Lifeboat Foundation

What does the future hold? What will become of this planet and its inhabitants in the centuries to come?
We are living in a historical period that sometimes feels like the prelude to something truly remarkable or terribly dire about to unfold.
This captivating video seeks to decipher the signs and attempt to construct plausible scenarios from the nearly nothing we hold in our hands today.
As always, it will be scientific discoveries leading the dance of change, while philosophers, writers, politicians, and all the others will have the seemingly trivial task of containing, describing, and guiding.
Before embarking on our journey through time, let me state the obvious: No one knows the future!
Numerous micro and macro factors could alter this trajectory—world wars, pandemics, unimaginable social shifts, or climate disasters.
Nevertheless, we’re setting off. And we’re doing so by discussing the remaining decades of the century we’re experiencing right now.

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DISCUSSIONS \& SOCIAL MEDIA

Continue reading “From Today To The Year 3000: Let’s Dive Into The Future!” »

What influence do global environmental stressors have on the ability of an ecosystem to withstand these stresses and rebuild itself? This is what a recent study published in Nature Geoscience hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated a correlation between environmental stressors and ecosystem resilience. This study comes as climate change continues to ravage the planet with more severe and frequent weather patterns, including increased temperatures and storms. This study holds the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, and the public better understand the short and long impacts of climate change on the environment and the steps that can be taken mitigate them.

“Terrestrial ecosystems are subject to a myriad of climate change and environmental degradation factors, including global warming, drought processes, atmospheric pollution, fires or overgrazing among many others. We know that these global change factors impact the ability of our ecosystems to provide services such as carbon sequestration or soil fertility that are key in the fight against climate change and in food production.” said Manuel Delgado Baquerizo, who leads the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning Lab (BioFunLab) leader and is a co-author on the study.

For the study, the researchers conducted a global and elaborate study combining approximately 14,000 observations regarding ecosystems functions and biodiversity from a 15-year study with the goal of ascertaining an ecosystem’s ability to resist global environmental stressors, including those resulting from climate change. In the end, the team discovered a negative correlation between environmental stressors and an ecosystem’s resilience, meaning as these stressors increase the resilience of an ecosystem decreases. Additionally, they found the opposite regarding biodiversity, meaning its resilience increases to increasing global environmental stressors.

An exploration of new work done at Arecibo regarding the infamous Wow! Signal of 1977 that seems to account for all aspects of the observed signal but turned out to be a very strange natural event that isn’t likely to repeat often that is analogous to a lightning flash in a hydrogen cloud in interstellar space.

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Continue reading “The Wow Signal Potentially Explained … and it’s Weird” »

New electromagnetic wave discovery reshapes our understanding of the impact of lightning on Earth’s magnetosphere.

Two University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists have discovered a new type of “whistler,” an electromagnetic wave that carries a substantial amount of lightning energy to the Earth’s magnetosphere.

Cities around the globe are experiencing increased flooding due to the compounding effects of stronger storms in a warming climate and urban growth. New research from the University of California, Irvine suggests that urban form, specifically the building density and street network of a neighborhood, is also affecting the intensity of flooding.

For a paper published today in Nature Communications, researchers in UC Irvine’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering turned to statistical mechanics to generate a new formula allowing urban planners to more easily assess flood risks presented by land development changes.

Co-author Mohammad Javad Abdolhosseini Qomi, UC Irvine associate professor of civil and environmental engineering who holds a joint appointment in UC Irvine’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, said that he and his colleagues were inspired by how physicists study intricate systems such as disordered porous solids, glasses and complex fluids to develop universal theories that can explain city-to-city variations in flood hazards.

According to the infamous myth, groups of lemmings sometimes run off cliffs to their collective doom. Imagine you are one of these rodents: On a sunny day you join your companions in a joyous climb up a mountain beneath clear skies, traipsing across grass and dirt and rock, glad to be among friends, until suddenly you plunge through the brisk air and all goes black.

How can scientists protect biodiversity across the Earth while climate change continues to ravage the planet? This is what a recent study published in Conservation Biology hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated how conservation efforts within the Southern Ocean should be addressed due to human activities (i.e., tourism, climate change, and fishing). This study holds the potential to help scientists, conservationists, and the public better understand the negative effects of human activities on the Earth’s biodiversity, specifically since the Southern Ocean is home to an abundance of species.

“Despite the planet being in the midst of a mass extinction, the Southern Ocean in Antarctica is one of the few places in the world that hasn’t had any known species go extinct,” said Sarah Becker, who is a PhD student in the Department of Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) and lead author of the study.

For the study, the researchers used the Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) standard—which used to identify sites of vital importance to preserving biodiversity—to examine species within the Southern Ocean. After analyzing tracking data for 13 Antarctic and sub-Antarctic seabirds and seals, the researchers found a total of 30 KBAs existed within the Southern Ocean, specifically sites used for migration, breeding, and foraging. This study improves upon previous research that identified KBAs on a macroscale, whereas this recent study focused on sites at the microscale. The researchers hope this study will help raise awareness for mitigating fishing activities in these areas along with developing improved conservation strategies, as well.

Nanomaterials, with their distinctive physical and chemical properties, hold significant promise for revolutionizing the housing construction industry. By enabling the development of stronger, more durable, efficient, and sustainable structures, nanotechnology offers solutions to challenges such as climate change and global urbanization.

The use of nanomaterials in construction began in the mid-1980s with the advent of carbon-based structures. Since then, their application has become more widespread, driving innovations in the sector. Today, advances in nanotechnology are leading to the creation of increasingly sophisticated, selective, and efficient nanomaterials, broadening the scope of construction capabilities.

This study explored the application of various nanomaterials—titanium dioxide, carbon nanotubes (CNTs), nanosilica, nanocellulose, nanoalumina, and nanoclay—in residential construction. These materials were chosen for their potential to enhance the structural integrity, thermal performance, and overall functionality of building materials used in housing.