Category Archives: Futurism

Global Health Security

Whenbillionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates gave a speech at the Munich Security Conference for the first time Saturday, he argued a very alarming possibility: the future of international security will be fought on the biological front. Specifically, Gates warned about the dangers of a bioterrorist attack that could wipe out 30 million people in less than a year and how were not prepared for it.

We ignore the link between health security and international security at our peril, warned Gates, who has been spending the better part of 20 years funding global health campaigns. He went on to share some alarming statistics:Whether it occurs by a quirk of nature or at the hand of a terrorist, epidemiologists say a fast-moving airborne pathogen could kill more than 30 million people in less than a year. And they say there is a reasonable probability the world will experience such an outbreak in the next 10-15 years.

What makes Gates warning even more alarming is that fact that bioterrorism can now be done from behind a computer. Its also true that the next epidemic could originate on the computer screen of a terrorist intent on using genetic engineering to create a synthetic version of the smallpox virus . . . or a super contagious and deadly strain of the flu, said Gates.

Gates warnings arent at all farfetched. According to The Guardian, US and UK intelligence agencies have said that Islamic State has been trying to develop biological weapons at its bases in Syria and Iraq.

In order to fight such a threat, Gates recommended using the very same technology that allows for the development of deadly pathogens: genetic engineering. First and most importantly, we have to build an arsenal of new weaponsvaccines, drugs, and diagnostics, he said.

Gates went on to explain in further detail what he thinks needs to be done:

Vaccines can be especially important in containing epidemics. But today, it typically takes up to 10 years to develop and license a new vaccine. To significantly curb deaths from a fast-moving airborne pathogen, we would have to get that down considerablyto 90 days or less. [] The really big breakthrough potential is in emerging technology platforms that leverage recent advances in genomics to dramatically reduce the time needed to develop vaccines.

Of course, these efforts have to be supported by a public health systems that can easily detect the emergence of a deadly pathogen. Because epidemics can quickly take root in the places least equipped to fight them, we also need to improve surveillance, Gates said. That starts with strengthening basic public health systems in the most vulnerable countries. We also have to ensure that every country is conducting routine surveillance to gather and verify disease outbreak intelligence.

Right now, there is still time for us to get ready to fight a bioterrorism pandemic or even avoid one altogether. The key is in how we prepare. As Gates told the conference, Getting ready for a global pandemic is every bit as important as nuclear deterrence and avoiding a climate catastrophe. Innovation, cooperation and careful planning can dramatically mitigate the risks presented by each of these threats.

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Bill Gates Warns New Bioterrorism Threat Could Wipe out Over 30 Million People - Futurism

In Brief

Evidently, SpaceX is getting a lot better at landing its reusable rockets. The Falcon 9 is a two-stage rocket that was used to safely transport satellites and the Dragon spacecraft into orbit, and we are now able to see the Falcon 9s third successful landing on solid ground from a drones unique vantage point.

This was SpaceXs first commercial rocket launch from NASAs Kennedy Space Center. The rocket was sent to deliver a payload into space. To capture the moment, a camera-equipped drone was sent to film the Falcon 9s downward journey through the clouds to touch safely down on SpaceXs Landing Zone 1.

The other landings on this same landing zone took place back in December of 2015 and July of 2016. SpaceX was also able to successfully land Falcon 9 on the companys first spaceport drone ship Just Read the Instructions.

Successfully reusing boosters is a critical part of bringing down the cost of these launches because they wont have to build a completely new rocket for every mission. According to SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, achieving this level of reusability can bring down launches by as much as 30 percent. This could, over time, allow for more frequent launches and faster progress.

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Watch This Amazing Drone Footage of Falcon 9 Landing - Futurism

In Brief

Do we really need to explore Mars? According to tech innovatorElon Musk, its not just a choice we have to make, its a necessity. We will stay on Earth forever, and eventually there will be an extinction eventand the alternative is to become a spacefaring and multiplanetary speciesThats what we want.

But when exactly are we getting there? Originally, SpaceXs first foray to Mars, via a lander called Red Dragon, was expected to happen by 2022which was considered a fairly feasible timeline. However, bolstered by numerous successful launches and Musks powerful vision, SpaceX moved their target date up to 2018. