Lifeboat Foundation

Summary: A newly developed self-assessment test of cognitive function can help detect early signs of dementia sooner than commonly used office-based cognitive tests.

Source: Ohio State University.

Many people experience forgetfulness as they age, but it’s often difficult to tell if these memory issues are a normal part of aging or a sign of something more serious. A new study finds that a simple, self-administered test developed by researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, College of Medicine and College of Public Health can identify the early, subtle signs of dementia sooner than the most commonly used office-based standard cognitive test.

If — or when — human civilization collapses, what will remain? Maybe parts of some cities. Or the Statue of Liberty, a la “Planet of the Apes.” Overall, though, there might not be a lot of evidence left behind about what humanity accomplished — or what resulted in its downfall.

One team of researchers wants to change that. Their solution? A massive, indestructible box that’ll record scientific data to give future civilizations insight on how exactly humanity fell.

Continue reading “Scientists Are Building a ‘Black Box’ to Record the End of Civilization” »

Microsoft has announced a new DirectX12 API for Windows which will offer a new way for apps to efficiently encode video using the GPU.

The Video Encode API is available to 3rd party apps and is native to Windows 11, and can efficiently encode video in the H264 and HEVC formats.

Microsoft says it offers a considerable number of configurable parameters are exposed by this API for the user to tweak different aspects of the encoding process and make them fit best for their scenarios such as: custom slices partitioning scheme, active (i.e. CBR, VBR, QBVR) and passive (Absolute/Delta custom QP maps) rate control configuration modes, custom codec encoding tools usage, custom codec block and transform sizes, motion vector precision limit, explicit usage of intra-refresh sessions, dynamic reconfiguration of video stream resolution/rate control/slices partitioning and more.

The Chinese private spaceflight company Galactic Energy has made the second flight of its Ceres-1 rocket, carrying five satellites into orbit, including a satellite known as Golden Bauhinia-1–03. The launch took place at 04:12 UTC on Tuesday, December 7th (12:12 Beijing time) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

The Ceres-1 is a four-stage rocket, using three solid-fueled stages with a hydrazine-fueled fourth stage to complete orbital insertion and refinement. Ceres-1 is capable of launching a payload of up 400 kilograms to low Earth orbit, or up to 230 kilograms into a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 700 kilometers.

Also known as Gushenxing-1, Ceres-1 was developed by Galactic Energy, one of several Chinese companies currently fielding or testing small solid-fueled satellite launchers. The first Ceres-1 launch was conducted successfully on November 7, 2020, making Galactic Energy the second private Chinese company to launch a satellite into low Earth orbit.

Have your oranges gone bad? No need to throw them in the bin because University of Sydney PhD student Pooria Lesani has developed a cancer detection technique made from the juice of rancid oranges.

In a study, published in Chemical Engineering Journal, Lesani described the orange-based, low-cost probe, which proved to be a useful nanobiosensor for screening cells that may be at risk of cancer.

The nanobiosenser is a tiny probe that “glows” fluorescently in human cells, and signals if those cells become acidic, indicating that cancer is not far off. This shows which cells are at greatest risk of cancer, so preventative measures can be taken.

Nearly 1 in 5 people with hypertension may be unintentionally taking a drug for another condition that causes their blood pressure to climb even higher, a new study suggests.

Left untreated or undertreated, high blood pressure will increase your risk for heart attack, stroke, kidney disease and vision problems by damaging blood vessels. Lifestyle changes such as weight loss, restricting salt intake, and/or medication can help move your blood pressure numbers back into the normal range. But asking your doctor whether any drugs you are taking for other conditions might be pushing those numbers up is worth the effort, the researchers said.

“The risk of [drugs] raising blood pressure may be simply overlooked, particularly for patients using these additional medications for many years,” said study author Dr. Timothy Anderson. He is a clinician investigator and an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

One of the world’s largest battery-based energy storage systems, powered by Tesla’s utility-scale Megapack batteries, began operating in the Australian state of Victoria on Wednesday.

Large energy storage systems based on lithium-ion batteries have the potential to prevent blackouts and let utilities store and use more energy generated from renewable but intermittent sources, like solar or wind.

Paris-based renewable energy giant Neoen developed the facility with partners Tesla Energy and AusNet, with some construction by Cimic Group’s UGL. It has enough capacity to power one million homes for half an hour, according to the web site for the project.

Bigger isn’t always better. DeepMind’s Gopher system uses smarter algorithms to make better choices. And it blows GPT-3 away.

December 18th i will give a short speech at AIAA Space Philosophy Gathering 2021!

Here’s the link to register and follow the conference:

Continue reading “(December 18, 2021) AIAA LA-LV Space Philosophy Gathering” »