Category Archives: Futurism

In Brief Today, Elon Musk revealed that a host of new vehicles will be coming from Tesla. These next-level forms of transport will reduce environmental costs and significantly improve safety on the road with their AI capabilities. Keep On Trucking

Today, Elon Musk officially confirmed that a seriously next level Tesla semi-truck is coming this September. He also praised the Tesla team for doing an amazing job, and he mentioned a convertible roadster and a pickup truck that should be to market in just18 to 24 months.

This development is really no surprise to many, as rumors and speculations have long suggested that Tesla trucks were on the way. Still, the confirmation reveals that Musk is serious about disrupting the transportationindustry.

Its easy to see why hed be feeling pretty proud of the Tesla team at this point. They company is now the most valuable automaker in the U.S.. But keep in mind, the comparison only goes so far, as Tesla is not just an automaker. Rather, its a one-stop shop for sustainable energy and innovation.

The work they do at the gigafactory goes beyond designing cars. The company is working on energy storage with the Tesla Powerwall. They are working on solar roofs with Panasonic. And this is just the beginning. As explained in their mission statement:

The gigafactory will also produce battery packs intended for use in stationary storage, helping to improve robustness of the electrical grid, reduce energy costs for businesses and residences, and provide a backup supply of power.

In short, Musks vision is to accelerate the worlds transition to sustainable energy. As a result, all of Teslas efforts are focused on developing the company toinnovate new ways to produce and use renewable energy.

To that end, Musk has identified semi trucks as a critical focal point for safety and energy, and rightly so. Heavy-duty semi trucks that are electric will reduce environmental costs while increasing safetyespecially with new AI technologies on board.

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Elon Musk Just Said That Tesla's Making An Electric 18-Wheeler and Pickup Truck - Futurism

A New Discovery

NASA just releasedevidence that a liquid water ocean that could support life lies beneath the icy surface of Saturns moon Enceladus. The agency reports that the world has many of the ingredients needed for a habitable environment.

Thanks to Cassini, organic chemicalscarbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfurwhich are the basic building blocks of life, were seen spraying forth from the tiger stripe cracks on the cold surface of the moon.

Additionally, in thepaper published in Science, which comes from researchers on theCassini mission, it was revealed that molecular hydrogen, which NASA notes, could potentially provide a chemical energy source for life, is pouring into the ocean onEnceladus viahydrothermal ventson the seafloor.

In an interview with The Washington Post,Peter Girguis, a deep sea biologist at Harvard who is not associated with the research, noted the significance in relation to discovering microbial life: For a microbiologist thinking about energy for microbes, hydrogen is like the gold coin of energy currency. If you had to have one thing, one chemical compound, coming out of a vent that would lead you to think theres energy to support microbial life, hydrogen isat the top of that list.

Confirmation that the chemical energy for life exists within the ocean of a small moon of Saturn is an important milestone in our search for habitable worlds beyond Earth, addedLinda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a NASA press release. We now know that Enceladus has almost all of the ingredients you would need to support life as we know it on Earth, she continued.

To clarify, water, which supports and cradles life on Earth, isabundant in our solar system. As University of Michigan planetary scientist Sushil Atreya told Scientific American, water is necessary for life-as-we-know-it for a number of important reasons: Liquid water acts as a solvent, as a medium and as a catalyst for certain types of proteins, and those are three main things that allow life to flourish.

Indeed, everywhere that we find water on Earth, we find lifeand enough water appears to be on this world, and in the proper conditions, that it seems likely that we will find alien life there.

The way the jets react so responsively to changing stresses on Enceladus suggests they have their origins in a large body of liquid water, Christophe Sotin co-author and Cassini team member said in the NASA release. Liquid water was key to the development of life on Earth, so these discoveries whet the appetite to know whether life exists everywhere water is present (pun, probably, intended).

Although we cant detect life, weve found that theres a food source there for it. It would be like a candy store for microbes, said Hunter Waite, lead author of the Cassini study.

In a statement, Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASAs Science Mission Directorate at Headquarters in Washington, succinctly summarized the significance of the find: This is the closest weve come, so far, to identifying a place with some of the ingredients needed for a habitable environment. These results demonstrate the interconnected nature of NASAs science missions that are getting us closer to answering whether we are indeed alone or not.

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NASA Says Saturn's Moon Has The Ingredients Necessary For a Habitable Environment - Futurism

Details Coming Monday

A few weeks ago, details leakedthat Elon Musk had backed a brain-computer interface venture founded to allow humans to keep up with the advancements made in machine intelligence. The company Neuralink is still in the earliest stages of development. To that end,we dont know very much about it (at all).

