Lifeboat Foundation

Developers can now see an early preview of experimental WebAssembly support in an internal Microsoft Edge build with the AngryBots demo, alongside similar previews for Firefox and Chrome. WebAssembly is a new, portable, size and load-time-efficient binary format suitable for compiling to the Web.

In the video above, a demo running in Microsoft Edge uses the preliminary WebAssembly support in the Chakra engine. The demo starts up significantly faster than just using asm.js, as the WebAssembly binaries have a smaller file size and parse more quickly than plain JavaScript, which needs to be parsed in the asm.js case.

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One of the latest inventions out of Tel Aviv University can patch up broken hearts. We’re talking about the real organs here, especially those damaged by myocardial infarction or heart attack. A team from the Israeli university created a “cyborg heart patch” that combines both living tissue and electronic components to replace the damaged parts of the organ. “It’s very science fiction, but it’s already here,” says one of its creators, Prof. Tal Dvir. “[W]e expect it to move cardiac research forward in a big way.” The patch can contract and expand like real heart tissue can, but it can do much, much more than that.

The electronic components allow doctors to remotely monitor their patients’ condition from afar. A physician could log into a computer and see if the implant is working as intended. If he senses that something’s amiss, he could release drugs to, say, regulate inflammation or fix the lack of oxygen. That sounds dangerous to us, since computers can be hacked. But the researchers are aiming to develop the patch further so it can regulate itself with no human intervention.

Dvir warns that the “practical realization of the technology may take some time.” For now, those suffering from cardiovascular diseases will have to rely on current treatment methods. The team is still in the midst of refining their cyborg heart patch. Plus, they’re looking at how to create bionic brain and spinal cord tissues using what they’ve learned so far to treat neurological conditions.

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People don’t feel pressure or obligation when talking to a robot.

The U.S. solar market is expected to grow 120% this year with 16GW of new solar power, more than double the record-breaking 7.3GW installed in 2015.

Imagine a world with little or no concrete. Would that even be possible? After all, concrete is everywhere—on our roads, our driveways, in our homes, bridges and buildings. For the past 200 years, it’s been the very foundation of much of our planet.

But the production of cement, which when mixed with water forms the binding agent in concrete, is also one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, about 5 percent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions comes from concrete.

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When you shrink the world’s population down to 100 people, this is what you get:

The wired rose leaf can be darkened or lightened with a zap of electricity.

A story told with Slate.