Category Archives: Futurism

In Brief A recent filing reveals that some of Tesla's executives are involved with a venture startup that will recycle materials for manufacturing. Could the California-based firm Redwood Materials be another Tesla project?

Elon Musk has been hitting the headlines lately because of two companies he recently startedup: his Boring Company and his brain-hacking venture Neuralink. The serial entrepreneur has been very busy lately, what with SpaceXs recent accomplishments and the latest developments in Tesla. And speaking of Tesla, rumor has it that theres another new venture in the works.

Evidence about this new initiative comes from an SEC filing which revealed a $2 million investment in a recently incorporated firm called Redwood Materials. According to a write-up by CB Insights, this supposed new company doesnt involve Musk directly, just some of Teslas executives: CTO JB Straubel and Special Projects head Andrew Stevenson. Both Straubel and Stevenson are listed as executives of Redwood Materials, with the latter as CFO.

The Califronia-based firm describes itselfas focused on advanced technology and process development for materials recycling, remanufacturing, and reuse. Could Redwood Materials be Teslas entry into the recycling industry, as part of its efforts to make manufacturing greener?

Until Tesla official says anything about it, we can only surmise what connections it has if any to Redwood Materials. Its possible though, especially since Stevenson once mentioned in a speechthat re-thinking the materials supply chain is an area of innovation for Tesla. Recycling materials could well be useful for Teslas vehicle and solar technologies.

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Tesla May Be Launching a Mysterious Startup For Materials Recycling - Futurism

In Brief The DARPA Targeted Neuroplasticity Training (TNT) program is exploring ways to speed up skill acquisition by activating synaptic plasticity. If the program succeeds, downloadable learning that happens in a flash may be the result. Mindhack For Faster Learning

In March 2016, DARPA the U.S. militarys mad science branch announced their Targeted Neuroplasticity Training (TNT) program. The TNT program aims to explore various safe neurostimulation methods foractivating synaptic plasticity, which is the brains ability to alter theconnecting points betweenneurons a requirement for learning. DARPA hopes that building up that abilityby subjecting the nervous system to a kind of workout regimen will enable the brain to learn more quickly.

As part of the TNT program, DARPA is funding eight projects at seven institutions. All projects are part of a coordinated effort that will first study the fundamental science undergirding brain plasticity and will conclude with human trials. The first portion of the TNT program will work to unravel the neural mechanisms that allow nerve stimulation to influence brain plasticity. The second portion of the program will practically apply what has been learned in a variety of training exercises.

To ensure the work stays practical, foreign language specialists, intelligence analysts, and others who train personnel now will work with researchers to help refine the TNT platform to suit military training needs. Researchers will compare the efficacy of using animplanted device to stimulate the brain versus non-invasive stimulation. They will also explore both the ethics of enhanced learning through neurostimulation and ways to avoid side effects and potential risks.

The Defense Department operates in a complex, interconnected world in which human skills such as communication and analysis are vital, and the Department has long pushed the frontiers of training to maximize those skills, Doug Weber, the TNT Program Manager, said in a DARPA press release. DARPAs goal with TNT is to further enhance the most effective existing training methods so the men and women of our Armed Forces can operate at their full potential.

If the TNT program succeeds, striving to be all you can be may mean learning at a much faster pace, and not just for military personnel. Downloadable learning may be one of the ways we achieve next-level humanity.

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DARPA Is Planning to Hack the Human Brain to Let Us Upload Skills - Futurism

In Brief In India, air pollution has become a public health crisis as well as an economic one, and the government is responding in a big way: by 2030 all cars sold in the country will be electric. Going Electric

Indias coal and mines minister, Piyush Goyal, just revealed some exciting new plans: by the year 2030, every car sold in India will be electric. The aim of this move is to lower the costs of running electric vehicles and importing fuel, and to improvepopulation health.

We are going to introduce electric vehicles in a very big way, minister Piyush Goyal remarked at the Confederation of Indian Industry Annual Session 2017 in New Delhi. Speaking with reporters, he compared the initiative to the successful 2015 promotion of LED lightbulbs, which was intended to reduce energy bills: We are going to make electric vehicles self-sufficient. The idea is that by 2030, not a single petrol or diesel car should be sold in the country.