However, we arent entirely in the dark. We know a few things. For example, we know thatthe companys ultimate goal is to develop a device (a brain-computer interface, to be exact) that could be implanted into the brain in order to augment (see: improve) human intelligence. It could allow us to store memories externally, learn new skills and languages in seconds, and bring an end to diseases like Alzheimers. Of course, such work will take time. But Musk hopes to expedite this development through his work.

Shortly after details leaked, Musk confirmed his plan in atweet (he is well known for unveiling ideas and key company details via short Twitter posts). In this same tweet, he also promised more details details which would be coming in April courtesy of the website Wait But Why. Must stated, Long Neuralink piece coming out on Wait But Why in about a week. Difficult to dedicate the time, but existential risk is too high not to.

Today, Wait But Why author, Tim Urban, announced that his36,000-word post (which he affectionately refers to as the 800-pound hippo) is scheduled to be released Monday, April 17.

Urban also wrote an update on his website noting that the full information would soon be here. He stated: The post will be up Monday 4/17. Its long. Im me its shi**y. Just between you and I, we seriously doubt that last part.

In case you werent aware, Musk isnt the only one concerned about the future of humanity. Considering the rate at which AI research is accelerating, the fears seem justifiable. Like Musk, Braintree founder Bryan Johnsons company, Kernal, is currently working on a neuroprosthesis that can mimic, repair, and improve human cognition.

Being able to systematically and intelligently work with our neural code is the most consequential and pressing opportunity in the world today. All that we are, all that we do, all that we become will be a result of our progress, explained Johnson in an interview with Futurism.

Notably, while advancements like those that Johnson and Musk are working on could allow us to merge with machines, they could also allow us to literally program (or reprogram) our neural code, which would allow us to transform ourselves in ways that we cant even imagine.

In short, we could alter our brains and our cognition in order to engineerourselves into the people that we want to be. The experts are ready. The question is, are humans prepared to adopt the technology?

Bryan Johnson is an investor in Futurism; he does not hold a seat on our editorial board or have any editorial review privileges.

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Get Ready: Elon Musk Is Releasing Details on His Plan to Unite Our ... - Futurism

In Brief Microsoft, through Skype and its other translation services, is making it even easier for people to share information across the globe. They recently added Japanese to the list of ten languages its software can translate in real-time. Breaking Barriers

With the advent of the internet, there are fewer barriers to communication than ever before. Distance has basically become negligible in terms of talking to each other. Ongoing developmentshave continued to make it even easier. Now, in many cases, language is no longer a barrier.

Microsoft and Skype have added another language to it real-time translation service. The software giant announced last week that it is adding Japanese as its tenth language. The other languages are English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, and Russian. The services are available on Skype as well as all Microsoft Translation services, such as Microsoft Translator Live.

Other services offered by Skype allow for similar communicationsbarrier-busting. It also offers text translation of more than 60 languages.

These innovations are not just useful for social or business purposes. More scientists are collaborating across the globe to further our understanding of the world around us and the universe beyond us. Increased functionality from services such as those provided by Microsoft and Skype will allow such collaboration to be even more widely, and readily, available.

The spirit of international collaboration is one of the defining features of the International Space Station. Multiple nations are working together to study space in hopes of unlocking all of its mysteries.cc

Technology has a trend of democratizing the field in which they are applied. For example, SpaceXs recent launch of the first refurbished rockets is going to play an immense part in widening the field in terms of who will be able to launch people and technology into space.

Blockchain technology also has the potential of being a revolutionary step toward breaking down all international barriers. The tech could help to completely root out corruption and allow the world to work together safely, reliably, and with unprecedented transparency.

So whether its direct language translation, cheaper spaceflight, or revolutionary record keeping, technology is one of the greatest tools humanity has to unite us all.

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Skype Can Now Translate Your Voice Calls Into 10 Different - Futurism - Futurism

Support Cells Turned Super Cells

Parkinsons disease is one of the worlds most common neurodegenerative ailments. It causes patients with Parkinsons to lose dopamine neurons, which are important for the motor control centers of the brain. According to statistics from the Parkinsons Disease Foundation, there are over 10 million people worldwide whosuffer from it, with about 60,000 diagnosed cases in the United States alone.

Researchers from the the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm developed a stem cell-based treatment that doesnt rely on embryonic or adult stem cells, which are often too difficult to harness and transplant into the brain. Instead, they found a way to reprogram the brains astrocytes support cells forneurons into dopamine neurons.

