Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) have designed a new control system for wind turbines in offshore wind farms that allows power transmission to the coast in a more flexible and cheaper way than current solutions.

This innovation allows the use of a diode rectifier station in the offshore platform of a high voltage direct current (HVDC) link. In this way, the wind turbine’s alternating current (AC) can be easily converted into direct current (DC) for HVDC transmission.

Continue reading “A new system optimises electric transmission from offshore wind farms” »

Last October, a University of California, Berkeley, team headed down to the Arizona desert, plopped their newest prototype water harvester into the backyard of a tract home and started sucking water out of the air without any power other than sunlight.

The successful field test of their larger, next-generation harvester proved what the team had predicted earlier in 2017: that the water harvester can extract drinkable water every day/night cycle at very low humidity and at low cost, making it ideal for people living in arid, water-starved areas of the world.

“There is nothing like this,” said Omar Yaghi, who invented the technology underlying the harvester. “It operates at ambient temperature with ambient sunlight, and with no additional energy input you can collect water in the desert. This laboratory-to-desert journey allowed us to really turn water harvesting from an interesting phenomenon into a science.”

Continue reading “In desert trials, next-generation water harvester delivers fresh water from air” »

NHS hospital bosses are debating a reform involving “widespread adoption of artificial intelligence” and “full automation”.

From diagnosis to recovery, machines could take on a range of jobs, a new report suggests.

Denis Campbell Health policy editor.

Continue reading “The robot will see you now: how AI could revolutionise NHS” »

Hooray for Juno!

Though NASA’s Juno spacecraft has probed Jupiter’s secrets for nearly two years, the $1 billion mission was set to crash into the planet’s clouds in July. Now, however, the agency has confirmed Business Insider’s previous report that Juno will get three additional years of flight.

One of the most commonly asked questions we receive is “How is progress going in aging research?” It is something we are asked so often that we decided to provide the community with a resource that will help them to keep track of progress directly.

To that end, today we have launched our new curated database, The Rejuvenation Roadmap, which will be tracking the progress of the many therapies and projects in the rejuvenation biotechnology field. This database aims to give a quick visual summary of the status of each drug or therapy along with some additional information for people interested in learning more about them.

We believe that an informed community is an effective one, and this was one of our motivations for developing this new database. There are many resources for scientists, such as the superb databases of the Human Ageing Genomic Resources maintained by Dr. João Pedro de Magalhães, which are excellent for researchers. However, we noticed that there was no database that tracked the efforts of the many researchers and projects in the field, and while some people do maintain lists, they are often not public facing, easy to access, or user-friendly.

“Society is vulnerable, so we need to prepare ourselves as individuals,” said Dan Eliasson of the Swedish civil contingencies agency, which is in charge of the project. “There’s also an information deficit in terms of concrete advice, which we aim to provide.”

Defence pamphlet shows how population can prepare in event of attack and contribute to country’s ‘total defence’

Jon Henley European affairs correspondent.

Continue reading “Sweden distributes ‘be prepared for war’ leaflet to all 4.8m homes” »

Combining the unique strengths of lithium batteries with crazy-fast charging, carbon ultra-capacitors could save a ton of weight and add significant range and power to electric vehicles, according to Nawa Technologies. Based outside Marseilles, this fascinating French startup is working on a new type of battery it believes could offer some huge advantages in the EV space, among many others.

A transition is happening in the satellite business. Fast-moving technology and evolving customer demands are driving operators to rethink major investments in new satellites and consider other options such as squeezing a few more years of service out of their current platforms.

Which makes this an opportune moment for the arrival of in-orbit servicing.

Sometime in early 2019, the first commercial servicing spacecraft is scheduled to launch. The Mission Extension Vehicle built by Orbital ATK on behalf of subsidiary SpaceLogistics, will the first of several such robotic craft that are poised to compete for a share of about $3 billion worth of in-orbit services that satellite operators and government agencies are projected to buy over the coming decade.

Advances in reproductive technology have put genetic choices within reach of perspective parents. But critics warn of ethical peril.