Lifeboat Foundation

When Kumar lost his job, he became part of a wave of layoffs washing through the Indian IT industry—a term that includes, in its vastness, call centers, engineering services, business process outsourcing firms, and infrastructure management and software companies. The recent layoffs are part of the industry’s most significant period of churn since it began to boom two decades ago. Companies don’t necessarily attribute these layoffs directly to automation, but at the same time, they constantly identify automation as the spark for huge changes in the industry. Bots, machine learning, and algorithms that robotically execute processes are rendering old skills redundant, recasting the idea of work and making a smaller labor force seem likely.

Technology outsourcing has been India’s only reliable job creator in the past 30 years. Now artificial intelligence threatens to wipe out those gains.

Thanks to 21st century science and engineering, by the time we’re ready to visit the asteroid belt to mine minerals… we may not need to.

Multiband tunable antennas are a critical part of many communication and radar systems. New research by engineers at the University of Bristol has shown significant advances in antennas by using optically induced plasmas in silicon to tune both radiation patterns and operation frequency.

Conventional antenna tuning is performed with diodes or Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) switches. However, these approaches have significant drawbacks as systems become more complex and move to higher frequencies, which is anticipated for 5G systems.

The first paper, published in IET Optoelectronics, co-authored by Dr Chris Gamlath, Research Associate in RF Engineering during his PhD, shows how a silicon superstrate placed over a slotted microstrip patch can be used to tune radiation patterns.

Continue reading “Optically tunable microwave antennas for 5G applications” »

“If something goes wrong, I can just chop off that part of the skin.” Josiah Zayner took a swig from his beer and squinted into the spotlight. He was already kind of drunk. He also hadn’t bothered to write a speech. Tattooed and heavily pierced with a shock of blue-gray hair, he shuffled around uneasily on stage. But 150-odd people had flown in from around the country to hear him speak—the mad pirate-king of biotech. “It all is coming from my heart,” he said, choking up a little. “Everything you’re going to hear today is me to the core.” Advertisement Zayner’s audiencesat in the fashionably…

By Michael Kanis, National Sales Engineering Manager, Proven Process Medical Devices, and Jodi Hutchins, RAC, CQA

All Those in Favor of Using Real World Evidence, Say Aye!

Medical Devices are used in the real world every day, so shouldn’t they be tested in the real world? You would think so. But the FDA hasn’t necessarily been of that mindset — until now.

Continue reading “Medical Device Development and The Case for Real World Evidence (RWE)” »

A controversial plan to cool down the planet by artificially simulating volcanic eruptions could have disastrous consequences for Earth—yet there are no laws or regulations to stop any country or private company from deploying such technology.

Solar geoengineering is one of the proposed ways to artificially reduce global temperatures. It is often seen as one of the most extreme options—but also potentially one of the most effective. It involves injecting aerosols into the atmosphere. When the gas combines with oxygen, droplets of sulfuric acid form. These droplets reflect sunlight away, cooling the planet in the process. All good in theory, but the consequences of solar geoengineering are largely unknown.

In a study published in Nature Communications, scientists led by Anthony Jones, from the University of Exeter, U.K., have now examined what would happen if solar geoengineering was used in the Northern Hemisphere to try to prevent global warming and the extreme weather that goes with it—in this case tropical cyclones.

Continue reading “Artificially Cooling Earth With Volcano Eruptions Is Dangerous—the Lack of Regulation Is ‘Deeply Disconcerting’” »

With everyone from Elon Musk to MIT to the US Department of Defense researching brain implants, it seems only a matter of time before such devices are ready to help humans extend their natural capabilities.

Now, a professor from the University of Southern California (USC) has demonstrated the use of a brain implant to improve the human memory, and the device could have major implications for the treatment of one of the US’s deadliest diseases.

Dong Song is a research associate professor of biomedical engineering at USC, and he recently presented his findings on a “memory prosthesis” during a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington D.C. According to a New Scientist report, the device is the first to effectively improve the human memory.

Continue reading “For The First Time Ever Scientists Have Boosted Human Memory With a Brain Implant” »

A team of scientists at the University of California San Diego led by biologist Nan Hao have combined engineering, computer science, and biology technologies to decode the molecular processes in cells that influence aging.

Continue reading “Scientists decipher mechanisms in cells for extending human longevity” »

South Korea is ‘almost 100 per cent certain’ that North Korean hackers have stolen the blueprints for their warships and submarines.

The despotic regime is thought to have taken the documents after hacking into Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co Ltd’s database in April last year.

Continue reading “North Korean hackers steal warship blueprints from South” »