Lifeboat Foundation

A world where people are monitored and supervised by machines isn’t confined to the realms of sci-fi. It’s here now.

Tough conditions: There have been many reports over recent years about unpleasant conditions workers face at Amazon warehouses. Employees are under pressure to pack hundreds of boxes per hour, and face being fired if they aren’t fast enough.

What’s new: Documents obtained by The Verge show that it’s far more common for people to be fired due to lack of productivity than outsiders realize. Roughly 300 people were fired at a single facility between August 2017 and September 2018 for that reason. And crucially, the documents show that much of the firing process is automated.

Continue reading “Amazon’s system for tracking its warehouse workers can automatically fire them” »

From Academy Award-winning director Alex Gibney comes a documentary about the rise and fall of Theranos, the one-time multibillion-dollar healthcare company founded by Elizabeth Holmes. Premieres March 18 on HBO.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The global health community gulped Thursday with the announcement that a case of Ebola had been confirmed in a city of more than 1 million in Congo, bringing the latest outbreak of the often deadly hemorrhagic fever out of remote rural areas. “Confirmation of urban #Ebola in #DRC is a game changer in this outbreak – the challenge just got much much tougher,” the World Health Organization’s emergencies chief, Dr. Peter Salama, said on Twitter. Here’s a look at the outbreak.

What is Ebola?

Ebola is a virus that without preventive measures can spread quickly between people and is fatal in up to 90 percent of cases. The symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding. Symptoms can start to occur between two and 21 days from infection, according to WHO.

Continue reading “Ebola confirmed in a city of more than 1 million in Congo” »

It doesn’t exist officially. It uses highly pressured mercury accelerated by nuclear energy to produce a plasma that creates a field of anti-gravity around the ship. Conventional thrusters located at the tips of the craft allow it to perform all manner of rapid high speed maneuvers along all three axes. Interestingly, the plasma generated also reduces radar signature significantly. So it’ll be almost invisible on radar & remain undetected. This literally means that it can go to any country it likes without being detected by air traffic control & air defence systems.

A new device could help law enforcement spot traces of drugs or bomb-making materials from more than 100 feet away.

The USSR honestly did try to build a handheld laser pistol for cosmonauts to carry. It never made it to orbit, though—that we know of.

Photomed Laser Surg. 2012 Dec;30(12):681–2. doi: 10.1089/pho.2012.9881. Epub 2012 Nov 9.

No abstract available.

Low-level laser therapy (LLLT) has been used in several in vitro experiments in order to stimulate cell proliferation. Cells such as fibroblasts, keratinocytes, lymphocytes, and osteoblasts have shown increased proliferation when submitted to laser irradiation, although little is known about the effects of LLLT on stem cells. This study aims to assess, through a systematic literature review, the effects of LLLT on the in vitro proliferation of mesenchymal stem cells. Using six different terms, we conducted an electronic search in PubMed/Medline database for articles published in the last twelve years. From 463 references obtained, only 19 papers met the search criteria and were included in this review. The analysis of the papers showed a concentration of experiments using LLLT on stem cells derived from bone marrow, dental pulp, periodontal ligament, and adipose tissue. Several protocols were used to irradiate the cells, with variations on wavelength, power density, radiation time, and state of light polarization. Most studies demonstrated an increase in the proliferation rate of the irradiated cells. It can be concluded that the laser therapy positively influences the in vitro proliferation of stem cells studied, being necessary to carry out further experiments on other cell types and to uniform the methodological designs.

All the bearings move in a straight line. Follow one. 🤯.