Lifeboat Foundation

Mining asteroids might seem like the stuff of science fiction, but there are companies and a few governments already working hard to make it real. This should not be surprising: compared with the breathtaking bridges that engineers build on Earth, asteroid-mining is a simple, small-scale operation requiring only modest technological advances. If anything is lacking, it is the imagination to see how plausible it has become. I am afraid only that it might not arrive soon enough to address the urgent resource challenges that the world is facing right now.

As an academic researcher, I work with several asteroid -mining companies to address that urgency. I depend on their funding, so there are trade secrets I cannot share. However, I can reveal the core reasons why I am optimistic about the business case for asteroid-mining, and what it will mean for our future.

Many people are skeptical of asteroid-mining because they imagine that the goal is to bring platinum back for sale in Earth’s metals market. Reporters repeatedly cite an irresistible statistic that the platinum in an asteroid can be worth trillions of US dollars, but anyone with an understanding of economics realises that bringing home a huge stash of precious metal would crash the market, reducing the valuation of the asteroid.

Continue reading “Want faster data and a cleaner planet? Start mining asteroids” »

I get this question a lot. Today, I answered it at Quora.com. But, here, in the Lifeboat Blog, I have more bandwidth to elaborate.

Question:

What if I make a typo when sending Bitcoin. The recipient address
may be invalid or it may belong to another individual. —But there
is a third possibility. Couldn’t it be a valid address, but without any
wallet that can receive it? I bet the blockchain catches these errors
—Right? Will I always get my money back?

The short answer: “Don’t worry, it cannot happen. That won’t happen either. Sure, it’s possible. That’s wrong, and You’re screwed!”

Continue reading “What if you Send Bitcoin to a Non-Existent Address?” »

TUESDAY, Jan. 9, 2018 — In a potential advance for medical research, scientists say they’ve created the first functioning human muscle from skin cells.

The breakthrough could lead to better genetic or cell-based therapies, as well as furthering investigations into the causes and treatment of muscular disorders, the Duke University team said.

“The prospect of studying rare diseases is especially exciting for us,” Nenad Bursac, professor of biomedical engineering, said in a university news release.

Continue reading “Scientists turn skin cells into muscle cells, a potential boon for research” »

We have all heard that exercise is good for our health. However, it can not only keep you healthy, it can also slow down some aspects of aging. Some researchers even think that it might be possible to use this knowledge to develop new therapies against aging. While waiting for that to happen, we need to exercise in order to slow down the effects of aging.

How important is it to keep fit?

So, how beneficial is exercising? Well, one of the best studies conducted on this subject showed that women will live 5.6 years longer and men 6.2 years longer if they exercise between 1 and 2.5 hours per week[1]. This makes exercise a better lifestyle choice than any other, at least as long as you’re not counting avoiding downright dangerous behavior, such as smoking.

Here, $$$$, turn that thing off, you’re making too much cheap power.

New figures show £53m was given to the wind industry last year to keep turbines switched off to regulate electricity supplied to National Grid.

Since wind farms first started receiving constraint payments five years ago, more than £100 million has been handed over in compensation for switching off. Photo: PA

Continue reading “Wind farms paid £1m a week to switch off” »

New story in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jan/09/how-clo…-afterlife #transhumanism

One of the threads running through the sci-fi series’ latest season concerns digital versions of ourselves who live on after we die … it could happen sooner than we think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsJiZbLPqNQ

Feathers on birds of paradise contain light-trapping nanotechnology that makes some of the deepest blacks in the world.

Furrion’s Prosthesis exo-bionic racing mech is at CES.