Lifeboat Foundation

CMU becomes space-faring university with payloads aboard Astrobotic lander.

Without the Higgs, the Standard Model of particle physics comes crashing down.

A different astronomy and space science related image is featured each day, along with a brief explanation.

(ECNS) — The Chinese team that constructed the world’s first ear in a lab and grafted it onto a patient last year has made new progress by developing injectable cartilage that can be used in human tissue repair and plastic surgery.

The regeneration technique involves taking a small part of cartilage tissue from behind the ear of a patient, culturing seed cells in the lab and reproducing cells in a sufficient amount to fill a biodegradable mould made by 3D-printing.

Professor Cao Yilin, director of National Tissue Engineering Research Center, said it marks a breakthrough from previous technology as the cultured cells can be injected into a patient’s body parts like the nose and chin where they continue to develop into normal tissue, a minimally invasive treatment similar to natural growth.

Continue reading “Chinese scientists make breakthrough in injectable cartilage” »

Sorry, Planet McPlanetface: Asteroids, moons and other celestial bodies go through a strict set of international naming guidelines.

Nearby in the sky are 2 interacting galaxies: LEDA 62867 (left) and NGC 6786 (right). Millions of years from now, after a long and graceful dance, NGC 6786 will likely consume its smaller galactic partner.

A powerful “mass driver” could launch moon-mined ore into space.

Robert Downey Jr. doesn’t pretend to be a brilliant scientist — even though he’s played Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, for the past 11 years.

But on Tuesday night he attended Amazon’s brand new, premier, open-to-the-public Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics and Space (re: MARS) conference in Las Vegas — a room filled with AI legends, astronauts, and other dignitaries — as a keynote speaker.

He delivered a gag-filled talk that somehow weaved together the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the evolution of Stark’s Iron Man suits, allusions to his own troubled history with drug addiction, the actual history of artificial intelligence and its pioneers, with a bunch of jokes using the Amazon Alexa voice and Matt Damon (including a videotaped guest appearance by Damon).

Continue reading “‘Iron Man’ actor Robert Downey Jr. has vowed to use robotics and AI to significantly clean up the Earth in the next decade” »

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is one of the most iconic features of any planet in our Solar System. The colossal, swirling storm has dominated Jupiter for years, and it’s one of the things we always expect to see when new images of Jupiter are published. Unfortunately, the spot is dying a slow and agonizing death, and it’s possible that it could be entirely gone within our lifetimes.

The storm is running out of steam, and while astronomers are always striving to learn more about the mechanics of how Jupiter’s massive storms form and sustain themselves, it’s clear that the Great Red Spot’s days are numbered. Now, observations by veteran Jupiter observer Anthony Wesley seem to reveal the storm lashing out as it rotates in Jupiter’s atmosphere.