Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: sustainability

SpaceX reveals simpler lander to speed up Moon return

With its metaphorical feet held over the allegorical fire by NASA, SpaceX has released a new, simplified plan to build a lander to put US astronauts back on the Moon now that the competition for the spacecraft has been reopened due to delays.

NASA’s Artemis program to establish a permanent US human presence on the Moon is ambitious beyond any doubt. However, like previous American efforts, it’s been fraught with cost overruns, delays and technical problems. One of the most aggravating of these bottlenecks has been building the lunar lander because if you don’t have a way to actually put astronauts on the actual Moon, you’re pretty much wasting your time.

SpaceX’s original plan was to build a lander based on its still-experimental Starship rocket – more than just based on it, the craft would essentially be a complete, baseline Starship complete with airfoils and heat shields. The goal was to land up to 100 tonnes of supplies on the Moon or enough to establish a complete, sustainable base.

Rainfall’s origin reveals a hidden driver behind drought risks for farmers

A new University of California San Diego study uncovers a hidden driver of global crop vulnerability: the origin of rainfall itself.

The paper, “Crop water origins and hydroclimate vulnerability of global croplands,” was published in Nature Sustainability.

The research traces back to its source—whether it evaporated from the ocean or from land surfaces such as soil, lakes and forests. When the sun heats these surfaces, water turns into vapor, rises into the atmosphere, and later falls again as rain.

Long-term stability for perovskite solar cells achieved with fluorinated barrier compound

Perovskite solar cells are inexpensive to produce and generate a high amount of electric power per surface area. However, they are not yet stable enough, losing efficiency more rapidly than the silicon market standard. Now, an international team led by Prof. Dr. Antonio Abate has dramatically increased their stability by applying a novel coating to the interface between the surface of the perovskite and the top contact layer. This has even boosted efficiency to almost 27%, which represents the state-of-the-art.

After 1,200 hours of continuous operation under standard illumination, no decrease in efficiency was observed. The study involved research teams from China, Italy, Switzerland and Germany and has been published in Nature Photonics.

“We used a fluorinated compound that can slide between the perovskite and the buckyball (C60) contact layer, forming an almost compact monomolecular film,” explains Abate. These Teflon-like molecular layer chemically isolate the perovskite layer from the contact layer, resulting in fewer defects and losses. Additionally, the intermediate layer increases the structural stability of both adjacent layers, particularly the C60 layer, making it more uniform and compact.

Landscape clues suggest Indigenous Peoples have thrived in southwestern Amazon for more than 1,000 years

In September 2021, a multidisciplinary expedition explored one of the least-known regions of the Bolivian Amazon: the Great Tectonic Lakes of Exaltación in the department of Beni.

Organized by the Grupo de Trabajo para los Llanos de Moxos (GTLM), the mission brought together researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society, the National Museum of Natural History, the Institute of Ecology, the Biodiversity and Environment Research Center, the Aquatic Resources Research Center, and the Department of Anthropology of the Americas at the University of Bonn.

Inexpensive materials transform waste carbon into energy-rich compounds

Turning waste carbon into useful products is a vital part of sustainable manufacturing. Recycling carbon dioxide creates carbon monoxide, which through electricity can be converted into energy-rich compounds. However, existing devices for this process use anion exchange membranes that break down over time when exposed to organic materials, making them less effective.

A team of researchers, led by Feng Jiao, the Lauren and Lee Fixel Distinguished Professor in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has found that inexpensive and robust materials, porous separators called diaphragms, can be viable alternatives to these membranes in the conversion process.

After testing various diaphragms, they found that some of them performed as well or better than polymer-based commercial membranes in various operating conditions.

California Needs Supercities—and We Should Build Them Now

My latest, part of my CA Gov run!

These cities could also confront two of California’s biggest crises: homelessness and housing affordability. We could plan from day one for low-income and permanent supportive housing, integrated into neighborhoods rather than hidden on the margins. Additionally, for young people, who have watched the dream of owning a home slip away, these new cities could offer a real future—places where the middle class can afford to live, not just survive.