According to The Independent, Mr. Goyal estimated that the electric car industry would require government assistance initially, but for only two to three years. After that, the Indian government expects the production of electric vehicles will be driven by demand and not subsidy.

In India, air pollution has become a public health crisis as well as an economic one. This is only poised to get worse without immediate, meaningful intervention. While India is somewhat ahead of the curve on this issue feeling the pressure first due to high-density areas it isnt the only country in this position.China is making new strides in sustainable energy for similar reasons.

Earlier this year, Greenpeace released a report that attributed as many as 2.3 million deaths annually to air pollution in India. The reportentitledAirpocalypse calls air pollution a public health and economic crisis for Indians, pointing out that the number of air pollution deaths in the nation are only a fraction less than the number of tobacco deaths. Furthermore, a full 3 percent of Indias gross domestic product (GDP) is devoured by toxic smog in the form of healthcare and other remediation costs.

Finally, the report indicates that without immediate action and a robust monitoring system, the problem will worsen: Indias pollution trends have been steadily increasing, with India overtaking China in number of deaths due to outdoor air pollution in 2015. For example, Delhi Indias most polluted city was found to have particulate matter concentrations 13 times the yearly limit set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Apparently, the Indian government knows that now is the time to act, and will target dense urban centers first. Mr. Goyal indicated that the electric car plan would focus on larger consumer centers, where pollution is at an all-time high, first.

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Every Single Car Sold In India Will Be Electric By 2030 - Futurism

In Brief

This past weekend, the tech world was abuzz with the most recent developments discussed by mega-CEO Elon Musk at the annual TED conference in Vancouver.

During his talk, Musk updated the crowd on some of his most anticipated projects, including his future vision for The Boring Company, the all-electric semi-truck from Tesla, as well as developments regarding the Gigafactory. This progress was already covered over the weekend, but now we have a video of his entire talk.

Musk dazzled audiences with a video presentationthat displayed a network of underground tunnels. Vehicles were skirted through the tunnels at high speeds on proprietary platforms, dubbed skates. During the talk, Musk stated that Theres no real limit to how many levels of tunnels you can have. The deepest mines are much deeper than the tallest buildings are tall, suggesting that his plans for the company are titanic in scale.

Musk also gave the audience a glimpse into Teslas new heavy-duty electric truck. The all-electric vehicle is said to be capable of rivaling or surpassing sports cars in terms of performance.

He also, of course, discussed SpaceX and his vision of putting humans on Mars.

To the uninitiated, Musk can look a lot like a Wizard of Oz type figure. However, unlike the wizard, Musks magic is being backed up by both action andverifiable science.

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Elon Musk Just Unveiled His Plans for the Future in a Ted Talk - Futurism

In BriefA spin-off of an ambitious idea to refreeze the Arctic usingmachines is about to get a trial run in Switzerland where a team ofresearchers plan to add ice to a glacier in the Alps using snowmachines. Snow Machines

One of the strongest and most obvious indications of global warming is the receding polar ice caps, most specifically, the Arctic sheets. In February of this year, scientists brought up a peculiar solutionfor combating melting ice caps: refreezing them. Now, this seemingly outlandish idea is about to get a test run in Switzerland.

The pilot Swiss plan is similar to the proposed Arctic solution, except instead of entire ice caps, the target would be a small, artificial glacierat the foot of the Diavolezzafirn glacier. Whilethe Arctic plan proposed the use of wind-powered pumpsto spew water on top of ice, this mini-version of the project willuse snow machines to preserve the glacier over the summer by covering it with artificially created snow.

We have to carry the glacier through the summer, Utrecht University researcher Johannes Oerlemans explained toNew Scientist.

This ambitious plan is one of several ideas to combat global warming, which range from decreasing fossil fuel dependence to even geoengineering the planet.

