October 2022 – Lifeboat News: The Blog https://lifeboat.com/blog Safeguarding Humanity Tue, 01 Nov 2022 03:24:07 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 ‘Planet killer’ asteroid spotted hiding in the sun’s glare https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/planet-killer-asteroid-spotted-hiding-in-the-suns-glare Tue, 01 Nov 2022 03:24:07 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/planet-killer-asteroid-spotted-hiding-in-the-suns-glare

Astronomers have spotted three near-Earth asteroids that were lurking undetected within the glare of the sun. One of the asteroids is the largest potentially hazardous object posing a risk to Earth to be discovered in the last eight years.

The asteroids belong to a group found within the orbits of Earth and Venus, but they’re incredibly difficult to observe because the brightness of the sun shields them from telescope observations.

To avoid the sun’s glare, astronomers leaped at the chance to conduct their observations during the brief window of twilight. An international team spied the space rocks while using the Dark Energy Camera located on the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope located at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.

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New Entanglement Results Hint at Better Quantum Codes https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/new-entanglement-results-hint-at-better-quantum-codes Tue, 01 Nov 2022 03:23:46 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/new-entanglement-results-hint-at-better-quantum-codes

A team of physicists has entangled three photons over a considerable distance, which could lead to more powerful quantum cryptography.

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Elevating craftsmanship on Mount Baker https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/elevating-craftsmanship-on-mount-baker Tue, 01 Nov 2022 03:23:33 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/elevating-craftsmanship-on-mount-baker

Nature is ever-changing. Season after season, it grows and reshapes, constantly offering new things to see, explore, and connect with. In its perpetual state of evolution, nature serves as an endless source of inspiration for anyone looking to further their craft.

In the five-part content series Tasting Wild, acclaimed chef Melissa King (winner of Top Chef: Los Angeles All-Stars Season 17) teams up with National Geographic photographers and experts to experience nature’s creative power firsthand. Traveling to some of the most remote and unspoiled areas in the United States by way of the first-ever MAZDA CX-50, King pushes her boundaries to find inspiration, connect with the land, and fuel her creativity.

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Tuna use sharks as back scratchers despite risk of being eaten https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/tuna-use-sharks-as-back-scratchers-despite-risk-of-being-eaten Tue, 01 Nov 2022 03:23:08 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/tuna-use-sharks-as-back-scratchers-despite-risk-of-being-eaten

Sometimes, its worth the itch. 😄


Large yellowfin tuna fish prefer to scrape against sharks over members of their own species, possibly to pry off parasites.

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Elon Musk’s Twitter is planning to charge $20 for verification https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/elon-musks-twitter-is-planning-to-charge-20-for-verification Tue, 01 Nov 2022 03:22:42 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/elon-musks-twitter-is-planning-to-charge-20-for-verification

Just days after taking over Twitter, Elon Musk has issued an ultimatum to engineers over a new project.

According to a report from The Verge, Musk wants to launch a pay-for-play verification system in which verified users are charged $20 per month.

The kicker is that engineers have until November 7 to launch the scheme or face being fired. Employees were only told of the project on October 30.

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One of the Biggest Problems in Biology Has Finally Been Solved https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/one-of-the-biggest-problems-in-biology-has-finally-been-solved Tue, 01 Nov 2022 03:22:32 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/one-of-the-biggest-problems-in-biology-has-finally-been-solved

There’s an age-old adage in biology: structure determines function. In order to understand the function of the myriad proteins that perform vital jobs in a healthy body—or malfunction in a diseased one—scientists have to first determine these proteins’ molecular structure. But this is no easy feat: protein molecules consist of long, twisty chains of up to thousands of amino acids, chemical compounds that can interact with one another in many ways to take on an enormous number of possible three-dimensional shapes. Figuring out a single protein’s structure, or solving the protein-folding problem, can take years of finicky experiments.

But earlier this year an artificial intelligence program called AlphaFold, developed by the Google-owned company DeepMind, predicted the 3D structures of almost every known protein —about 200 million in all. DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and senior staff research scientist John Jumper were jointly awarded this year’s $3-million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for the achievement, which opens the door for applications that range from expanding our understanding of basic molecular biology to accelerating drug development.

DeepMind developed AlphaFold soon after its AlphaGo AI made headlines in 2016 by beating world Go champion Lee Sedol at the game. But the goal was always to develop AI that could tackle important problems in science, Hassabis says. DeepMind has made the structures of proteins from nearly every species for which amino acid sequences exist freely available in a public database.

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Hypermodern Magic https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/hypermodern-magic Tue, 01 Nov 2022 01:22:40 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/hypermodern-magic

Posthumanuniversity.com Now streaming.


Listen to Hypermodern Magic.

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ICON Unveils “House Zero” and Announces 2022 SXSW Activations https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/icon-unveils-house-zero-and-announces-2022-sxsw-activations Tue, 01 Nov 2022 01:22:20 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/icon-unveils-house-zero-and-announces-2022-sxsw-activations

How much did Musk pay for Twitter again? With everything the marketing of anything starts with demand. Was there demand for something better than Facebook and Twitter of course. Was there a demand to buy Twitter no. Kanye lost money but he didn’t lose $44 billion, as Musk probably realizes that $5 billion in yearly revenues isn’t guaranteed, especially if people pull a Kanye…so Musk wants to charge.

What is in demand then? Affordable housing is in demand because rents and inflation keep going up. $44 billion buys a lot of land. $25 Billion is $500 million in 50 states. This would have enabled Musk to spend $25 Billion on land alone. That always increase in value.


New 3D-printed Home Pushes the Boundaries of Resilient and Sustainable Architecture and Design; Official SXSW Event Tours of ICON’s “House Zero” Revealed for March 13–14, 2022.

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NASA’s mission to the heart of a dead protoplanet is back on https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/nasas-mission-to-the-heart-of-a-dead-protoplanet-is-back-on Mon, 31 Oct 2022 23:22:17 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/nasas-mission-to-the-heart-of-a-dead-protoplanet-is-back-on

The mission to explore a metallic asteroid could launch in October 2023.


The agency announced on October 28 that after months of scrutiny, an independent review board has decided it’s possible to move forward with the Psyche mission — humanity’s first venture to a metallic asteroid, 16 Psyche.

What’s New – The Psyche mission is now on track to launch in October 2023, which means it could reach its namesake destination in August 2029 after a gravity-assist swing past Mars in 2026. In the meantime, the mission team is testing the spacecraft’s flight software, something that became a sticking point back in June when NASA realized that Psyche stood no chance of being ready in time for its original mid-October 2022 launch date.

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Will The Solar Panels We Use Today Stand The Test Of Time? https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/will-the-solar-panels-we-use-today-stand-the-test-of-time Mon, 31 Oct 2022 21:22:19 +0000 https://lifeboat.com/blog/2022/10/will-the-solar-panels-we-use-today-stand-the-test-of-time

How resilient are solar panels in the face of extreme weather events?


Guest contributor Jane Marsh explores the current capability of solar panel technology in the face of increasing extreme climate events.

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