Supercities would also allow us to build sustainability into the foundation of urban life. Powered by renewable energy, designed around walkability and transit, and filled with parks, green roofs and cutting-edge architecture, they could show the world that growth and environmental responsibility can coexist. California has always been a leader in innovation. Why not apply that same imagination to how we live?

This isn’t fantasy—it’s pragmatism. California’s housing shortage is measured in millions of units. Fixing that within the current system is nearly impossible. Building new cities from scratch is the cleanest, fastest way to meet the scale of the problem. It would put people to work, attract investment and reignite the sense of purpose that once defined this state.

The choice is simple: stagnation or creation. We can let our cities decay under the weight of overregulation and paralysis, or we can build new ones that embody the California ideal of progress. The state that built Silicon Valley, Hollywood and the Golden Gate Bridge shouldn’t be afraid to build again. Supercities aren’t some futuristic fantasy—they’re the bold, realistic solution California needs to revive its economy, house its people and remind the world what ambition looks like.

Exploring a space-based, scalable AI infrastructure system design

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a foundational technology that could reshape our world, driving new scientific discoveries and helping us tackle humanity’s greatest challenges. Now, we’re asking where we can go to unlock its fullest potential.

The Sun is the ultimate energy source in our solar system, emitting more power than 100 trillion times humanity’s total electricity production. In the right orbit, a solar panel can be up to 8 times more productive than on earth, and produce power nearly continuously, reducing the need for batteries. In the future, space may be the best place to scale AI compute. Working backwards from there, our new research moonshot, Project Suncatcher, envisions compact constellations of solar-powered satellites, carrying Google TPUs and connected by free-space optical links. This approach would have tremendous potential for scale, and also minimizes impact on terrestrial resources.

We’re excited about this growing area of exploration, and our early research, shared today in “Towards a future space-based, highly scalable AI infrastructure system design,” a preprint paper, which describes our progress toward tackling the foundational challenges of this ambitious endeavor — including high-bandwidth communication between satellites, orbital dynamics, and radiation effects on computing. By focusing on a modular design of smaller, interconnected satellites, we are laying the groundwork for a highly scalable, future space-based AI infrastructure.

Climate intervention may not be enough to save coffee, chocolate and wine

A new study published in Environmental Research Letters reveals that even advanced climate intervention strategies may not be enough to secure the future of wine grapes, coffee and cacao.

These crops are vital to many economies and provide livelihoods for farmers worldwide. However, they are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of . Rising temperatures and changing cause big variations in from year to year, meaning that farmers cannot rely on the stability of their harvest, and their produce is at risk.

The researchers specifically investigated Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) as a way of mitigating climate change in the top grape, coffee and cacao growing regions of western Europe, South America and West Africa. SAI is a hypothetical solar geoengineering method that involves releasing reflective particles into the stratosphere to cool Earth’s surface, mimicking the natural cooling effects of volcanic eruptions.

Global initiative advances next-generation light sensors based on emerging materials

A global team of experts from academia and industry has joined forces in a landmark Consensus Statement on next-generation photodetectors based on emerging light-responsive materials, which could accelerate innovative applications across health care, smart homes, agriculture, and manufacturing.

Professor Vincenzo Pecunia, head of the Sustainable Optoelectronics Research Group (www.sfu.ca/see/soe), has led this global initiative culminating in the publication of a Consensus Statement in Nature Photonics. Featured on the journal’s cover, the paper provides a unified framework for characterizing, reporting, and benchmarking emerging light-sensing technologies. These guidelines could catalyze the adoption of such sensors across a wide range of applications, enhancing quality of life, productivity, and sustainability.

Light sensors, also known as photodetectors, are devices that convert light into electrical signals. They are at the heart of countless smart devices and represent a valued at over $30 billion, reflecting both their ubiquity and economic significance. Emerging photodetectors—including those based on organic semiconductors, perovskites, , and two-dimensional materials—could take this field even further by enabling ultrathin, flexible, stretchable, and lightweight sensors. These next-generation photodetectors promise lower costs, enhanced performance, and unique functionalities, paving the way for applications that were previously impossible.

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