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Archive for the ‘Elon Musk’ category: Page 178

Sep 16, 2020

How gene therapy could help astronauts survive deep space deadly radiation

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, Elon Musk, government, health, neuroscience, space travel

Over the past five decades, space travel advocates have been pushing to expand our footprint in space. They dream about lunar bases, missions to Mars and colonies in free space. The visions are ever changing, with government efforts joined by those of private companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX — in the midst of an effort to send tourists on a trip around the Moon — gravitating toward the space tourism sector. While the goals and how to accomplish them are in constant flux, there remain certain obstacles that must be overcome before we take that next big step. And one of the biggest is the need to protect the health of our future space explorers.

That’s what’s prompted NASA to turn to the fast-moving world of gene therapy to solve several potential medical issues facing astronauts on lengthy space missions.

The US space agency and the associated Translational Institute for Space Health Research (TRISH) at the Baylor College of Medicine are now calling for proposals from private companies and other groups to develop a kind of gene therapy for astronauts. But this would be different than recent gene therapies that target specific diseases such as hemophilia or various types of cancer. Instead, the idea here is to minimize the damage from space radiation through a kind of preventive treatment. Exposure to radiation in space can cause cancer, cardiovascular disease, cataracts and the loss of cognitive function due to accelerated death of brain cells. These different disease categories involve very different mechanisms — cancer and heart disease result from radiation damaging DNA, while loss of brain tissue results simply from radiation killing off mature cells, and still other diseases result from radiation destroying stem cells.

Sep 15, 2020

Elon Musk’s brain-computer startup is getting ready to blow your mind

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, robotics/AI

Musk reckons his brain-computer interface could one day help humans merge with AI, record their memories, or download their consciousness. Could he be right?

Sep 15, 2020

Tesla’s readying a ‘million mile’ battery that could greatly lower the cost of EVs

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, sustainability, transportation

Coming late 2020 or early 2021.


CEO Elon Musk is expected to detail the new battery tech at a “Battery Day” event for investors later this month. The long-rumored advancement could make it possible for Tesla to sell its vehicles at more competitive prices.

Sep 14, 2020

SpaceX Starship: Elon Musk outlines plans for 60,000-foot launch

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel

The Starship, SpaceX’s under-construction giant rocket, is about to tackle a big new challenge.

Sep 13, 2020

Elon Musk’s Neuralink — The Dark Side

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, Elon Musk, robotics/AI

TLDR: Scroll down to Conclusions.

Elon Musk has recently unveiled his company’s first Neuralink device implanted in an experimental animal — a pig.

Continue reading “Elon Musk’s Neuralink — The Dark Side” »

Sep 12, 2020

Elon Musk says Starship SN8 prototype will have a nosecone and attempt a 60,000-foot return flight

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space travel

– TechCrunch


Elon Musk has shared some details about future testing of Starship, the SpaceX launch vehicle currently being developed by the company at its Boca Chica, Texas facility. Recently, SpaceX has completed short, 150 meter (just under 500 feet) test flights of two earlier Starship prototypes, SN5 and SN6 – and SN8, which is currently set to be done construction “in about a week” according to Musk will have “flaps & nosecone” and ultimately is intended for a much higher altitude test launch.

The prototypes that SpaceX has flown and landed for its so-called ‘short-hop’ tests over the past few weeks have been full-sized, but with a simulated weight installed on the top in place of the actual domed nosecone that will perch atop the final production Starship and protect any cargo on board. SN5 and SN6, which are often compared to grain silos, are also lacking the large control flaps on either side of the nosecone that will help control its flight. SN8 will have both, according to Musk.

Continue reading “Elon Musk says Starship SN8 prototype will have a nosecone and attempt a 60,000-foot return flight” »

Sep 10, 2020

A beginner’s guide to AI: Separating the hype from the reality

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, robotics/AI

An advanced artificial intelligence created by OpenAI, a company founded by genius billionaire Elon Musk, recently penned an op-ed for The Guardian that was so convincingly human many readers were astounded and frightened. And, ew. Just writing that sentence made me feel like a terrible journalist.

That’s a really crappy way to start an article about artificial intelligence. The statement contains only trace amounts of truth and is intended to shock you into thinking that what follows will be filled with amazing revelations about a new era of technological wonder.

Here’s what the lede sentence of an article about the GPT-3 op-ed should look like, as Neural writer Thomas Macaulay handled it earlier this week:

Sep 6, 2020

SpaceX broke a record by launching 180 satellites in 1 month — accelerating Elon Musk’s project to blanket Earth in high-speed internet

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, internet, satellites

SpaceX just launched more satellites in a month than history has ever seen. But that’s bad news for astronomers.


SpaceX’s newest satellites sport sun visors — an effort to reduce their brightness in the night sky and their impact on astronomers’ telescopes.

Sep 6, 2020

Elon Musk: I’m pretty confident, Giga Berlin will be the most environmental-friendly factory in the world

Posted by in category: Elon Musk

Featured image: @tobilindh/Twitter

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is now in Germany on a visit. During the trip, he met with several politicians, discussed a number of important issues, and visited Giga Berlin.

On September 3, Musk made his first visit to the construction site of Tesla’s plant in Grünheide, near Berlin. He arrived at 12:30 pm in a black Model X, where the media and film crews were already waiting for him. Apparently, he is very pleased with the progress of the construction, which was expressed in an enthusiastic greeting: “Deutschland roks! Yeah!”

Sep 6, 2020

Inside Virgin Orbit, Richard Branson’s Small Satellite Bid To Match Musk And Bezos In The Billionaire Space Race

Posted by in categories: business, Elon Musk, satellites

Fellow rocket man Elon Musk reacted with sympathy. “Sorry to hear that. Orbit is hard,” he tweeted, adding that it took his firm, SpaceX, four attempts before reaching orbit in September 2008. Branson himself “waited an hour” before getting on the phone to CEO Dan Hart. “His brain, as it does, just immediately turns to – ‘well how quickly can you try again’?” Pomerantz recalls, describing the mood in the room as the sun set in California as “a big step forward that nevertheless was nowhere near as big as we wanted it to be – we are a way better company than we were the day we did that launch, but we didn’t get to orbit.”

Back Of A Napkin

But for Pomerantz, Branson, Virgin and the watching entrepreneurial world, including competitors like SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, a larger question was answered: Could Richard Branson drop a rocket off the wing of a Virgin aircraft and call it a business?