Lifeboat Foundation

A Dutchman completed an epic 95,000 kilometre (59,000 mile) journey by electric car in Sydney Sunday in a bid to prove the viability of such vehicles in tackling climate change.

Wiebe Wakker drove his retrofitted station wagon nicknamed “The Blue Bandit” across 33 countries in what he said was the world’s longest-ever journey by electric car.

The trip from the Netherlands to Australia took just over three years and was funded by public donations from around the world, including electricity to charge the Bandit, food and a place to sleep.

Continue reading “Dutchman ends ‘world’s longest electric car trip’ in Australia” »

Andrew Yang gives a dynamite interview on automation, UBI, and economic solutions to transitioning to the future.

Andrew Yang, award winning entrepreneur, Democratic Presidential candidate, and author of “The War on Normal People,” joins Ben to discuss the Industrial Revolution, Universal Basic Income, climate change, circumcision, and much more.

Continue reading “Andrew Yang | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 45” »

5. Division of labor

Much like division of labor in human societies, parts of the thick-footed morel fungus cultivate the bacteria while other parts help store the carbon for future use. This source-sink system is similar to human agricultural systems, where we move food from the fields to be processed and sold at grocery stores.

These five characteristics were confirmed experimentally using cell counting and 13C isotopic labeling. Much like humans, fungi can use cultivation, harvesting, storage, dispersal, and division of labor to farm bacteria. Don’t fear, hallmarks of agriculture that we can still claim as unique to humans include artificial selection or development as well as cultural transmission of agricultural innovations.

Musk, to the rescue!

From precision GPS to batteries for one of the world’s first commercial all-electric airplanes, NASA technology turns up in nearly every corner of modern life. The latest edition of NASA’s Spinoff publication features dozens of commercial technologies that were developed or improved by the agency’s space program and benefit people everywhere.

“NASA works hard, not only to develop technology that pushes the boundaries of aeronautics and space exploration, but also to put those innovations into the hands of businesses and entrepreneurs who can turn them into solutions for challenges we all face here on Earth,” said Jim Reuter, acting associate administrator of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. “These are sometimes predictable, like the many NASA technologies now adopted by the burgeoning commercial space industry, but more often they appear in places that may seem unrelated, like hospitals, farms, factories and family rooms.”

Continue reading “New Spinoff Publication Highlights NASA Technology Everywhere” »

Oops, duh, Eureka… shouted Archimedes… Or something.

Corn leaves are teaming with bacteria communities (the leaf “microbiome”) that influence plant health and performance, and scientists are still figuring out how. A team of scientists led by Dr. Jason Wallace recently published a study in the open access Phytobiomes Journal that advances what we know about these bacterial communities by investigating their relationships with corn genetics. According to Dr. Wallace, “the end-goal of all this research is to understand how crops interact with their microbial communities so we can harness them to make agriculture more productive and sustainable.”

In one of the largest and most diverse leaf microbe studies to date, the team monitored the active bacteria on the leaves of 300 diverse lines of corn growing in a common environment. They were especially interested to see how corn genes affected bacteria and found there was little relationship between the two — in fact, the bacteria were much more affected by the environment, although genetics still had a small role.

This is an interesting discovery that “breeding probably isn’t the best way to address this,” Dr. Wallace says. Instead, “the leaf community is probably better changed through farmer management.” That is, farmers should be able to change growing practices to enhance their current crops rather than seek out new plant varieties.

Converting excess wind and solar power into hydrogen can extend renewable energy’s reach.

• By Peter Fairley on April 1, 2019

Another possibility for an alternative to traditional plastics?

A substance made by solitary bees.

Sometimes the answers to life’s most complicated questions are hidden in the smallest details. That’s a truth Veronica Harwood-Stevenson discovered when she found there might be a way to create a sustainable alternative to plastic products by mimicking a natural substance produced by bees.

Continue reading “EHF Fellow: Veronica Harwood-Stevenson” »

Fluids with zero viscosity seemingly defy the laws of physics and they have endless applications. But they’ve been hard to make, until now. The secret? Bacteria!

Scientists’ Crazy Plan to Power Solar Panels With E. Coli — https://youtu.be/_XZGrZ3DeLg

Continue reading “This Superfluid Is Alive, And It Could Power Machines of the Future” »