You can directly reprogram a cell that is already inside the brain and change the function in such a way that you can improve neurological symptoms, senior author Ernest Arenas explained to the Scientific American.

The trick was adding a cocktail of three genes and a small RNAmolecule to force astrocytes into becoming dopamine neurons. The treatment was tested on mice whose dopamine neurons in brain were destroyed to simulate Parkinsons disease. Within five weeks of being injected with this gene cocktail, the mice showed improved and more coordinated movement. These results were published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

While this stem cell approach wont cure Parkinsons, it can certainly improve current standard treatments for it. For one, astrocytes are already present in the brains of Parkinsons patients. Reprogramming these would eliminate the need for donor cells, which run the usual incompatibility risks associated with transplants. Second, the proteins produced in the treatment are involved in normal cellular processes, limiting potential side effects thatcurrent drug-based therapies often carry.

This is like stem cell 2.0. Its the next-generation approach to stem cell treatments and regenerative medicine, said James Beck, VP and chief scientific officer for the Parkinsons Disease Foundation, a nonprofit organization that was not involved with the research.

Still, theres a long way to go before an actual cure can be developed. Motor improvement is only half the battle, Beck said to Scientific American. But winning half the battle is still significant. This new approach, he noted, could ease the management of motor symptoms in potentially millions of Parkinsons patients. It might also make keeping up with medications simpler for them, potentially reducing the eight or more pills that patients with advanced Parkinsons often take.

Further research is needed to make sure thatthis reprogramming method doesnt change other cells in the brain. Only then would it be ready for human clinical trials. But Beck is hopeful that this study will spur new Parkinsons treatments down the road. This is an insight into what the future of Parkinsons treatment holds, Beck noted.

Stem cell therapies are revolutionizing Parkinsons disease treatment, as well as a host of other medical conditions. Many believe that the ability to reprogram cells is a glimpse of the future, not just of Parkinsons treatment, but of the entire field of medical research.

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Your Brain Cells Could Be Reprogrammed to Fight Parkinson's Disease - Futurism

In BriefThe Great Barrier Reef in Australia is recognized as thebiggest living structure on Earth. Unfortunately, it's dyingwithmany portions facing no hope for recoverythanks to back to backmass bleaching events. The Great Barrier Reef

Why care about reefs? In a wordbiodiversity. The reef is home to 3,000 varieties of mollusks, over a hundred types of jellyfish, 1,625 species of fish, hundreds of shark and ray species, and over 30 kinds of whales and dolphins. These sea creatures call the soft and hard corals that make up the reef home. And without it, many of them will die.

If thats not enough, it has the distinction of being the largest living structure on the planet.

The Great Barrier Reef is home to 3,000 individual coral reefs stretching across a staggering 2,575 kilometers (1,600 miles), covering an area of about 344,400 square kilometers (133,000 square miles.)

Unfortunately, because of back to back mass bleaching events, scientists are telling us that the massive, impressive Australian Great Barrier Reef is now at a terminal stagewith large portions having no hope of recovery.

Mass bleaching, a phenomenon caused by global warming, is prompted when the water warms to a point that corals begin ejecting the symbiotic algae in their tissue, essential for their survival. Throughout history, there have only been four instances of this occurrence, and after such an event, it will take decades torecover.

This is the fourth time the Great Barrier Reef has bleached severely in 1998, 2002, 2016, and now in 2017. Bleached corals are not necessarily dead corals, but in the severe central region we anticipate high levels of coral loss, said researcher James Kerry, from James Cook Universitys ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, in an official statement. He clarifies why the 2017 bleaching is significant: It takes at least a decade for a full recovery of even the fastest growing corals, so mass bleaching events 12 months apart offers zero prospect of recovery for reefs that were damaged in 2016.

The newest aerial surveys covered over 8,000 kilometers (5,000) miles, which includes 800 individual coral reefs.

According to the surveys, 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) of the Great Barrier Reef is now bleached. These new statistics come less than a year after 93 percent of the reef suffered severe damage, with reports adding that the effects have also spread further south.

Combined with the mass bleaching event, the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Debbie added to the devastation, as it struck a section of the reef that managed to escape the worst of the bleaching.

In an interview with The Guardian, scientists note just how dire the situation is. Weve given up, said Jon Brodie, a James Cook University water quality expert, who was referring to inaction on the part of the Australian government. Its been my life managing water quality, weve failed.

Unfortunately, in this age of global warming, temperatures are expected to continue rising, which means more of these bleaching events willhappen, and they will cause evenmore damage. And the reality is, this could be the last generation who will get to see the grand beauty of this reef.