If it works, the next step would be to try it out on the larger Morteratsch glacier in the eastern Swiss Alps, a plan Oerlemans recently presented at an annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria. Rising temperatures due to global warming have caused this vast valley glacier to recede at an alarming rate of 30 to 40 meters (98 to 131 feet) each year, according to a New Scientist report.

Oerlemans and his colleagues, however, dont just plan to keep the Swiss glaciers from receding. They want to grow them back, and 4,000 snow machines might just do the trick. In principle, even the snout could grow back, said Oerlemans. Within 20 years, he concluded, the glacier might be able to grow by 800 meters (2,625 feet) if researchers blow just a few centimeters of artificial snow over a 0.5 square kilometer (.19 sqaure mile) plateau each summer to give it cover.

In the case of the Arctic, however, it wouldnt be that simple. The area is huge, roughly 107square kilometers(3.8 million square miles), and the plan to refreeze it with water pump would require a hugeinvestment. If it worked, however, an extra meter of sea ice could be added in just one year, according to the Arctic plan, winding the ice cap clock back by 17 years.

Buying that sort of time might just be worth the effort required to put seemingly impossible ideas to fight climate change into action, and this smaller project in Switzerland could providethe confidence needed to give them a shot.

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Researchers Have Started a Trial to Refreeze the Arctic - Futurism - Futurism

Achieving First Plasma

After being turned on for the first time, the UKs newest fusion reactor has achieved first plasma. This simply means that the reactor was able to successfully generate a molten mass of electrically-charged gas plasma inside its core.

Called the ST40, the reactor was constructed by Tokamak Energy, one of the leading private fusion energy companies in the world. The company was founded in 2009 with the express purpose of designing and developing small fusion reactors to introduce fusion power into the grid by 2030.

Now that the ST40 is running, the company will commission and install the complete set of magnetic coils needed to reach fusion temperatures. The ST40 should be creating a plasma temperature as hot as the center of the Sun 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit) by Autumn 2017.

By 2018, the ST40 will produce plasma temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius (180 million degrees Fahrenheit), another record-breaker for a privately owned and funded fusion reactor. That temperature threshold is important, as it is the minimum temperature for inducing the controlled fusion reaction. Assuming the ST40 succeeds, it will prove that its novel designcan produce commercially viable fusion power.

Tokamak Energy CEO David Kingham commented in a press release: Today is an important day for fusion energy development in the UK, and the world. We are unveiling the first world-class controlled fusion device to have been designed, built, and operated by a private venture. The ST40 is a machine that will show fusion temperatures 100 million degrees are possible in compact, cost-effective reactors. This will allow fusion power to be achieved in years, not decades.

Nuclear fusion is a potentially revolutionary power source. It is the same process that fuels stars like our Sun, and could produce a potentially limitless supply of clean energy without producing dirty waste or any significant amount of carbon emissions. In contrast to nuclear fission, the atom splitting that todays nuclear reactors engage in, nuclear fusion requires salt and water, and involves fusing atoms together. Its primary waste product is helium. Its easy to see why scientists have tried to figure out how to achieve this here on Earth, but thus far its been elusive.

The journey toward fusion energy undertaken by Tokamak Energy is planned in the short-term and moving quickly; the company has already achieved its half-way goal for fusion power delivery. Their ultimate targets include producing the first electricity using the ST40 by 2025 and producing commercially viable fusion power by 2030.

Kingham remarked in the press release: We will still need significant investment, many academic and industrial collaborations, dedicated and creative engineers and scientists, and an excellent supply chain. Our approach continues to be to break the journey down into a series of engineering challenges, raising additional investment on reaching each new milestone.

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A World First Fusion Reactor Just Created Its First Plasma - Futurism

In Brief Cryptocurrencies Ether and Bitcoin are trading at record prices, and while no one is sure why that is, political uncertainty seems to correlate with the trends. This reflects an evolving way of thinking about money and how we should keep it safe. Bitcoin Boom

Both Ether and Bitcoin prices are trading at a record high right now, and no one is entirely sure what is happening in the world of cryptocurrency thats pushing this surge. According to the Coindesk price index, bitcoin peaked today, May 1,at $1,444. That high represents an increase of approximately 12percent over the course of 7 days, part of an increase of 33percent over the month of April.

