Lifeboat Foundation

Since man first explored space, it has been a largely peaceful environment. But now US adversaries are deploying weapons beyond Earth’s atmosphere, leading the US military to prepare for the frightening prospect of war in space.

“As humans go out there, there has always been conflict. Conflict in the Wild West as we move in the West … conflict twice in Europe for its horrible world wars,” Gen. John Hyten, head of US Strategic Command, told CNN. “So, every time humans actually physically move into that, there’s conflict, and in that case, we’ll have to be prepared for that.”

The field, now called low-energy nuclear reactions, may have legit results—or be stubborn junk science.

• By Stephen K. Ritter, Chemical & Engineering News on November 28, 2016

Wearable fitness devices could help you with your personal longevity strategy.

NEW YORK — Activity monitors could improve our health and extend our lives — if only we could be motivated to use them. Those are the conclusions of two new studies about the promise and perils of relying on fitness trackers to measure and guide how we move.

The monitors, which are expected to be a popular holiday gift again this year, can generally track our steps, speed, stance (sitting or not), distance, energy expenditure and heart rate. The absolute accuracy of these numbers, however, is somewhat suspect, with past studies finding errors in many of the monitors’ measurements. But the inaccuracies are usually consistent, the studies show, so the trackers can reliably indicate how our movements change from day to day.

Continue reading “Fitness trackers might help us live longer” »

THERE are multiple timelines playing out in parallel universes, according to a team of researchers.

The sensational claim was made by a team of physicists, who believe that the parallel universes can all affect one another.

Predicting the future is hard. It’s nearly impossible to know what technological marvels await in the next few years, let alone the next eight decades. Undaunted, we’ve put together a list of 10 super-advanced technologies that should be around by the year 2100.

Image: Rick and Morty.

DroneGun blocks drones flying at 2.4 and 5.8 GHz frequencies and can also jam GPS.

If you want to use one of today’s major VR headsets, whether the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive, or the PS VR, you have to accept the fact that there will be an illusion-shattering cable that tethers you to the small supercomputer that’s powering your virtual world.

But researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) may have a solution in MoVr, a wireless virtual reality system. Instead of using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to transmit data, the research team’s MoVR system uses high-frequency millimeter wave radio to stream data from a computer to a headset wirelessly at dramatically faster speeds than traditional technology.

There have been a variety of approaches to solving this problem already. Smartphone-based headsets such as Google’s Daydream View and Samsung’s Gear VR allow for untethered VR by simply offloading the computational work directly to a phone inside the headset. Or the entire idea of VR backpacks, which allow for a more mobile VR experience by building a computer that’s more easily carried. But there are still a lot of limitations to either of these solutions.

Continue reading “MIT’s new method of radio transmission could one day make wireless VR a reality” »

Our DNA encodes a complex biological blueprint for our lives.

Every toenail, artery, and brain cell we grow is meticulously planned and executed through our DNA’s unfathomably complex genetic instructions.

Recent genetics research has focused on how DNA may affect a person’s education, a field known as ‘educational genomics’.

Continue reading “Future schools could test a student’s DNA to predict their success” »

The Australian anthropologist explains why being scared about AI and big data has more to do with our fear of each other than killer robots.