Future
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Instead of differentiating people on the basis of their “religion” (as Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc.), what if we differentiated people according to their temporal orientation? We could divide people into Pasters, Presentists, and Futurians. Let’s see what happens. Pasters. These are people ... Read More
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What's the Latest Development? Physicists at the University of Innsbruck have taken an essential step toward creating quantum computers, which may prove vastly more powerful than today's chip-based technology. By creating a network that interfaces between a single ion and a single proton, in a ... Read More
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What's the Latest Development? Science fiction writer Elizabeth Moon argues that implanting a computer chip beneath everyone's skin at birth would make the world better off. While participating in a discussion over whether future wars will have more or fewer victims, Moon put forward the idea ... Read More
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Our anxiety about information overload is unwarranted, says James Gleick, even in the digital age. The internet will cause a readjustment in the way we think, but so did the telegraph, the radio, and the telephone. Read More
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What's the Latest Development? As the world's first privately-built space capsule hurtles toward the International Space Station, Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX is responsible for the feat, is the talk of the nation. After its successful launch, the Dragon capsule is scheduled to dock with the ... Read More
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What's the Latest Development? Plans to engineer the Earth's climate, so as to reduce the amount of sunshine that reaches the planet's surface and prevent the consequences of global warming, are proving extremely controversial. The European project IMPLICC, or Implications and Risks of Novel ... Read More
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What's the Latest Development? China's economy is much more than state-built housing and widgets made with cheap labor, or at least it could be. Mobile technology has been booming in China--analysts say the one billionth Chinese mobile customer recently switched on his or her new cellphone--and ... Read More
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What's the Latest Development? Australian philosopher Patrick Stokes argues that the persistence of our online profiles after our physical death makes us immortal in a very meaningful sense. If our fear of death is not limited to the extinction of our physical being, but extends to include our ... Read More
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What's the Big Idea? David Eagleman's Laboratory for Perception is located on the ground floor of Baylor College of Medicine, but the vibe is more creative think tank than clinical academic enclave. The walls are enamelled in dry-erase paint and marked up with impromptu sketches, arrows, and ... Read More
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We’re entering a very interesting stage of human history right now where we can start importing technology to enhance our natural senses or perception of the world, says neuroscientist David Eagleman. Read More
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Class of 2012, you’ve heard it before: you will graduate into a world transformed by the global financial crisis. Unemployment among young people is at its highest rate since WWII, and the average 22-year-old now enters adulthood with $23,000 in debt. The total amount owed by students in the U.S ... Read More
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What's the Latest Development? Yale philosophy professor Shelly Kagan is pretty sure death is a bad for a person but he can't put his finger on the precise reason. Take these two different scenarios: (1) Your friend is about to begin a 100 year space mission and, even more dramatic, radio ... Read More
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Internet pioneer Jaron Lanier argues that free technologies like Facebook come with a hidden and heavy cost – the livelihoods of their consumers. Read More
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What’s the Big Idea? Facebook shares start trading today, at a price that will value the company at close to $100 billion, or roughly the 2011 GDP of Sudan. The difference between this and other comparably enormous initial public offerings is that Facebook's product, or service, is free. Its ... Read More
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What's the Latest Development? Scientists at the Department of Energy's Berkeley Lab have genetically engineered a virus known as M13 to emit electricity when pressure is applied to it. "M13 is a natural power source, but researchers enhanced its output by genetically engineering the virus ... Read More
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What's the Latest Development? When it comes to mining the moon for precious resources, the question is "when", not "if", says Dr. Leonhard Bernold, an engineering professor at the University of New South Wales. We know the lunar surface contains abundant amounts of so-called rare Earth metals ... Read More
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What's the Latest Development? The technical specifications for a real Star Ship Enterprise, the space ship known from the TV show Star Trek, have been released by an engineer whose Web moniker is BTE Dan. While the show predicted the first Enterprise would be built by 2245, Dan believes it can ... Read More
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What's the Latest Development? We're sorry to inform you that the asteroid mining position you were seeking has been filled. Just three weeks after the firm Planetary Resources announced its intention to mine asteroids for water and precious metals, it has received over 2,000 applications from ... Read More
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Living PlanIT is a company that aims to build the new, sustainable cities of the future. They are teaming up with different partners to help them develop and implement new infrastructure ideas, including buildings that use 50% less energy and 80% less water. Their test city, PlanIT Valley in ... Read More
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DIY Drones is the largest Unmanned Aerial Vehicle community on the web. The website allows enthusiasts to analyze, compare, and troubleshoot each other's UAV projects through an open-source atmosphere. The possible uses in our daily lives are endless, from medical emergencies to everyday search ... Read More
