May 2021 – Lifeboat News: The Blog https://lifeboat.com/blog Safeguarding Humanity Tue, 01 Jun 2021 06:22:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 Space Debris Has Hit And Damaged The International Space Station https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/space-debris-has-hit-and-damaged-the-international-space-station Tue, 01 Jun 2021 06:22:39 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/space-debris-has-hit-and-damaged-the-international-space-station

The inevitable has occurred. A piece of space debris too small to be tracked has hit and damaged part of the International Space Station — namely, the Canadarm2 robotic arm.

The instrument is still operational, but the object punctured the thermal blanket and damaged the boom beneath. It’s a sobering reminder that the low-Earth orbit’s space junk problem is a ticking time bomb.

Obviously space agencies around the world are aware of the space debris problem. Over 23000 pieces are being tracked in low-Earth orbit to help satellites and the ISS avoid collisions — but they’re all about the size of a softball or larger.

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Germany to invest around $10 bln in hydrogen projects https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/germany-to-invest-around-10-bln-in-hydrogen-projects Tue, 01 Jun 2021 04:22:17 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/germany-to-invest-around-10-bln-in-hydrogen-projects

Germany will invest more than 8 billion euros ($9.74 billion) to fund large-scale hydrogen projects, the Economy and Transport ministries said on Friday, in a step to scale up hydrogen as an alternative to fossil fuels to meet climate targets.

The 62 German projects, supporting chemical, steel and transport industries, are part of a joint European hydrogen project called Hydrogen-IPCEI, the ministries added.

“The fact is: we must and WANT to urgently promote the switch to climate-friendly mobility,” said Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer in a statement.

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5 Eye-Opening Tidbits From America’s Space Race With The Soviets https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/5-eye-opening-tidbits-from-americas-space-race-with-the-soviets Tue, 01 Jun 2021 02:22:36 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/5-eye-opening-tidbits-from-americas-space-race-with-the-soviets

Fascinating new history of the earliest days of America’s space program details why the space race with the Soviet Union was more dire than generally appreciated.

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Clean Meat Cheaper Than Traditional Meat by 2030! Optimal Projection https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/clean-meat-cheaper-than-traditional-meat-by-2030-optimal-projection Tue, 01 Jun 2021 00:23:49 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/clean-meat-cheaper-than-traditional-meat-by-2030-optimal-projection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GFvU2wSS1Q&feature=youtu.be

Hey it’s Han from WrySci HX going through a new report by CE Delft that projects the price of clean meat in the year 2030! More below ↓↓↓

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This mathematical brain model may pave the way for more human-like AI https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/this-mathematical-brain-model-may-pave-the-way-for-more-human-like-ai Tue, 01 Jun 2021 00:23:04 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/this-mathematical-brain-model-may-pave-the-way-for-more-human-like-ai

These groups of brain cells are called “assemblies,” which Papadimitriou describes as “a highly connected, stable set of neurons which represent something: a word, an idea, an object, etc.”

Award-winning neuroscientist György Buzsáki describes assemblies as “the alphabet of the brain.”

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Mach 30 wind tunnel to ‘put China decades ahead’ in hypersonic race https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/mach-30-wind-tunnel-to-put-china-decades-ahead-in-hypersonic-race Tue, 01 Jun 2021 00:22:42 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/mach-30-wind-tunnel-to-put-china-decades-ahead-in-hypersonic-race

Leading researcher reveals new facility capable of simulating flight at 30 times the speed of sound will be ready ‘soon’.

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Japanese space agency to put Transformable Lunar Robot on the moon https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/japanese-space-agency-to-put-transformable-lunar-robot-on-the-moon Mon, 31 May 2021 21:22:36 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/japanese-space-agency-to-put-transformable-lunar-robot-on-the-moon

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has announced on its website that the agency has plans to put a Transformable Lunar Robot on the moon. In their announcement, they note that the goal of the robot deployment is to learn more about the surface of the moon as part of preparation for the deployment of a future crewed rover.

JAXA has made clear its aim to be part of establishing a permanent crewed presence on the moon, and as part of that, the agency has developed a lunar lander and is working on a rover. The lander, officially called the ispace lunar lander, has been designed to be a generic host for multiple entities. Customers planning to use the lander include the Canadian Space Agency and The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center. JAXA is developing a rover as well, which it plans to send to the moon in 2029. The lander will be launched aboard SpaceX rockets.

As part of their effort to develop a rover, JAXA has commissioned a team from the toy manufacturer, Tomy Company, Sony Corporation and Doshisha University to build a small lunar robot to test dust conditions on the moon. The design of the robot involves making use of transformable technology to save space in the lander—during launch it will be shaped like an 80 mm diameter ball (and will weigh just 250 g). After deployment on the moon, it will push itself into two halves with a connecting axle between them—the separated halves will then serve as wheels to allow the robot to move around on the surface.

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7 images show how our view of the Milky Way has evolved https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/7-images-show-how-our-view-of-the-milky-way-has-evolved Mon, 31 May 2021 21:22:19 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/7-images-show-how-our-view-of-the-milky-way-has-evolved

Humans have been fascinated with the night sky for as long as recorded history — it’s just in our nature.


As technology has improved and telescopes went to space, we’ve taken drastically different images of the galaxy we live in.

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Japan Is Sending a Robot to the Moon and It’s a Transformer https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/japan-is-sending-a-robot-to-the-moon-and-its-a-transformer Mon, 31 May 2021 19:23:31 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/japan-is-sending-a-robot-to-the-moon-and-its-a-transformer

The rover will collect data for Japan’s crewed pressurized rover.

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Phonon catalysis could lead to a new field https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/phonon-catalysis-could-lead-to-a-new-field Mon, 31 May 2021 19:23:05 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2021/05/phonon-catalysis-could-lead-to-a-new-field

Batteries and fuel cells often rely on a process known as ion diffusion to function. In ion diffusion, ionized atoms move through solid materials, similar to the process of water being absorbed by rice when cooked. Just like cooking rice, ion diffusion is incredibly temperature-dependent and requires high temperatures to happen fast.

This temperature dependence can be limiting, as the materials used in some systems like fuel cells need to withstand high temperatures sometimes in excess of 1000 degrees Celsius. In a new study, a team of researchers at MIT and the University of Muenster in Germany showed a new effect, where ion is enhanced while the material remains cold, by only exciting a select number of vibrations known as phonons. This new approach—which the team refers to as “ catalysis”—could lead to an entirely new field of research. Their work was published in Cell Reports Physical Science.

In the study, the research team used a to determine which vibrations actually caused ions to move during ion diffusion. Rather than increasing the temperature of the entire material, they increased the temperature of just those specific vibrations in a process they refer to as targeted phonon excitation.

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