Lifeboat Foundation

The Amazon Rainforest is well known across the world for being the largest and most dense area of woodland in the world. Spanning across nine countries, the Amazon is home to millions of different animal and plant species, as well as harboring some for the world’s last remaining indigenous groups. The Waorani people of Pastaza are an indigenous tribe from the Ecuadorian Amazon and have lived in the Rainforest for many generations. However, there Home came under threat from a large oil company — they didn’t take it lightly.

After a long legal battle with a number of organizations, the Waorani people successfully protected half a million acres of their ancestral territory in the Amazon rainforest from being mined for oil drilling by huge oil corporations. The auctioning off of Waorani lands to the oil companies was suspended indefinitely by a three-judge panel of the Pastaza Provincial Court. The panel simply trashed the consultation process the Ecuadorian government had undertaken with the tribe in 2012, which rendered the attempt at land purchase null and void.

Continue reading “Amazon Tribe Wins Lawsuit Against Big Oil, Saving Millions Of Acres Of Rainforest” »

And it doesn’t want the details of the case made public.

Elon Musk’s space company is taking the U.S. to court.

The good news is that America already possesses vast sensor networks, ranging from the depths of the oceans to the harsh bleakness of space, capable of collecting the requisite information. All that Congress need do at this juncture is to require the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence to review the UAP issue and deliver a report providing a comprehensive assessment. This report should include not only an estimate of the situation but a description of the structure and processes required to ensure effective collection and analysis going forward.

Since 2015, dozens of Navy F-18 fighter jets have encountered unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAPs) — once commonly referred to as UFOs — off the East Coast of the United States, some not far from the nation’s capital. Encounters have been reported by other military aircraft and civilian airliners elsewhere in the U.S. and abroad, too, including videos shot by airline passengers.

What these UAPs were and who was flying them — whether friends, foes or unknown forces — remains a mystery. Yet careful examination of the data inevitably leads to one possible, disturbing conclusion: A potential adversary of the United States has mastered technologies we do not yet understand to achieve capabilities we cannot yet match.

Continue reading “Friend, foe or unknown force flying overhead? Congress should find out” »

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has a shiny new toy. The information technology firm announced today that is spending $1.3 billion to acquire supercomputer manufacturer Cray. HPE, which is a business-facing spin-off of the Hewlett Packard company, will instantly become a bigger presence in the world of academia and the federal government, where Cray has a number of significant contracts. It will also enable HPE to start selling supercomputer components to corporate clients and others.

With sound extinguishers we can basically use no water would be good for space stations.

The technology is proliferating amid concerns that it is prone to errors and allows the government to expand surveillance without much oversight.

Police are increasingly using facial recognition to solve low-level crimes and to quickly identify people they see as suspicious. Claire Merchlinsky / for NBC News.

In the months since, China’s scientists and regulators have been going through a period of soul-searching. We, our colleagues and our government agencies, such as the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Health Commission, have reflected on what the incident says about the culture and regulation of research in China. We’ve also thought about what long-term strategies need to be put in place to strengthen the nation’s governance of science and ethics.

The shocking announcement of genetically modified babies creates an opportunity to overhaul the nation’s science, argue Ruipeng Lei and colleagues.

Australia has approved the use of CRISPR gene editing tool on plants and animals without the oversight of a governmental body. The controversial move has been called a ‘middle ground’ compared to regulations on other countries.

The government and tech companies have trouble seeing beyond the next presidential term or fiscal period.

[Photo: JOESPH/Pixabay]