Lifeboat Foundation

Ten thousands of years ago, the cave lion Panthera spelaea, a very intriguing subspecies of the modern-day lion which thrived on the Eurasian plateau, went extinct for reasons unknown.

A powerful ruler of the European steppe, the cave lion roamed territories from Spain to the far-off east of Russia. Fossils and bones have been dug out even in Alaska.

Continue reading “Extinct Predator Cave Lions Could be Brought Back to Life” »

Multi-domain operations, the Army’s future operating concept, requires autonomous agents with learning components to operate alongside the warfighter. New Army research reduces the unpredictability of current training reinforcement learning policies so that they are more practically applicable to physical systems, especially ground robots.

These learning components will permit autonomous agents to reason and adapt to changing battlefield conditions, said Army researcher Dr. Alec Koppel from the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, now known as DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory.

The underlying adaptation and re-planning mechanism consists of reinforcement learning-based policies. Making these policies efficiently obtainable is critical to making the MDO operating concept a reality, he said.

SANTIAGO (Reuters) — The coronavirus has landed in Antarctica, the last continent previously free from COVID-19, Chile’s military said this week, as health and army officials scrambled to clear out and quarantine staff from a remote research station surrounded by ocean and icebergs.

WASHINGTON — SpaceX has been awarded a $150.4 million contract to launch as many as 28 satellites for the Pentagon’s space agency, the Defense Department announced Dec. 31.

The contract is to launch a mix of small and medium spacecraft of different sizes that the Space Development Agency is acquiring from multiple vendors. That includes 20 data-relay satellites known as the Transport Layer and the other eight are missile-warning satellites known as the Tracking Layer.

SpaceX will launch these satellites from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

For $140000, you can fly your own electric airplane. The Slovenian company Pipistrel sells the Alpha Electro, the first electric aircraft certified as airworthy by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2018. It’s a welterweight at just 811 pounds (368 kilograms), powered by a 21 kWh battery pack—about one-fifth the power of what you’d find in a Tesla Model S. For about 90 minutes, the pilot training plane will keep you and a companion aloft without burning a drop of fossil fuel.

Those of us without a pilot license will have to wait longer for emissions-free flight—but not much. For all its challenges, 2020 has proven to be a milestone year for electric aviation. Electric aircraft set new distance records, replicated short commercial flight paths, won over the US military, and attracted buyers from big airlines.

And in June, European regulators granted another of Pipistrel’s aircraft, the Velis Electro, the world’s first electric “type certification,” deeming the entire aircraft design safe and ready for mass production (airworthiness only certifies individual aircraft).

For those of us who don’t think that even our bowel movements will soon be inventoried, tracked and timestamped during every moment of existence, here is a just published white paper from the Rand Corporation, an influential think tank created in 1948 to offer research and analysis to the US military, which begs to differ.

The November 2020 whilte paper, published under the title “The Internet of Bodies,” focuses on the advantages and disadvantages, security and privacy risks, plus the ethical implications of what it calls a growing “Internet of Bodies (IoB).”

IoB tools are internet-connected “smart” devices increasingly available in the marketplace which promise to track and upload to the internet measurements related to individual heartbeat, blood pressure and other bodily functions in real time for purposes of health, exercise, security or other reasons.

The Russian armed forces’ modernization drive is in full swing, with multiple new weapons entering service and mass production in the coming year and beyond. Here’s a look at some of the new hardware.

In 2021, Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces will receive the new RS-28 Sarmat – liquid-fueled, MIRV-equipped heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles that will replace the R-36M2 Voevoda systems.

Continue reading “From strategic bombers to combat robots: What Russian weapons to look out for in 2021” »

New military goggles give soldiers a unique way to see the battlefield.

Updated Dec. 17 with State Department statement

WASHINGTON — Russia on Dec. 15 conducted a ballistic missile test that U.S. Space Command condemned as a threat to satellites in orbit.

“The nation must do something about this,” said Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, director of staff of the Office of the Chief of Space Operations of the U.S. Space Force.