Lifeboat Foundation

Produce and detect gravitational fields at will using magnetic fields, control them for studying them, work with them to produce new technologies — it sounds daring, but Prof. André Füzfa of Namur University has proposed just that in an article published in the scientific journal Physical Review D. If followed, this proposal could transform physics and shake up Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

At present, scientists study gravitational fields passively: they observe and try to understand existing gravitational fields produced by large inertial masses, such as stars or Earth, without being able to change them as is done, for example, with magnetic fields.

It was this frustration that led Füzfa to attempt a revolutionary approach: creating gravitational fields at will from well-controlled magnetic fields and observing how these magnetic fields could bend space-time.

Continue reading “Gravitation under human control? This proposal could transform physics” »

In a future where cars drive themselves, how does a company like BMW, which engineers ‘The Ultimate Driving Machine’ stay relevant? Embrace change even if it challenges company tradition, advises Salim Ismail of Singularity University.

It may seem like dancing, but these charming automatons actually show off a sophisticated ability to navigate in closer quarters than has previously been achieved (even by bigger bots).

An alliance of technology organizations and conservatives are urging Congress to file suit against the Obama administration to block the transference of control over Internet domain names to an international board. The alliance claims that doing so will give authoritarian regimes power to decide who can and cannot have a presence on the web, Fox News reported Saturday.

Since 1998, a division of the U.S. Commerce Department called the National Telecommunications Information Administration, or NTIA, has issued domain names. But in September the Obama administration is set to allow the U.S. government’s contract to lapse so that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will then be operated by a global board of directors, and the responsibility will fall to it instead.

Critics of the administration’s decision fear that it will allow Russia, China and Iran to then have a stake in governing the Internet, giving them “de facto” power to tax domain names and quash free speech.

Continue reading “Tech groups urging Congress to sue Obama admin to block giving control of Internet to authoritarian regimes” »

Exclusive: When Israel launched a covert scheme to steal material and secrets to build a nuclear bomb, U.S. officials looked the other way and obstructed investigations, as described in a book reviewed by James DiEugenio.

By James DiEugenio

In 1968, CIA Director Richard Helms was presented with a disturbing National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) stating that Israel had obtained atomic weapons, a dangerous development that occurred earlier than the CIA had anticipated.

But last week’s disaster in Florida could leave SpaceX still mostly unscathed.

Awesome.

Competitors prepare for a contest involving electronic arms and robotic exoskeletons.

Interesting read.

The Asian superpower is boosting basic research funding in its 13th five-year plan—a boon for this list of scientists and the wider R&D community.

All aboard the Sky Train.

China’s first sky trains came off the assembly line in the city of Nanjing on Saturday, with China becoming the third country to master sky train technology, after Germany and Japan.

The Nanjing Puzhen Company Limited, affiliated to China’s largest State-owned rolling stock manufacturer CRRC Corporation Limited (China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation), took only four months to design and complete the elevated railway trains, said CRRC.

Continue reading “China’s first sky train off assembly line” »