May 2020 – Lifeboat News: The Blog https://lifeboat.com/blog Safeguarding Humanity Mon, 01 Jun 2020 07:01:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 Squeezed graphene becomes a superconductor https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/squeezed-graphene-becomes-a-superconductor Mon, 01 Jun 2020 05:24:03 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/squeezed-graphene-becomes-a-superconductor

Pressure puts a new twist on magic-angle bilayers.

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The Very First Wormhole Device — For Magnets! https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/the-very-first-wormhole-device-for-magnets Mon, 01 Jun 2020 05:23:54 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/the-very-first-wormhole-device-for-magnets

Circa 2015


Physicists have created a wormhole device that can tunnel a magnetic field through space. It sounds like Star Trek, but we won’t be zapping humans across the universe anytime soon. Still, the breakthrough could revolutionize certain magnet-based technologies, including MRIs.

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First CRISPR test for the coronavirus approved in the United States https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/first-crispr-test-for-the-coronavirus-approved-in-the-united-states Mon, 01 Jun 2020 05:23:47 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/first-crispr-test-for-the-coronavirus-approved-in-the-united-states

The kit has been granted approval under ‘emergency use’ provisions, and should help to ease testing backlogs in the country.

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Room Temperature Superconductor Breakthrough at Oak Ridge National Laboratory https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/room-temperature-superconductor-breakthrough-at-oak-ridge-national-laboratory Mon, 01 Jun 2020 05:23:38 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/room-temperature-superconductor-breakthrough-at-oak-ridge-national-laboratory

An international team of researchers has discovered the hydrogen atoms in a metal hydride material are much more tightly spaced than had been predicted for decades — a feature that could possibly facilitate superconductivity at or near room temperature and pressure.

Such a superconducting material, carrying electricity without any energy loss due to resistance, would revolutionize energy efficiency in a broad range of consumer and industrial applications.

The scientists conducted neutron scattering experiments at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory on samples of zirconium vanadium hydride at atmospheric pressure and at temperatures from −450 degrees Fahrenheit (5 K) to as high as −10 degrees Fahrenheit (250 K) — much higher than the temperatures where superconductivity is expected to occur in these conditions.

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Nanotech Breakthrough Could Revolutionize Night Vision https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/nanotech-breakthrough-could-revolutionize-night-vision Mon, 01 Jun 2020 05:23:29 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/nanotech-breakthrough-could-revolutionize-night-vision

Circa 2016


Researchers build “teeny, tiny structures” that can change infrared to visible light.

Remember that famous Bin Laden raid? It would have been impossible without night vision — specifically, a pair of $65,000 L-3 Ground Panoramic Night Vision Goggles. But even those top-of-the-line NVGs — former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonette compared other night-vision systems to “looking through toilet paper tubes” — are heavy, clunky, and odd-looking. Now researchers from Australia have developed a material that can make infrared light visible, raising the possibility of night-vision goggles as thin as glass and free of external power.

Conventional night vision goggles look a bit like binoculars and require electricity. Here’s how they work: An “objective lens” in front collects low-level and near-infrared light, whose photons are converted by a photocathode into electrons. The goggles use thousands of volts of electricity to send the electrons down a vacuum-sealed tube into a plate with millions of tiny holes. Pushing the electrons through the holes releases other electrons in a chain reaction called cascaded secondary emission. The effect: where there was one electron, there are now hundreds, all in the same pattern as the original photons. When the electrons hit the final layer, which is covered in phosphorescent material, what was dark becomes light.

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Perovskite photovoltaics on coated ultrathin glass as high-efficiency flexible indoor generators https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/perovskite-photovoltaics-on-coated-ultrathin-glass-as-high-efficiency-flexible-indoor-generators Mon, 01 Jun 2020 03:45:53 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/perovskite-photovoltaics-on-coated-ultrathin-glass-as-high-efficiency-flexible-indoor-generators

A revolution is underway in the development of autonomous wireless sensors, low-power consumer electronics, smart homes, domotics and the Internet of Things. All the related technologies require efficient and easy-to-integrate energy harvesting devices for their power. Billions of wireless sensors are expected to be installed in interior environments in coming decades.

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Visiting Vehicle Launches, Arrivals and Departures https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/visiting-vehicle-launches-arrivals-and-departures Mon, 01 Jun 2020 03:44:03 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/visiting-vehicle-launches-arrivals-and-departures

The International Space Station has hosted a variety of spacecraft shuttling crews and delivering supplies.

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Elon Musk’s biggest worry about SpaceX’s first astronaut mission isn’t the rocket launch — it’s the spaceship’s return to Earth https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/elon-musks-biggest-worry-about-spacexs-first-astronaut-mission-isnt-the-rocket-launch-its-the-spaceships-return-to-earth Mon, 01 Jun 2020 03:43:56 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/elon-musks-biggest-worry-about-spacexs-first-astronaut-mission-isnt-the-rocket-launch-its-the-spaceships-return-to-earth

Elon Musk’s “biggest concern” is reentry — the final stage of SpaceX’s biggest mission for NASA, when its astronauts must hurtle back to Earth.

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New coronavirus losing potency, top Italian doctor says https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/new-coronavirus-losing-potency-top-italian-doctor-says Mon, 01 Jun 2020 01:46:51 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/new-coronavirus-losing-potency-top-italian-doctor-says

ROME (Reuters) — The new coronavirus is losing its potency and has become much less lethal, a senior Italian doctor said on Sunday.

“In reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy,” said Alberto Zangrillo, the head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan in the northern region of Lombardy, which has borne the brunt of Italy’s coronavirus contagion.

“The swabs that were performed over the last 10 days showed a viral load in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones carried out a month or two months ago,” he told RAI television.

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Black Holes Help Prove That a Special Kind of Space-Time Is Unstable https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/black-holes-help-prove-that-a-special-kind-of-space-time-is-unstable Mon, 01 Jun 2020 01:44:47 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2020/05/black-holes-help-prove-that-a-special-kind-of-space-time-is-unstable

Einstein’s equations describe three canonical configurations of space-time. Now one of these three — important in the study of quantum gravity — has been shown to be inherently unstable.

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