Fortunately, its not too late for us to save the rest of the planet from the worst effects of climate change. But we must act now.

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Scientists Announce That The Great Barrier Reef is Officially Terminal - Futurism

In Brief NASA has scheduled a press conference for Thursday, April 13th at 2 PM to discuss new results about ocean worlds in our solar system. Esteemed members of NASA staff are participating in a question and answer session following the talk. Uncovering Interstellar Oceans

NASA shocked the world earlier this year when they announced the discovery ofthe seven Earth-like exoplanets found in what is now known as the Trappist-1 system. It seems as though the space agency is bent on shocking the world again with an upcoming press conference on ocean worlds in our solar system.

The announcement comes in light of data collected by NASAs Cassini spacecraft during its final missionand the Hubble Telescopeand is scheduled for Thursday, April 13th at 2 PM. The conference will cover new results about ocean worlds in our solar system andthe search for life beyond Earth.

NASAs quest to find life in our solar system has rested on the possibility of interstellar water. Because a majority of our home planet is covered in water and all life (as we know it, as it adheres to known scientific principles) depends on water, it is logical to expect that wherever there is water, extraterrestrial life might not be too far away.

There are several possible ocean worldscurrently being investigated by NASA. The moons of the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn are prime suspects for the space agency. Of Jupiters many moons, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto are all suspected to have oceans underneath their icy crusts, while of Saturns moons, its suspected that Enceladus, Titan, and Mimas might also hold sub-surface oceans.

Its exciting to imagine that all this happening in our very own solar systembut what exactly would it mean if we find oceans?

Searching for hidden oceans far off in our solar system could give us some insight into the origins of life. We might be able to better understand how we came to be, and how other creatures in the cosmos might come to be. The conditions for life to arise may not be as limiting as we once thought. But, we can only find answers to these questions if we venture forth and take a thorough look at our cosmic neighborhood.

The press conference, held at the James Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters in Washington on April 13th, might just give us a better understanding of the possibility of ocean worlds and the prevalence of life beyond Earth. The briefing will feature prominent scientists such as:

After the conference, these scientists will take questions from those attending as well as from the public on social media (using #AskNASA). The live stream begins at 2 pm ET right below.

While no one expects the press conference to tell us that a secret set of seven earth-like planets with massive alien-laden oceans are hiding between Jupiter and Saturn, the press conference should give us a good idea of where we stand in our search for life in the cosmos.

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Today, NASA Is Unveiling a Major Discovery About "The Search for ... - Futurism

In Brief A prototype of Faraday Future's flagship vehicle, the FF 91, made an appearance this weekend at a car show in Long Beach. The company is positioning itself as a competitor for Tesla in the electric autonomous vehicle market. An Actual First Look

Three months afterits unveiling at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Faraday Futures concept autonomous electric vehicle finally made an encoreappearance this weekend. A beta version of the FF 91, the flagship vehicle from the California-based startup, was spotted byMotorworld Hypeat a car show in Long Beach.

Faraday Future has been accepting reservations for the FF 91 since January, with the first 300 orders eligible for an exclusive launch upgrade called the Alliance Edition, though no word yet on what that would entail.

With the FF 91, Faraday Future seems to be hoping to emerge as a serious challenger to Tesla in the electric and autonomous vehicle markets. The company has evenbuilt its own megafactory right in Teslas backyard.The FF 91 does, though, warrant attention as its own entity. Not only is it a rather beautiful electric vehicle (EV) with autonomous capabilities, the FF 91 packs its own hefty punches in terms of specs.

The FF 91 was designed and built following Faraday Futures so-called Variable Platform Architecture (VPA).According to the company, the vehicles130 kWh battery is the worlds highest energy density battery, and it deliversan estimated range of 378 miles on the EPA cycle and over 700 km on the NEDC cycle. The FF 91runs on a 1,050 horsepower electric propulsion system capable of zooming from zero to 96 kmh (zero to 60 mph) in just 2.39 seconds. (For its part, Tesla seems to have acknowledged the rather stealthy Faraday Future by topping that acceleration rate almost as soon as the new vehicle was unveiled and before it actually hit production.)

The FF 91 isimpressive as an autonomous vehicle, too. Its set to be the first vehicle to feature retractable 3D lidar [], part of a complex sensor system including 10 high definition cameras, 13 long and short range radars, and 12 ultrasonic sensors. Its topped with more sensors than any of its counterparts.

Clearly, the FF 91 is a formidable foe for both EVs and self-driving cars. All thats left now is for Faraday Future to actually roll it out. Hopefully, that future event isnt too far away.

