Lifeboat Foundation

The nearly successful drone assassination attempt on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month highlighted yet again a persistent worry for U.S. defense planners: the possibility that a swarm of cheap drone-borne bombs might overwhelm the sophisticated defenses a U.S. base or ship. While the defense industry has seized upon this concern and is currently at work developing new high-tech solutions to this problem, the Department of Defense can’t rely on those alone. It makes sense to develop such solutions, but the Department of Defense procurement process is long and the threat is now. With a little ingenuity, there is much that can be done with existing technology to defend effectively against drone threats. Accordingly, this article focuses on the measures the Department of Defense can employ now, with existing technology, to mitigate the threat of drone swarms.

The Current Problem

The drone swarm threat to U.S. naval installations and ships is already quite serious. Only a small amount of explosives and shrapnel would be required to cause significant damage to many of the most important radars, cameras, and important flight systems on ships, missiles, and aircraft. Damaging critical equipment would put military platforms out of action for several weeks or even months and put intense pressure on naval logistics chains and maintenance organizations at a time when they are already hard pressed to keep up with current demands. Even more importantly, such an attack orchestrated on a grand scale could leave U.S. forces unable to respond to critical events around the world in sufficient time to fulfill U.S. defense commitments to allies and friends.

Continue reading “The Perfect Can Wait: Good Solutions to the ‘Drone Swarm’ Problem” »

By studying the particular geological conditions found in a two-billion-year-old ‘natural nuclear reactor’ scientists are hoping to find a safe way to dispose of our modern radioactive waste.

Sediment samples from Lake Chichancanab in Mexico show that annual rainfall decreased by more than 50 percent at the end of Mayan civilization.

Apple has crossed over into the four-comma club – what would it take for a person to do the same?

Everyone can find plenty of examples from his or her own life of what aging is doing to us all.

A few days ago, I wrote an article while on a plane. I’m an expat, and I was flying back to my home country. I’m now in my hometown, where I lived until I was 18. I come back here only seldom, and the last time I visited was four years ago.

For the vast majority of the time I lived at my parents’ house, I was a child. My most vivid memories of the place are from my childhood, when everything looked so much larger. So, even though I did live here as a grown-up as well, every time I come back here after years of absence, every room in the house looks far less spacious. Things have changed a bit since I left. Furniture has changed place and function; ornaments and knick-knacks have been moved, added, or removed; predictably, even the town has changed somewhat over the years.

Continue reading “Our Families Succumb” »

Concept art: Air Force

National Defense magazine asked research laboratories involved in national security programs: “What is your organization’s number one R&D ‘big bet,’ (in other words: a high-risk, high-reward technology investment) that you believe will have the biggest payoff for those in the military or national security realm? Why? And in what ways do you think it will benefit the end users?”

A research analyst at Swiss investment bank UBS believes the cost of energy renewables could be so near to zero by 2030 “it will effectively be free,” according to a projections published on Monday. If renewables could soon be cheaper than all the alternative energy sources, and that this “is great news for the planet, and probably also for the economy.”

The analysis, published in the Financial Times, explains that solar and wind farms are getting bigger, and that the potential of this sort of cheap, green energy is far-reaching and will only get cheaper. “In 2010, using solar power to boil your kettle would have cost you about £0.03,” the analyst writes in FT. “By 2020, according to estimates by our research team at UBS, the cost will have fallen to half a penny.” And just ten years later, the costs will be so minuscule, it will practically be free.

See also: 7 Massive Corporations Going Green to Boost Their Bottom Lines.

Continue reading “Renewable Energy Could Basically Be Free by 2030, According to New Analysis” »

Historically, water managers throughout the thirsty state of California have relied on hydrology and water engineering—both technical necessities—as well as existing drought and flood patterns to plan for future water needs.

Now, climate change is projected to shift water supplies as winters become warmer, spring snowmelt arrives earlier, and extreme weather-related events increase. Some water utilities have started to consider these risks in their management, but many do not. Lack of climate change adaptation among water utilities can put water supplies and the people dependent on them at risk, especially in marginalized communities, a new University of California, Davis, paper suggests.

The paper, which analyzes various approaches to climate science by drinking water utility managers in California, was presented along with new research at the American Sociology Association Conference in Philadelphia on Aug. 11. The paper, “Climate Information? Embedding Climate Futures within Social Temporalities of California Water Management,” was published this spring in the journal Environmental Sociology.

A new, super-insulating gel developed by researchers at CU Boulder could dramatically increase the energy efficiency of skyscrapers and other buildings, and might one day help scientists build greenhouse-like habitats for colonists on Mars.

The “aerogel,” which looks like a flattened plastic contact lens, is so resistant to heat that you could put a strip of it on your hand and a fire on top without feeling a thing. But unlike similar products on the market, the material is mostly see-through.

Continue reading “From office windows to Mars: Scientists debut super-insulating gel” »