Lifeboat Foundation

Now, it seems this nascent industry’s time has come. A growing demand for batteries to power electric cars and to store wind and solar energy has driven up the cost of many rare-earth metals and bolstered the business case for sea-bed mining. What’s more, the industry’s long-awaited regulations — in the form of a mining code — are due to be finalized by 2020, putting in place a process whereby contractors can apply for 30-year licences to mine assigned ‘claim areas’ in parts of the international sea bed such as the CCZ. Already, miners are exploring the potential wealth of these claim areas, but no commercial extraction will begin until the regulations are in place. Investments in this industry are now growing.

Plans are advancing to harvest precious ores from the ocean floor, but scientists say that companies have not tested them enough to avoid devastating damage.

Vera Rubin is shown here in 1974, analyzing data from different portions of a galaxy to ascertain its rotational properties. The discovery that the effects of gravity did not trace out the same path that the starlight does was one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century, and brought dark matter into the mainstream of science from the fringes, where it had languished for most of the 20th century. Her work changed our conception of the Universe forever.

Can robotics transform the medical industry? While there are plenty of medicine-focused robotics apps in development, the long-term outlook for their use remains to be seen.

Researchers at the Center for Theoretical Physics of Complex Systems (PCS), within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS, South Korea), and colleagues have reported a novel phenomenon, called Valley Acoustoelectric Effect, which takes place in 2-D materials, similar to graphene. This research is published in Physical Review Letters and brings new insights to the study of valleytronics.

In acoustoelectronics, surface acoustic waves (SAWs) are employed to generate electric currents. In this study, the team of theoretical physicists modelled the propagation of SAWs in emerging 2-D materials, such as single-layer molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂). SAWs drag MoS₂ electrons (and holes), creating an electric current with conventional and unconventional components. The latter consists of two contributions: a warping-based current and a Hall current. The first is direction-dependent, is related to the so-called valleys—electrons’ local energy minima—and resembles one of the mechanisms that explains photovoltaic effects of 2-D materials exposed to light. The second is due to a specific effect (Berry phase) that affects the velocity of these electrons travelling as a group and resulting in intriguing phenomena, such as anomalous and quantum Hall effects.

The team analyzed the properties of the acoustoelectric current, suggesting a way to run and measure the conventional, warping, and Hall currents independently. This allows the simultaneous use of both optical and acoustic techniques to control the propagation of charge carriers in novel 2-D materials, creating new logical devices.

GitHub Bluekeep explainer significantly lowers the bar for writing malware similar to NotPetya and WannaCry, Threats and Risks, Github, WannaCry, NotPetya, ransomware, BlueKeep”

SpaceX was attempting to fly its “Starship” prototype rocket in its first short flight of more than a few feet off the ground on Wednesday.

The parcel carrier said Tuesday it had applied to the Federal Aviation Administration for certification of drone flights through the company’s recently formed subsidiary called UPS Flight Forward Inc.

The certification if approved, would allow drone flights beyond an operator’s visual line of sight, at night and without limit to the number of drones or operators in command, the company said. Such flights are highly restricted in the U.S.

The FAA is working out the regulatory framework to govern commercial uses of unmanned aircraft, which has been generally restricted to flights below 400 feet and within sight of an operator on the ground.

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Android, Robot, Replicant… Dutch actor Rutger Hauer has died at the age of 75. sad Note: As in Blade Runner he dies in the year 2019.

This new tech is the product of Neuralink, a company that Elon founded in 2016 with a goal of creating an implantable brain-computer interface (BCI) and yes, it is as crazy as it sounds.

He stated that the initial goal with this is to enable people with quadriplegia (paralysis) to control a smartphone or computer with just their thoughts. But anyone that knows the entrepreneur knows that he intends to go bigger than that.

His vision also consists of giving humans the ability to “merge” with AI and therefore give them superhuman intelligence. This is what may then seem like an objective that is too hype to be an actual plan for new technology development.