Lifeboat Foundation

As much of the aviation industry fights to survive the coronavirus pandemic, some economists and engineers see the crisis as an opportunity to use stimulus funds to propel air travel to a carbon-neutral future. Photo illustration: George Downs.

More from the Wall Street Journal:
Visit WSJ.com: http://www.wsj.com.
Visit the WSJ Video Center: https://wsj.com/video.

Continue reading “Why the Pandemic May Accelerate Airbus Investing in Greener Air Travel | WSJ” »

Circa 2007

Robocops could soon leave the realm of science fiction thanks to a new bullet-proof material proposed by engineers in Australia. According to computer simulations done by the team, bullets would be no match for vests made of the material, and would simply bounce off owing to the high elasticity of the nanotubes. The researchers claim that the material, which has not been made yet, would be a great improvement on existing anti-ballistic clothing that stop bullets from penetrating by spreading the bullet’s force — something that can still cause serious injury (Nanotechnology 18 475701).

California-based Aptera recently opened pre-orders for its solar electric vehicle that ‘never needs charging’ and within less than 24 hours, according to the firm, the $26,000 car sold out.

The futuristic-styled structure is designed with lightweight materials, providing low-dray aerodynamics and cooling.

Continue reading “New solar-powered electric vehicle beats Tesla in range of miles” »

Google Cloud expands its edge computing services by partnering with 200 developers to put their applications closer to enterprise customers.

Being able to see, move, and exercise independently is something most of us take for granted. [Thomas Panek] was an avid runner before losing his sight due to a genetic condition, and had to rely on other humans and guide dogs to run again. After challenging attendants at a Google hackathon, Project Guideline was established to give blind runners (or walkers) independence from a cane, dog or another human, while exercising outdoors. Using a smartphone with line following AI software, and bone conduction headphones, users can be guided along a path with a line painted on it. You need to watch the video below to get a taste of just how incredible it is for the users.

Getting a wheeled robot to follow a line is relatively simple, but a running human is by no means a stable sensor platform. At the previously mentioned hackathon, developers put together a rough proof of concept with a smartphone, using its camera to recognize a painted line on the ground and provide left/right audio cues. As the project developed, the smartphone was attached to a waist belt and bone conduction headphones were used, which don’t affect audio situational awareness as much as normal headphones.

The shaking and side to side movement of running, and varying light conditions and visual obstructions in the outdoors made the problem more difficult to solve, but within a year the developers had completed successful running tests with [Thomas] on a well-lit indoor track and an outdoor pedestrian path with a temporary line. For the first time in 25 years, [Thomas] was able to run independently.

But can brain scans really answer these questions? Many scientists are now rethinking the value of brain scan research and whether its findings are true.

Brain scan studies have been criticized for several things. Criticisms include using too few subjects and incorrectly reading results.

Researchers have also come to understand that a person’s brain scan results can be different from day to day, even when all the conditions stay the same. Now they admit that brain scan findings are limited. Some are studying these limitations. Others are using different methods to study the brain.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates believes a return to “normal” life is further down the road for the US than people expect, despite a Covid-19 vaccine being approved and distributed this week.

Conceding that by the summer of 2021, the US should be “way closer to normal than we are now,” Gates, who has donated millions to vaccination efforts through his foundation, believes a full return to normal will likely not be possible until after 2022.

Continue reading “Bill Gates says bars and restaurants should ‘sadly’ be closed for 4-6 months, no return to ‘normal’ until 2022” »

Researchers have observed three-dimensional magnetic vortex rings in a real-world magnetic material for the first time. Contrary to theoretical predictions, these rings – which are spin configurations within the material’s bulk – are remarkably stable and could move through the material like smoke rings move through air. If such movement can be controlled, they might have applications in energy-efficient 3D data storage and processing.

In a ferromagnetic material, the spatial distribution of the local magnetization is responsible for the material’s magnetic properties. These spatial distributions can be very complex, and intricate magnetic “textures” are behind many modern technologies, including hard disk drives. A vortex is one such distribution, and it forms when the material’s magnetization circulates around a central core.

Vortex rings are more sophisticated still, and occur naturally in physical systems such as fluids, plasmas and turbulent gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. However, while they have long been predicted to exist in ferromagnets, they have never been observed there until now.

New technique could be useful for quantum information processing.

A new technique to cool reactive molecules to temperatures low enough to achieve quantum degeneracy – something not generally possible before – has been created by researchers in the US. In this temperature regime, the dominance of quantum effects over thermal fluctuations should allow researchers to study new quantum properties of molecules. As a first example, the researchers demonstrated how a slight change in applied electric field can alter the reaction rate between molecules by three orders of magnitude. The researchers hope their platform will enable further exploration of molecular quantum degeneracy, with potential applications ranging from quantum many body physics to quantum information processing.

When atoms are cooled close to absolute zero, the blur created by thermal effects that govern their behaviour in the classical world around us is removed, making their quantum nature clear. This has led to some fascinating discoveries. In ultracold quantum bosonic or fermion-pair quantum gases, for example, all the atoms in a trap can simultaneously occupy the quantum ground state, resulting in a wavefunction that is macroscopic.

Continue reading “Physicists fine tune chemical reaction rates for ultracold molecules” »