Romain Dillet of TechCrunch has noted that Bitcoin and Ether prices tend to rise when the world is receiving bad news: If Donald Trump tweets about North Korea, chances are it will have positive effect on cryptocurrencies. Conversely, I noticed a micro-crash minutes after the results of the first round of the French election prices went up again minutes later. Marine Le Pen arrived second, which was a good sign for traditional currencies like USD and EUR.

This trend reflects the evolution of how we think about money and what it means to keep money safe. As the political outlook appears less predictable and governments seemmore unstable and even corrupt, cryptocurrencies are considereda safer investment than traditional currencies and markets. They are not tied to any one government or political system, and they offer a verifiable trail so investors can watch what happens to their money.

In times when governments can look more incompetent or untrustworthy than consumers prefer, at least we can depend on cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

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Cryptocurrency All-Time Highs Reveal How Blockchain Is Transforming Our World - Futurism

Controlling the Message

Major changes in the message sent by the United States government began the moment Donald Trump took his oath of office on January20th. Shortly after the inauguration, all mentions of climate change and itshuman origins were deleted from the White House website. These pages have yet to be restored.

These pages have yet to be restored.

The administration continued to try and control their messaging with public information updates. In their latest act, the website for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been purged of a great deal of the science related to anthropogenic global warming. One of the removed pages was recently used to refute claims made by Scott Pruitt, the head of the agency.

In an interview last month with CNBC, Pruitt stated that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and theres tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that its a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. Previously the page stated that it is extremely likely that human activities have been the dominant cause of that warming. It comes as no surprise that the administration is removing this language from its site. You simply cannot have an agencys website fundamentally disagreeing with the statementsmade by those running it.

The old site has been archived with a red banner on top which labels the information as purely historical. In a statement, J.P. Freire, associate administrator for public affairs for the EPA, stated As EPA renews its commitment to human health and clean air, land, and water, our website needs to reflect the views of the leadership of the agency. We want to eliminate confusion by removing outdated language first and making room to discuss how were protecting the environment and human health by partnering with states and working within the law.

In response, Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, told the Washington Post, Its hard to understand why facts require revision. To the same end, former EPA department head Janet McCabe stated Historical and factual information about these issues, and regulations over time, is something that EPA has always made available to people. It belongs to the people, and people should be able to find it easily.

The top level EPA page now refers to a Back to Basics approach, which apparentlyincludes an agenda with three tenets: protecting the environment, engaging with partners, and sensible regulations for economic growth. Examples of this approach show Pruitt meeting with workers at a coal power plant.

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EPA Website Purged of Climate Change Information to Align With Trump Administration Claims - Futurism

In BriefThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hasdeveloped a website that can show you the potential future impactof climate change, down to the very neighborhood. The tool gives apersonal touch to the potential esoteric topic. Local Lessons

The climate is changing. Most people know that its changing, and a sizeable majority even say theyworry about those changes.But at the same time,just 40% of Americans think its going to harm them personally. And just 33% of Americans say they talk about climate change even occasionally.

One of the reasons for this discrepancy may be that discussion of climate science tends to happen at the 30,000-foot level examining global shifts in average temperatures and weather or focuses on extreme environments, like the Arctic, where the impacts of climate change are most extreme.But climate change is going to impact every corner of the Earth in some way or another.

Thats why the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations slick new online Climate Exploreris so fascinating.

The updated system lets you zip across the 48 contiguous states (and Washington DC), and see for yourself how the local climate in any given neighborhood is likely to change between 2010 and 2100. The Climate Explorer also includes data on how the climate has behaved between 1950 and 2010; scroll forward in time, and youre seeingdata pulled from international climate models.

NOAAs site plots out changes according to two possible futures one in which global emissions peak in 2040 and then begin to decrease, and another in which emissions keep increasing apace. Take a look.

