Lifeboat Foundation

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — Future American Soldiers will be better protected in combat by stronger and lighter body armor thanks to innovative work at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. Materials science engineers are using nature as the inspiration for breakthroughs in additive manufacturing.

“My project is to design a system that can 3D print armor ceramics that will allow production of parts with graded structures similar to an abalone structure in nature that will improve the ceramic armor’s toughness and survivability with lower weight,” said Joshua Pelz, a materials science and engineering doctoral candidate at the University of California San Diego. He spent this summer working with Army scientists at ARL’s Rodman Materials Science Laboratory at APG to design and build a unique 3D printer.

Continue reading “Researchers find inspiration in nature to improve ceramic armor” »

At the Storage Developer Conference, Microsoft presented a new paper that talks about how data can be stored in quartz glass cubes using laser light. The project is done in collaboration with University of Southampton Optoelectronics Research Centre. You can check out the full video of the Storage Developer Conference below.

The idea is to help companies store data easily and not compromise with the speed or the performance of the servers.

Continue reading “Microsoft talks about Project Silica, a new way of storing data” »

LOS ANGELES (PRWEB) September 27, 2018

The Arch Mission Foundation today announced the creation of an archive of knowledge encoded into synthetic DNA by Microsoft, Twist Bioscience Corporation, and the University of Washington to be included in the Lunar Library™. The DNA Archive will feature 10,000 crowdsourced images and the full text of 20 important books, among other items. The data is encoded into billions of synthetic DNA molecules and encapsulated for long-term preservation. Collectively this data will represent the first Special Collection of the Lunar Library, which the Arch Mission Foundation announced last spring.

The Arch Mission Foundation sought partners that could help curate these materials and assist in achieving a remarkable collection that reflects both the best of human knowledge, as well as the most ambitious technical abilities in the emerging new field of molecular data storage. Molecular data storage is a new technology for storing and retrieving data from molecules of synthetic, non-living DNA.

Continue reading “The Arch Mission Foundation Announces Digital Data Stored in DNA Added to Lunar Library™, Creating Groundbreaking Archive of Knowledge on the Moon” »

Solar energy has long been considered the most sustainable option for replacing our dependence on fossil fuels, but technologies for converting solar energy into electricity must be both efficient and inexpensive.

Scientists from the Energy Materials and Surface Sciences Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) believe they’ve found a winning formula in a new method to fabricate low-cost high-efficiency solar cells. Prof. Yabing Qi and his team from OIST in collaboration with Prof. Shengzhong Liu from Shaanxi Normal University, China, developed the cells using the materials and compounds that mimic the crystalline structure of the naturally occurring mineral perovskite. They describe their technique in a study published in the journal Nature Communications.

In what Prof. Qi refers to as “the golden triangle,” solar cell technologies need to fulfill three conditions to be worth commercializing: their conversion rate of sunlight into electricity must be high, they must be inexpensive to produce, and they must have a long lifespan. Today, most commercial solar cells are made from crystalline silicon, which has a relatively high efficiency of around 22%. Though silicon, the raw material for these solar cells, is abundant, processing it tends to be complex and shoots up the manufacturing costs, making the finished product expensive.

Continue reading “Perovskite solar cells leap toward commercialization” »

Can Tesla survive without Elon Musk? If he is banned from CEO or director positions or being a board member what will the impact to SpaceX be?

Tesla without Elon Musk at the wheel? To many of the electric car maker’s customers and investors that would be unthinkable. But that’s what government securities regulators now want to see.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has asked a federal court to oust Musk as Tesla’s chairman and CEO, alleging he committed securities fraud with false statements about plans to take the company private.

Continue reading “Tesla without Musk at the wheel? That’s what the SEC wants” »

During last September’s Ignite conference, Microsoft heavily emphasized its quantum computing efforts and launched both its Q# programming language and development kits.

This year, the focus is on other things, and the announcements about quantum are few and far between (and our understanding is that Microsoft, unlike some of its competitors, doesn’t have a working quantum computing prototype yet). It did, however, announce an addition to its Quantum Development Kit that brings a new chemical simulation library to tools for getting started with quantum computing.

Continue reading “Microsoft’s Quantum Development Kit adds a chemical simulation library” »

Even with an increasing number of articles about aging and rejuvenation technologies in mass media, the general public’s lack of information remains a problem. Pro-longevity organizations try to spread useful information; however, it’s clear that this information is, quite often, only delivered to current members of the community instead of to a new audience. My work at LEAF is partially focused on finding ways to break this border and explore new social territories as often as possible. Last week, this journey brought me to a meeting with a title that speaks for itself: Death Cafe.

What is Death Cafe?

A Death Cafe is not a place. It is a meeting at which people are encouraged to discuss everything related to death over a cup of tea. The official mission of this community is defined as follows: “Our objective is to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.” It is not a form of group therapy, not a support group or a survivors’ group (though only the living can attend…); rather, it’s just a space where people can talk to each other about a topic that is usually excluded from public dialogue.

Continue reading “Death Cafes and Life Extension: The Possibility of Synergy” »

With the introduction of more products aimed at gauging the effectiveness of mental health treatments, science is getting left behind, some experts say.

Welcome to Edition 1.19 of the Rocket Report! Lots of news this week about the development of rocket engines in the United States, South Korea, and elsewhere. There are also milestones for the Ariane 5 rocket and an anniversary for SpaceX.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and, if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

SpaceX hits 10 years since the Falcon 1. In an in-depth feature, Ars recounts the harrowing eight weeks following the failed third flight of the Falcon 1 rocket and the finally successful fourth flight. “If we had not reached orbit on that attempt, SpaceX would not exist,” Elon Musk recalled. “That was a very tough launch emotionally.” Shortly after the Falcon 1 launch, SpaceX intensified work on developing its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.

Continue reading “Rocket Report: SpaceX gets Moon launches, South Korean rocket, BE-4 wins” »