Lifeboat Foundation

Air pollution is responsible for millions of deaths every year, worldwide. According to a State of Global Air report, air pollution is the fifth greatest global mortality risk.

“Air pollution is the fifth highest cause of death among all health risks, ranking just below smoking; each year, more people die from air pollution related disease than from road traffic injuries or malaria.”

No wonder, then, that when Google.org issued an open call to organizations around the world to submit ideas for how they could use AI for societal challenges, Google chose one of the 20 winning organizations as one that was out to address pollution.

Continue reading “Eyes in the sky project will show power plant pollution marks” »

Circa 2018

A moss capable of removing arsenic from contaminated water has been discovered by researchers from Stockholm University. And it happens quickly — in just one hour, the arsenic level is so low that the water is no longer harmful for people to drink. The study has been published in the journal Environmental Pollution.

The aquatic moss Warnstofia fluitans, which grows in northern Sweden, has the ability to quickly absorb and adsorb arsenic from water. The discovery allows for an environmentally friendly way to purify water of arsenic. One possible scenario is to grow the moss in streams and other watercourses with high levels of arsenic.

Water in mining areas often contaminated

Continue reading “Moss capable of removing arsenic from drinking water discovered” »

When designing the Tesla Model S, Elon Musk wanted an electric motor that had the same horsepower as the most powerful internal combustion engine but with nearly-instantaneous torque. And he wanted it to be the size of a watermelon. Engine manufacturers told him this couldn’t be done. So the Tesla CEO decided to build his own motor. The earlier versions of this had a hand-wound stator which increased winding density to help eliminate resistance and increase peak torque. Later versions of the stators were built by robots.

Musk made the same decision with practically every other component of the Tesla — including the power electronics and other elements of the drivetrain. For him, there could be no compromises in design and functionality. That is why almost every component of the Tesla Model S is produced at its factory in Fremont, Calif.

When you drive a Model S, you can see the results. The car literally seems to fly. It picks up acceleration like a spaceship shifting into warp speed. The car is eerily quiet, comfortable, and elegant. It is a completely different driving experience than the cars we are used to. There is no engine to start, gears to shift, or oil to replace. The brakes don’t wear out because you hardly use them. The Tesla regenerative-braking system charges the car as it slows.

Continue reading “Tesla will have a $35K car that can go 1,000 miles on a single charge by 2020” »

Chinese EV maker Enovate, which already has an electric SUV on the market, is claiming their upcoming 2021 ME-S model will arrive in 2021 with a long-sought-after power source: A solid-state battery. If they can pull off the tech, it could signal a revolution in the EV market.

Agriculture is changing. This is who’s leading the charge.

A new Li-ion battery technology developed by the US Army has piqued the interest of Jeff Dahn, Tesla’s main battery research partner.

In the latest issue of the journal Nature, the CCDC Army Research Laboratory (ARL), which is an element of the U.S. Army, released a study demonstrating a new battery technology based on a new cathode chemistry.

Continue reading “Tesla battery researcher is ‘excited’ about new battery tech developed by the Army” »

New Features

The car is lower to the ground, with large, narrow wheels closer to the front and back ends of the car, all of which are expected to improve the car’s range, per The Guardian.

Dyson CEO and namesake James Dyson sent an email out to all the staff members urging secrecy around the project, but defended the decision to file these new patents, writing that the car would “include fundamentally new technologies and make some inventive leaps,” according to the Guardian.

Continue reading “Vacuum Maker Dyson Patents Off-Road Electric Car” »

Tiny light-emitting microalgae, found in the ocean, could hold the secret to the next generation of organic solar cells, according to new research carried out at the Universities of Birmingham and Utrecht.

Microalgae are probably the oldest surviving living organisms on the planet. They have evolved over billions of years to possess light harvesting systems that are up to 95 per cent efficient. This enables them to survive in the most extreme environments, and adapt to changes our world has seen over this time-span.

Unravelling how this system works could yield important clues about how it could be used or recreated for use in new, super-efficient organic solar panels. Because of the complexity of the organisms and the huge variety of different species, however, progress in this area has been limited.

Continue reading “Secrets of fluorescent microalgae could lead to super-efficient solar cells” »

The home is made from a biodegradable biopolymer basalt composite, ideal for a sustainable space mission.