Lifeboat Foundation

A cutaway view of the proposed ARC reactor (credit: MIT ARC team)

MIT plans to create a new compact version of a tokamak fusion reactor with the goal of producing practical fusion power, which could offer a nearly inexhaustible energy resource in as little as a decade.

Fusion, the nuclear reaction that powers the sun, involves fusing pairs of hydrogen atoms together to form helium, accompanied by enormous releases of energy.

Continue reading “MIT designs small, modular, efficient fusion power plant” »

We’re not quite in the fusion age yet, but this is promising. For 50 years, researchers have been saying we’re 25 years away from practical fusion. Now they’re saying 5 years.

The small, modular, efficient, less expensive ARC reactor could help to bring the long-sought power source closer to reality.

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Brace yourselves: winter is coming. And by winter I mean the slow heat-death of the Universe, and by brace yourselves I mean don’t get terribly concerned because the process will take a very, very, very long time. (But still, it’s coming.)

Based on findings from the Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) project, which used seven of the world’s most powerful telescopes to observe the sky in a wide array of electromagnetic wavelengths, the energy output of the nearby Universe (currently estimated to be ~13.82 billion years old) is currently half of what it was “only” 2 billion years ago — and it’s still decreasing.

“The Universe has basically plonked itself down on the sofa, pulled up a blanket and is about to nod off for an eternal doze,” said Professor Simon Driver from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Western Australia, head of the nearly 100-member international research team.

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My new story for Vice Motherboard exploring the human journey into eventually becoming a machine: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-i-advocate-for-becoming-a-machine And also if you haven’t donated to the Immortality Bus Indiegogo campaign, there are only a few hours left to do so: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/immortality-bus-with-pres…406#/story

Biology is simply not the best system out there for our species’ evolution. It’s frail, terminal, and needs to be upgraded. In fact, even machines may be upgraded in the future too, and rendered as junk as our intelligences figure out ways to become beings of pure organized energy. “Onward” is the classic transhumanist mantra.

No matter what happens, to move forward in the transhumanist age, we need to let go of our egos and our shallow sense of identity; in short, we need to get over ourselves. The permanence of our species lies in our ability to reason, think, and remember who we are and where we’ve been. The rest is just an impermanent shell that changes—and it has already been changing for tens of millions of years in the form of sentient evolution.

Continue reading “Why I Advocate for Becoming a Machine” »

A 20-node BlueDBM Cluster (credit: Sang-Woo Jun et al./ISCA 2015)

There’s a big problem with big data: the huge RAM memory required. Now MIT researchers have developed a new system called “BlueDBM” that should make servers using flash memory as efficient as those using conventional RAM for several common big-data applications, while preserving their power and cost savings.

Here’s the context: Data sets in areas such as genomics, geological data, and daily twitter feeds can be as large as 5TB to 20 TB. Complex data queries in such data sets require high-speed random-access memory (RAM). But that would require a huge cluster with up to 100 servers, each with 128GB to 256GBs of DRAM (dynamic random access memory).

Continue reading “Cheap, power-efficient flash memory for big data without sacrificing speed” »

In a move that once again proves its commitment to renewable energy, China has begun construction on its first large-scale commercial solar plant out in the sun-dreched expanse of the Gobi Desert. Called Delingha, the colossal facility will spread out across 25 km² (6,300 acres) of vacant land in the country’s Qinghai province, and will feature six huge solar towers hooked up to an array of solar mirrors.

When complete, the plant will have a capacity of 200 megawatts, which means it will be able to supply electricity to 1 million households in Qinghai year-round. “Its designed heat storage is 15 hours, thus, it can guarantee stable, continual power generation,” Qinghai Solar-Thermal Power Group board chair, Wu Longyi, told the press.

The facility is the first solar plant to be run as a commercial entity, and according to Svati Kirsten Narula at Quartz, it’s being jointly developed by BrightSource Energy, based in Oakland, California, and the Shanghai Electric Group in China. The first phase of construction will look at completing two solar towers so they can generate 135 megawatts each to cover more than 452,000 homes, and then the remaining four will be completed to cover at least 1 million.

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The Millennium Project released today its annual “2015–16 State of the Future” report, listing global trends on 28 indicators of progress and regress, new insights into 15 Global Challenges, and impacts of artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, nanotechnology and other advanced technologies on employment over the next 35 years.

“Another 2.3 billion people are expected to be added to the planet in just 35 years,” the report notes. “By 2050, new systems for food, water, energy, education, health, economics, and global governance will be needed to prevent massive and complex human and environmental disasters.”

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A new rechargeable aluminium battery has been produced by researchers in the US, and according to them the prototype can charge a smartphone in 60 seconds and it’s more environmentally friendly, heavy-duty, and inexpensive than anything presently on the market. And it won’t suddenly burst into flames like certain generally used lithium-ion batteries are capable of… This new technology has done something researchers around the world have been pursuing for decades — it puts aluminium to better use in the high-demand battery market. The benefits of aluminium are many, counting its cheapness, accessibility, low-flammability, and high-charge storage capability. But the challenge in producing a sustainable aluminium battery has been in finding a material for the cathode — the device through which the entire electrical current passes — that can yield enough voltage to withstand it across a whole lot of charges.

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The scientists who last year revealed the world’s first solar battery that essentially combines a battery and solar cell, are now reporting its first significant performance milestone. Tested against traditional lithium-iodine batteries, the researchers are claiming energy savings of 20 percent.

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