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Tesla Challenger Faraday Future Just Showed off Its Flagship ... - Futurism

In Brief By combining photographs of distant galaxies 4.5 billion light-years away, scientists now have photographic evidence of dark matter linking galaxies together. Any new insight into dark matter will lead to a more complete understanding of the universe in which we live. Seeing the Unseeable

The theory that birthed the concept of dark matter came to be out of necessity. Based on the matter we can see, our universeshouldnt be able to exist and operate as it does this visible matter cant generate the gravity necessary to keep our galaxies held together.Dark matter is a way for scientists to account for this discrepancy. They posit that our universe must containa kind matter that we cannot see, a kind that doesnt absorb, reflect, or emit light a truly dark matter.

For our scientific models to hold true, dark matter mustmake up more than a quarter of all the matter in the universe. Still, what dark matter is actually made of remains a mystery, and finding evidence of something that cannot be seen is a daunting task. Previously, the gravitational effects of dark matter are the closest thing to proof that scientists have, but now, researchers from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, have something even better: a composite picture that proves that galaxies are indeed connected by dark matter.

Using a technique known as weak gravitational lensing, the researchers combined images taken over the course of years to show the presence of dark matter. The composite was created usingimages from more than 23,000 galaxy pairs situated 4.5 billion light-years away.

We may not have greater insight as to exactlywhat this matter is composed of, but at least we now have a physical representation of its existence between galaxies.

For decades, researchers have been predicting the existence of dark-matter filaments between galaxies that act like a web-like superstructure connecting galaxies together, explained Mike Hudson, a professor of astronomy at Waterloo, in a press release from the Royal Astronomical Society.This image moves us beyond predictions to something we can see and measure.

Indeed, the image is an important step toward legitimizing dark matter and dark energy at a time when other scientists are proposing models that would do away with the need for dark matter to exist entirely. Itbrings us closer to understanding dark matter and the role it plays in binding the universe together. Existenceis an infinitelylarge puzzle comprising innumerable pieces. Any time we can find a way to connect those pieces we bring the big picture into greater focus and move one step closer to truly understanding the world in which we live.

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Scientists Have Captured the First-Ever "Image" of a Dark Matter Web - Futurism

In Brief Porsche unveiled their first fully electric vehicle last year and we are hoping to see a production model by 2020. An increased focus on the development and manufacture of e-cars is giving a glimpse into the future of personal transport. Car Wars

With each new development, its becoming clear that electric vehicles are the future of personal transport. Gasoline-fueledcars are a major burden on the environment. One third of all air pollution in the United States comes from vehicles. Not only does this contribute to climate change, but also puts everyones health at risk as we end up breathing in these emissions.

More manufacturers are adding electric cars to their lineups. Even the fanciest of automakers are putting their hat in the ring to get carve out a piece of that market. Porsche is planning on rolling out its Mission Eelectric cars by 2020. The company has already unveiled the model as a concept car at last years International Motor Show in Frankfurt. The concept car was a sleek, attractive, four-door sedan. The company plans to offer wireless software updates just like Tesla.

The new car will undoubtedly feature some high-tech bells and whistles. Porsche has not officially confirmed the full spectrum of what will be available with the production model of the car, but we do at least have an idea of where they might be headed.

Inductive charging is a relatively new technology thats, so far, only widely been integrated into portable technology like cell phones and smart watches. It is quickly becoming more popular in future designs for electric vehicles thanks to the implications of creating parking spots that feature charging pads.

Range anxietyis a common concern among electric vehicle consumers. No one wants to get stranded in the middle of a long trip with the nearest charging opportunity potentially miles away. Porsche is hoping to assuage that fear by offering an 800v charging system that will allow a range of 402 km (250 miles) with just 15 minutes of charge time. A fully charged Mission Ecould drive up to 498 km (310 miles), leaving Teslas Model 3s 473 km (294 miles) in the dust.

Porsche is also making a huge switch that may even rival the change that Apple made to its phones by removing the headphone jack. Instead of the traditional exterior mirrors, the vehicles will be equipped with cameras that display the world around the vehicle in the lower corner of the windshield. Other cameras in the vehicle will track the drivers eyes to help control the dashboard menu.

The future of electric vehicles is as clear as it is necessary. Combating climate change is of the utmost importance to the continued health of our planet. However, as each new model is unveiledexactly what that future will look like is only limited by the imagination and innovationit can spark.

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This is the Stunning Electric Car Porsche is Creating to Oust Tesla - Futurism