Lifeboat Foundation

Did humans evolve from monkeys or from fish? In this enlightening talk, ichthyologist and TED Fellow Prosanta Chakrabarty dispels some hardwired myths about evolution, encouraging us to remember that we’re a small part of a complex, four-billion-year process — and not the end of the line. “We’re not the goal of evolution,” Chakrabarty says. “Think of us all as young leaves on this ancient and gigantic tree of life — connected by invisible branches not just to each other, but to our extinct relatives and our evolutionary ancestors.”

Let me propose a hypothetical future scenario: Let’s say that we’ve since developed an advanced method of brain-to-brain (B2B) communication, to which, naturally, has become quite popular among the younger generation of that time.

How might we judge futuristic societies using our present day standards? Better yet, how might the past have judged us today and would there be a difference?

Continue reading “‘Smile, it’s the Future!’ — Emotions, Mixed Reality, and Techno-Telepathy” »

In preparation for the commercial crewed modules that will arrive at the International Space Station soon, astronauts took a lengthy spacewalk to install some crucial equipment to the docking module. The extra-vehicular activity moved commander Drew Feustel to third on the list of all-time spacewalkers.

Watch extremely realistic limbs, complete with hair and freckles, get made from beginning to end.

Computer simulations have become so accurate that cosmologists can now use them to study dark matter, supermassive black holes, and other mysteries of the real evolving cosmos.

By jan mcharg, texas A&M university college of engineering

A new technology combining a laser beam and a particle beam for interstellar propulsion could pave the way for space exploration into the vast corners of our universe. This is the focus of PROCSIMA, a new research proposal by Dr. Chris Limbach and Dr. Ken Hara, assistant professors in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University.

NASA has chosen the proposal “PROCSIMA: Diffractionless Beam Propulsion for Breakthrough Interstellar Missions,” for the 2018 NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) phase 1 study. PROCSIMA stands for Photon-paRticle Optically Coupled Soliton Interstellar Mission Accelerator, and is meant to evoke the idea that interstellar travel is not so far away.

Continue reading “Combining Laser And Particle Beams For Interstellar Travel” »

Investigators at Harvard Medical School have identified the key cellular mechanisms behind vascular aging and its effects on muscle health, and they have successfully reversed the process in animals.

The scientists used a chemical compound that’s an NAD+ booster called NMN which plays a critical role in repairing cellular DNA as well as maintaining cell vitality to test what would happen.

Could reversing the aging of blood vessels hold the key to restoring youthful vitality? If the old adage “you are as old as your arteries” reigns true then the answer is yes, at least in mice.

Continue reading “Harvard Rewinds the Biological Clock of Time” »

It’ll be like that movie Passengers, but less creepy. #til

That growth in factory worker salaries has been a double-edged sword for China. On one hand, it has increased the purchasing power of Chinese which in turn has powered consumer-led economic growth, but on the other it has made China less competitive on wages and forced companies like Foxconn to introduce more automation.

With 1 million employees and half a dozen factories contributing 4 per cent of the country’s export value, Foxconn’s expansion symbolises China’s role as tech manufacturing powerhouse.