Lifeboat Foundation

Advances in astronomical observations have resulted in the discovery of an extraordinary number of extrasolar planets, some of which are believed to have a rocky composition similar to Earth. Learning more about their interior structure could provide important clues about their potential habitability.

Led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), a team of researchers aims to unlock some of these secrets by understanding the properties of iron oxide —one of the constituents of Earth’s mantle—at the extreme pressures and temperatures that are likely found in the interiors of these large rocky extrasolar planets. The results of their experiments were published today in Nature Geoscience.

“Because of the limited amount of data available, the majority of interior structure models for rocky exoplanets assume a scaled-up version of the Earth, consisting of an iron core, surrounded by a mantle dominated by silicates and oxides. However, this approach largely neglects the different properties the constituent materials may have at pressures exceeding those existing inside the Earth,” said Federica Coppari, LLNL physicist and lead author on the study. “With the ever-increasing number of confirmed exoplanets, including those believed to be rocky in nature, it is critical to gain a better understanding of how their planetary building blocks behave deep inside such bodies.”

Whether toting the neighborhood kids home after soccer practice or loading up for a road trip, SUVs offer the ultimate in vehicle utility. If you’re in the market for an electric SUV though, the options are both few and pricey. Unless of course you head on over to the coolest little corner of the web, the electric vehicle market on Alibaba.

Eviation’s Alice is the world’s first full-size, all-electric passenger plane.

In a recent interview, he said the next big disasters facing humanity are climate change and bioterrorism.

Gates was asked about the next crises the world may have to confront.

Continue reading “Bill Gates, who predicted the pandemic, names the next two monster disasters that could shake our world” »

Elon Musk is serious about making the upcoming Tesla Roadster “hover” with rocket technology in new comments about the electric supercar.

When first unveiling the vehicle, Tesla claimed a list of impressive specs for its new Roadster, including 0–60 mph in 1.9 sec, 620-mile of range, and more.

The CEO has been also teasing those specs as the “base specs,” and other versions should have even crazier performance.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave some details about the prospective electric van that the company could develop in the coming years. In an interview with Joe Rogan on the comedian’s podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience, Musk indicated that a van’s design would be more favorable to equip solar panels for stationary charging.

During Tesla’s Q4 2020 Earnings Call, TBC Capital Markets analyst Joseph Spak asked Musk about the possibility of developing an all-electric van. Vans have become a major player in the EV space since Rivian was contracted by e-commerce giant Amazon to build 100000 electric delivery vans. The vans have recently started testing in Southern California. Ford also developed an electric version of its Transit van.

The prospect of Tesla developing an electric van was confirmed by Musk during the Earnings Call.

Bladeless turbines for wind energy. 😃

Air conditioners and other cooling systems are among our biggest consumers of electricity, so finding ways to passively cool buildings will be important in our increasingly warmer future. Now, researchers at the University at Buffalo have developed a prototype hybrid device that can not only cool buildings drastically without using electricity, it can capture solar energy to heat water.

Created in many forms over the years, radiative cooling systems absorb heat from inside a room or building, and emit it in infrared waves towards the sky. At those wavelengths, the Earth’s atmosphere is “invisible” to the radiation, meaning there’s nothing stopping the heat from venting directly into the cold of outer space.

These devices use panels made of materials that can absorb and emit the heat. The logical way to orient these thermal emitter panels is to have one face pointing towards the sky, like a solar panel, but the team on the new study says that’s not the most efficient method. The panels emit heat from both sides, so in that position some of the heat is being emitted back towards the ground.

In the awful wake of an oil spill, it’s typically the smallest of organisms who do most of the cleaning up. Surprisingly, scientists know very little about the tools these tiny clean-up crews have at their disposal.