Lifeboat Foundation

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists in collaboration with University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) have discovered a previously unknown pressure induced phase transition for TATB that can help predict detonation performance and safety of the explosive. The research appears in the May 13 online edition of the Applied Physics Letters and it is highlighted as a cover and featured article.

1,3,5-Triamino-2,4,6- trinitrobenzene (TATB), the industry standard for an insensitive high explosive, stands out as the optimum choice when safety (insensitivity) is of utmost importance. Among similar materials with comparable explosive energy release, TATB is remarkably difficult to shock-initiate and has a low friction sensitivity. The causes of this unusual behavior are hidden in the high-pressure structural evolution of TATB. Supercomputer simulations of explosives detonating, running on the world’s most powerful machines at LLNL, depend on knowing the exact locations of the atoms in the crystal structure of an explosive. Accurate knowledge of atomic arrangement under pressure is the cornerstone for predicting the detonation performance and safety of an explosive.

The team performed experiments utilizing a diamond anvil cell, which compressed TATB single crystals to a pressure of more than 25 GPa (250,000 times atmospheric pressure). According to all previous experimental and theoretical studies, it was believed that the atomic arrangement in the crystal structure of TATB remains the same under pressure. The project team challenged the consensus in the field aiming to clarify the high-pressure structural behaviour of TATB.

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The technology purifies the air through the photosynthesis of plants, removing greenhouse gases from the environment whilst generating breathable oxygen.

Learn about two exciting & free San Francisco Events coming up tonight and tomorrow (5÷15 & 5/16/2019:

Further data from the phase 2 trial of show a significant reduction in enhancing MRI lesions with one of the doses tested but increases in liver enzymes may be an issue.

The billionaire tycoon’s ideas draw from the vision of physicist Gerard K. O’Neill, who pioneered concepts for space settlements in the 1970s.

Physicist Gerard K. O’Neill proposed a space settlement design based on giant cylinders. Rick Guidice / NASA.

Solar photons pair-up with light from a quantum dot in a “highly non-classical” manner.

Wondering if your kid is dealing with an ear infection? Soon, according to researchers at the University of Washington, there’ll be an app for that. They claim to have created a simple test that uses a smartphone and folded up paper to detect one of the telltale signs of infection—fluid in the ears—with about the same or greater accuracy as a doctor.

Ear infections are one of the first health problems people tend to experience. By the age of three, most everyone has had at least one ear infection. These infections often cause fluid build-up in the ear, as can another condition called otitis media with effusion (OME). But though most infections or cases of OME go away on their own, too much or chronic fluid can cause pain or even severe complications like hearing loss.

We’re offering a few discounted tickets to our conference, Ending Age-Related Diseases 2019, in order to celebrate the 174th birthday of Élie Metchnikoff, the father of gerontology. We’re selling these tickets at the previous early bird price of $350 instead of the current $400!

This special, lower-price offer is valid from May 15, Noon EDT to May 17, Noon EDT, so this is the ideal time to guarantee your place at this exciting event. Prices will also be rising to $500 from June 10th onwards as we draw closer to the conference.

You can get your discounted ticket by visiting our Eventbrite page and using the discount code Metchnikoff.

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A radically new view articulated now by a number of digital philosophers is that consciousness, quantum computational and non-local in nature, is resolutely computational, and yet, has some “non-computable” properties. Consider this: English language has 26 letters and about 1 million words, so how many books could be possibly written in English? If you are to build a hypothetical computer containing all mass and energy of our Universe and ask it this question, the ultimate computer wouldn’t be able to compute the exact number of all possible combinations of words into meaningful story-lines in billions of years! Another example of non-computability of combinatorics: if you are to be born and live your own life again and again in our Quantum Multiverse, you could live googolplex (10¹⁰⁰) lives, but they all would be somewhat different — some of them drastically different from the life you’re living right now, some only slightly — never quite the same, and timeline-indeterminate.

Another kind of non-computability is akin to fuzzy logic but based on pattern recognition. Deeper understanding refers to a situation when a conscious agent gets to perceive numerous patterns in complex environments and analyze that complexity from the multitude of perspectives. That is beautifully encapsulated by Isaiah Berlin’s quote: “To understand is to perceive patterns.” The ability to recognize patterns in chaos is not straightforwardly algorithmic but rather meta-algorithmic and yet, I’d argue, deeply computational. The types of non-computability that I just described may somehow relate to the non-computable element of quantum consciousness to which Penrose refers in his work.

Continue reading “The Thesis on Consciousness and Experiential Realism: Digital Philosophy Perspective” »