This image swipes back and forth between the two scenarios in a map of the country in 2090. Darker shades of red indicate more days each year above 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

That darkest red, visible around Phoenix, Arizona, as well as parts of southern Texas and Florida in the high-emissions scenario, indicates as many as 225 days over 95 each year.

The chart shows the difference between the two scenarios.

The red area indicates the range of possibilities for the higher-emissions scenario, and the blue area indicates the range for lower emissions. Those lines down the middle indicate the most likely outcomes.

You can see that for Cherry Hill, the difference between high and low emissions amounts to about 50 days with highs over95 degrees each year by 2090. Thats a lot of dangerously hot weather.

You can see the northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest turning brown in both scenarios, signaling theyre likely to get much drier.

But California shows the most dramatic impacts to precipitation. Look at that deep brown in Northern California, where the climate is expected to dry out. Then flick your eye down to deep green Southern California, expected to get a whole lot wetter than its been historically.

The darkest blue indicates deep subfreezingtemperatures highs of 20 degrees or lower.

As it gets lighter, were in the territory of 32 degrees highs right around freezing.

Some counties in these scenarios, particularly the high emissions scenario, show average highs above freezing in January. Thats a major shift for the region, with potential impacts on local life, ecosystems, and economies.

(Cook County includes Chicago.)

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Remarkable Interactive Graphs Show How Climate Change Could Transform Your Town - Futurism

In BriefThough the undertaking will no doubt include many challenges,NASA is finally ready to make humanity's dream of sending people toMars a reality. To that end, the agency has shared its five-partplan for reaching the Red Planet. The Mars Mission

Humanity has been fascinated by Mars since long before we stepped foot on the Moon. Our planetaryneighbor has been the subject of innumerable works of sci-fi and inspired countless dreams of adventure and exploration. Now,after decades of determination, research, and scientific breakthroughs, were finally ready to do it: humans are going to Mars. Really.

On March 21, President Trump issued a mandate for NASA: get people to Marsby 2033. One week later, NASA responded with its most detailed plan to date for reaching the Red Planet, and itdetails five phases along the road to Mars.

Were in Phase 0 now, conducting tests at the International Space Station (ISS) and developing partnerships with private space companies. Phase I will span 2018 to 2025 and will include the launch and testing of six SLS rockets. Those rockets will deliver components of the Deep Space Gateway (DSG), a new space station to be built near the Moon toserve astronauts en route to Mars.

After that, Phase II will launch the Deep Space Transport (DST) tube toward the lunar station in 2027, and in 2028 or 2029, astronauts will inhabit the tube for more than 400 days. In 2030, Phase III will see the DST restocked with supplies and the Mars crew via SLS rocket. Phase IV, of course, will be the trip itself in 2033.

That means were just a scant 16 years away from reaching a goal that has eluded every generation that came before us.

Completing the mission within their budget will be a challenge for NASA. That budget is currentlyabout .5 percent of the total U.S. budget. For comparison, it was more than four percent during the Apollo Moon missions.

The mission to Mars includes obstacles beyond budget keeping astronauts healthy and reasonably happy on the journey is chief among them. Without stopovers between Earth and Mars, astronauts will need to port everything they need with them, including air, food, and water, for a round-trip duration of two or three years.

Mental healthis likely to be aconcern for Mars astronauts, too, as they will essentially be sealed into the space tube for years at a time, with no ability for an emergency return once they leaveCislunar space. NASAs HI-SEAS isolation experiment has shown promising results, but it is likely that the journey wont be possible for everyone.

NASA also has competition in the race to get to Mars. Both Boeing and SpaceX hope to get there first, with SpaceX setting the lofty goal of arriving in 2022.

Ultimately, though, we all benefit from the friendly competition in the race toward Mars and the creative solutions it will almost certainly generate. If private companies work out some of these human challenges before NASA can, the agency can build on their experiences and spend its budget and efforts on other problems. In the end, the goal of putting humans on Mars will have been reached, irrespective of which organizationcrosses the finish line first.

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It's Official. Humans Are Going to Mars. NASA Has Unveiled Their Mission. - Futurism