Lifeboat Foundation

MIT’s biodegradable surgical tape is designed to seal tears in the gastrointestinal tract, potentially preventing sepsis-causing leaks.

The strongest part of a tree lies not in its trunk or its sprawling roots, but in the walls of its microscopic cells.

A single wood cell wall is constructed from fibers of cellulose—nature’s most abundant polymer, and the main structural component of all plants and algae. Within each fiber are reinforcing cellulose nanocrystals, or CNCs, which are chains of organic polymers arranged in nearly perfect crystal patterns. At the nanoscale, CNCs are stronger and stiffer than Kevlar. If the crystals could be worked into materials in significant fractions, CNCs could be a route to stronger, more sustainable, naturally derived plastics.

Now, an MIT team has engineered a composite made mostly from cellulose nanocrystals mixed with a bit of synthetic polymer. The organic crystals take up about 60 to 90 percent of the material—the highest fraction of CNCs achieved in a composite to date.

SpaceX sets records, Tesla makes a change, Elon Musk prepares for liftoff.

SpaceX sets Falcon 9 records and prepares for Starship, Tesla makes a change in its Full-Self Driving software, Elon Musk prepares for Starship’s eventual liftoff.

In its Series E financing round, Plenty Unlimited secured $400 million – the largest investment to date for an indoor farming company. In addition to Walmart and existing investor SoftBank, new partners One Madison Group and JS Capital also participated in the round.

Plenty Unlimited will use this funding to support its growth strategy, including leveraging its technology platform to sell multi-crop farms directly to partners.

“The indoor farming sector is at an exciting inflection point, poised to reach its full potential as a new asset class that addresses the significant need to provide access to fresh, nutritious food year-round, even in geographies where traditional farming is difficult,” said Omar Asali, Chairman and CEO of One Madison Group. “Plenty has truly ‘cracked the code’ on the technology and economics of indoor farming. It has developed an innovative and scalable model that can deliver fresh, sustainable produce to retailers, growers and governments anywhere in the world.”

Autonomous, electric vehicles are driving around Yellowstone National Park in a new test program that could become a permanent mode of transportation.

Last week, the park debuted its new “TEDDY” program — or The Electronic Driverless Demonstration in Yellowstone.

Continue reading “Yellowstone National Park Testing Out Driverless Shuttles This Summer” »

Swedish power company Vattenfall has announced plans to embark on further research into whether painting one of the three blades on a wind turbine black can help to reduce the number of bird collisions, with a new three-year study.

Despite stories spread by some media outlets and across social media platforms, wind turbines have been shown to be much less likely to kill birds compared to other man-made obstacles and threats, including coal-fired power plants, as one prime example.

Nevertheless, Vattenfall is seeking to mitigate the impact wind turbines can have on bird populations through a new study in the Dutch seaport of Eemshaven.

An EV may be your next tow vehicle — and the options just keep getting better.

If you’re looking for the best EV for towing a trailer or boat, you’re in luck. There are more electrified cars and trucks available in the automotive marketplace today than ever before, and quite a few are engineered to tow some substantial weight.

A complete compendium of those EVs offering maximum trailer weight ratings of at least 1,500 pounds could go on forever. You don’t have forever, so we rounded up a representative group of the electric vehicles available today that offer maximum trailer weight ratings ranging from 1,500 to 10,000-plus pounds. One of these smart and powerful EVs just might be your best EV that can tow.

And it doubles up as a backup energy unit and a camper.

Norwegian tech startup Fresco Motors just revealed its new Fresco XL, an electric vehicle (EV) that it claims will have a range of 620 miles (1,000 km). If the claim is true, it would make it the longest-range EV in the world.

Continue reading “It’s Official. Lucid Air Is the Longest-Range EV Ever” »