting arm it would not look out of place stalking the streets of a futuristic urban dystopia.

But Edinburgh University’s new robot has actually been developed to pootle sedately around the garden, pruning rose bushes and trimming topiary.

The semi-autonomous machine — dubbed Trimbot — is programmed to recognise leaves, stalks and flowers, so it does not inadvertently dead-head the living blooms.

X, the private spaceflight company known for reusable rockets and a giant, shiny Starship, will begin offering its own satellite internet service in 2020, according to SpaceNews. In fact, the U.S. Air Force is already testing it in planes.

To build the service, SpaceX will have to launch up to eight Falcon 9 rockets filled with the company’s Starlink satellites, SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell told SpaceNews and other reporters this week at the 70th International Astronautical Congress in Washington.

“We’ll continue to upgrade the network until mid to late next year,” SpaceNews’ Jeff Foust quoted Shotwell as saying during a media roundtable on Tuesday (Oct. 22). “We’re hoping for 24 launches by the end of the year.”

Nearly half the U.S. population is projected to have one or more chronic conditions by 2030 and the need to better manage both care delivery and costs has never been greater.

At the same time, Baby Boomers are entering their “Golden Years” and seeking out preventative and lifestyle medicine to ensure that they live longer and with more personal freedom. And they want to do all of this while “aging in place” and not being relegated to the decrepit and outdated nursing homes of their own parents’ generation. After all, we live in a new era of instant song selection, streaming movies, and Amazon home delivery.

A technology designed to preserve synapses across the whole brain of a large mammal is successful

Using a combination of ultrafast glutaraldehyde fixation and very low temperature storage, researchers have demonstrated for the first-time ever a way to preserve a brain’s connectome (the 150 trillion synaptic connections presumed to encode all of a person’s knowledge) for centuries-long storage in a large mammal. This laboratory demonstration clears the way to develop Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreservation into a ‘last resort’ medical option, one that would prevent the destruction of the patient’s unique connectome, offering at least some hope for future revival via mind uploading. You can view images and videos demonstrating the quality of the preservation method for yourself at the evaluation page.

We face complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty about the future consequences of cryptocurrency use. There are doubts about the positive and negative impacts of the use of cryptocurrencies in the financial systems. In order to address better and deeper the contradictions and the consequences of the use of cryptocurrencies and also informing the key stakeholders about known and unknown emerging issues in new payment systems, we apply two helpful futures studies tools known as the “Future Wheel”, to identify the key factors, and “System Dynamics Conceptual Mapping”, to understand the relationships among such factors. Two key scenarios will be addressed. In on them, systemic feedback loops might be identified such as a) terrorism, the Achilles’ heel of the cryptocurrencies, b) hackers, the barrier against development, and c) information technology security professionals, a gap in the future job market. Also, in the other scenario, systemic feedback loops might be identified such as a) acceleration of technological entrepreneurship enabled by new payment systems, b) decentralization of financial ecosystem with some friction against it, c) blockchain and shift of banking business model, d) easy international payments triggering structural reforms, and e) the decline of the US and the end of dollar dominance in the global economy. In addition to the feedback loops, we can also identify chained links of consequences that impact productivity and economic growth on the one hand, and shift of energy sources and consumption on the other hand.

Watch the full length presentation at Victor V. Motti YouTube Channel

New cellular and molecular processes underlying communication between gut microbes and brain cells have been described for the first time by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell’s Ithaca campus.

Over the last two decades, scientists have observed a clear link between autoimmune disorders and a variety of psychiatric conditions. For example, people with autoimmune disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), psoriasis and multiple sclerosis may also have depleted gut microbiota and experience anxiety, depression and mood disorders. Genetic risks for autoimmune disorders and psychiatric disorders also appear to be closely related. But precisely how gut health affects brain health has been unknown.

“Our study provides new insight into the mechanisms of how the gut and brain communicate at the molecular level,” said co-senior author Dr. David Artis, director of the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel Disease, director of the Friedman Center for Nutrition and Inflammation and the Michael Kors Professor of Immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine. “No one yet has understood how IBD and other chronic gastrointestinal conditions influence behavior and mental health. Our study is the beginning of a new way to understand the whole picture.”

Physicist Usama Hussain laughed uncomfortably every time the conversation even got close to the question, “Do you look for nothing?” His professors would kill him if they heard him agree with that. After all, he’s technically looking for a brand new particle that may or may not exist, with the hopes that it might help explain some of the Universe’s weirdness.

But hunting for a new particle (even the famous Higgs Boson) is a search for something by finding all of the nothing. It requires confirming all of the places it can’t be, and understanding all the properties it doesn’t have, so what’s left is the discovery. It’s like carving a sculpture from marble. You spend all your effort removing the nothing, and maybe you’ll end up with something. Or maybe not.