Lifeboat Foundation

On Monday August 21, a solar eclipse will cut across the entire United States. And wherever you are, you will be able to see it. Even though the “totality” — the area where the sun is completely blocked out by the moon — is only 70 miles wide, the whole country (even Alaska and Hawaii) will experience a partial eclipse.

This is what you’ll see, and the time you’ll see it, in your zip code.

We recommend punching in a few different ones to see how the eclipse experience will vary across the country. Salem, Oregon (97301), is going to see a total eclipse. Downtown Los Angeles (90012) will see 62 percent of the sun blocked at the peak. In Lake Charles, Louisiana (70601), it’ll be 71 percent.

Continue reading “A solar eclipse is coming to America. Here’s what you’ll see where you live” »

Artificial intelligence is conquering an increasing number of jobs. How can humans keep the edge as robots become smarter?

In a glimpse at what the beginning of the technological singularity might look like, researchers at Facebook shut down an artificial intelligence platform after the bots went off script and developed a unique language that humans could not understand.

Researchers in Cambridge have created a new approach for creating and transplanting artificial bile ducts with the aim of treating liver disease in children and reducing the need for transplants.

The research, published in the journal Nature Medicine, shows how the researchers grew 3D cell structures and transplanted them into mice[1]. These structures then developed into functional bile ducts.

The bile ducts are long, tubular structures that carry bile secreted by the liver which is critical for helping us to digest our food. When these ducts do not function properly, such as in childhood diseases like biliary atresia, it can lead to a damaging buildup of bile in the liver.

Facebook might have accidentally gotten a little closer to answering Phillip K. Dick’s 1968 question of whether androids dream of electric sheep. The social media giant just shut down an artificial intelligence program after it developed its own language and researchers were left trying to figure out what two AIs were talking about. The AIs had found a way to negotiate with one another, but the way they debated used English words reduced to a more logical structure that made more sense to the computers than to their human observers. What at first looked like an unintelligible failure to teach the AIs to talk instead was revealed as a result of the computers’ reward systems prizing efficiency over poetry.

A new device that’s powered by sunlight could help solve water scarcity problems.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ohig71bwRUE

Your flying car might finally be on the way as the all-electric, two-seater Lilium Jet took its first test flight this week. Lilium Aviation’s prototype consumes around 90 percent less energy than drone-style aircraft and could be the transportation mode of the future.

If you’ve been begging the universe for a flying car for your entire life, you may soon be able to stop asking (sort of). This week, Germany-based company Lilium Aviation took its new all-electric, two-seater vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) prototype for its first test flight. The jet was piloted remotely during the tests, but its creators say the vehicle’s first manned flight will happen soon.

Continue reading “A Real Life, All-Electric Flying Car Just Took Off” »

Theoretical physicist Lucien Hardy is pushing wants to push the boundaries of quantum physics by performing a Bell test using humans as links. This could potentially shed light on the existence of human consciousness and just what it is made of.

Perhaps one of the most intriguing and interesting phenomena in quantum physics is what Einstein referred to as a “spooky action at a distance” — also known as quantum entanglement. This quantum effect is behind what makes quantum computers work, as quantum bits (qubits) generally rely on entanglement to process data and information. It’s also the working theory behind the possibility of quantum teleportation.

Continue reading “Scientists Have an Experiment to See If the Human Mind Is Bound to the Physical World” »