Lifeboat Foundation

Microscopy and genetic studies yield a comprehensive map of the nerve cells found in the heart of a rat.

Understanding the prebiotic origins of the nucleic acids is a long-standing challenge. The latest experiments support the idea that the first nucleic acid encoded information using a mixed ‘alphabet’ of RNA and DNA subunits. RNA and DNA nucleosides might have emerged together on prebiotic Earth.

Circa 2016

The product is said to have the flexibility and durability of an OLED display, and can be applied to fabrics.

In a paper published in the journal Thorax, a team of Australia researchers described the first instance of complete COVID-19 testing of all passengers and crew on an isolated cruise ship during the current pandemic: of the 217 passengers and crew on board, 128 tested positive for COVID-19 on reverse transcription-PCR; of the COVID-19-positive patients, only 24 (19%) were symptomatic.

The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that launched SpaceX’s Demo-2 mission arrived in Port Canaveral, Florida, on Tuesday (June 2).

A couple of months ago I introduced you to a UK company that converts classic cars to electric propulsion. The company, named eDub Services, was founded by a young man named Kit Lacey, and since my piece on his business, he and I have been in conversation about this fascinating field of entrepreneurship. I have an old Volvo 240 in my garage that one day will need an electric drivetrain for sure, so getting acquainted with someone like Kit is a good bet.

I talked to Kit about the concrete and chronological information on his rebuilds and how we could make it accessible for all of us curious about how such projects can be carried out. This series is the result, in Kit Lacey’s own words. So let’s begin at the beginning.

Continue reading “Volkswagen T2 Camper Van Electric Conversion” »

Kitty Hawk is shutting down its Flyer program, the aviation startup’s inaugural moonshot to develop an ultralight electric flying car designed for anyone to use.

The company, backed by Google co-founder Larry Page and led by Sebastian Thrun, said it’s now focused on scaling up Heaviside, a sleeker, more capable (once secret) electric aircraft that is quiet, fast and can fly and land anywhere autonomously.

Kitty Hawk is laying off most of Flyer’s 70-person team, TechCrunch learned. A few employees will be brought over to work on Heaviside, according to the company. Those who are laid off will receive at least 20 weeks of pay, plus tenure, depending on how long they were with the company. Former workers will also receive their annual bonus and have their health insurance covered through the end of the year. The company said it will set up placement services to help people find employment.

Solar power systems with double-sided (bifacial) solar panels—which collect sunlight from two sides instead of one—and single-axis tracking technology that tilts the panels so they can follow the sun are the most cost effective to date, researchers report June 3rd in the journal Joule. They determined that this combination of technologies produces almost 35% more energy, on average, than immobile single-panel photovoltaic systems, while reducing the cost of electricity by an average of 16%.

“The results are stable, even when accounting for changes in the weather conditions and in the costs from the solar panels and the other components of the photovoltaic system, over a fairly wide range,” says first author Carlos Rodríguez-Gallegos, a research fellow at the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore, sponsored by the National University of Singapore. “This means that investing in bifacial and tracking systems should be a safe bet for the foreseeable future.”

Research efforts tend to focus on further boosting energy output from solar power systems by improving solar cell efficiency, but the energy yield per panel can also be increased in other ways. Double-sided solar panels, for example, produce more energy per unit area than their standard counterparts and can function in similar locations, including rooftops. This style of solar panel, as well as tracking technology that allows each panel to capture more light by tilting in line with the sun throughout the day, could significantly improve the energy yield of solar cells even without further advancements in the capabilities of the cells themselves. However, the combined contributions of these recent technologies have not been fully explored.

NASA is monitoring an asteroid that may be as large as the Empire State Building, expected to pass Earth on Saturday, June 6.

Asteroid 2002 NN4 is estimated to be 250–570 meters (820–1,870 feet) in diameter, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). New York City’s iconic Empire State Building is more than 1,400 feet tall at its tip.

The asteroid may seem daunting, but it will pass Earth at a safe distance, a representative for JPL told CBS News.