Lifeboat Foundation

Alex Garland continues to cultivate his reputation as one of the most exciting and challenging voices in modern science fiction cinema.

Annihilation is an upcoming science fantasy action horror film written for the screen and directed by Alex Garland based on the novel of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer. The film stars Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny, and Oscar Isaac.

Continue reading “Movie Of February 2018: Annihilation” »

The fusion of quantum computing and machine learning has become a booming research area. Can it possibly live up to its high expectations?

The universe is highly magnetic, with everything from stars to planets to galaxies producing their own magnetic fields. Astrophysicists have long puzzled over these surprisingly strong and long-lived fields, with theories and simulations seeking a mechanism that explains their generation.

TAE Technologies, Inc. (formerly Tri Alpha Energy), the world’s largest and most advanced private fusion company, has announced that its proprietary beam-driven field-reversed configuration (FRC) plasma generator, “Norman,” surpassed a new technical milestone, bringing the company closer to the reality of commercial fusion power. This latest achievement marks a significant step in the company’s mission to create a global energy revolution with clean, safe, sustainable fusion energy.

Norman, the $100MM National Laboratory-scale device named for company founder Dr. Norman Rostoker, was unveiled in May 2017 and quickly reached first plasma in June 2017. After over 4,000 experiments to date, Norman has now exceeded the capabilities and performance of the company’s previous FRC plasma generator, C-2U, and sets a new company record for plasma temperature.

Continue reading “TAE Technologies Gen 5 reactor targets tripling confinement with 10 times the power by 2020” »

No-waste e-skin.

TAE Technologies, the California-based fusion company backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, said its latest and greatest plasma generator has exceeded the headline-grabbing performance of its previous machine.

“This announcement is an important milestone on our quest to deliver world-changing, clean fusion energy to help combat climate change and improve the quality of life for people globally,” Michl Binderbauer, the company’s president and chief technology officer, said in a news release. “This achievement further validates the robustness of TAE’s underlying science and unique pathway.”

Continue reading “TAE Technologies pushes plasma machine to a new high on the nuclear fusion frontier” »

When an earthquake sets off a tsunami, it releases speedy sound waves that could give us early warning. But they still can’t predict the size of the tsunami.

The creation of monkey clones is a big breakthrough, but making a copy of an adult is still not possible and the ethics of cloning remain unchanged.

Over the next 20 years, he says, our penchant for making things smarter and smarter will have a profound impact on nearly everything we do. Kelly explores three trends in artificial intelligence we need to understand in order to embrace it and steer its development. “The most popular AI product 20 years from now that everyone uses has not been invented yet,” Kelly says. “That means that you’re not late.”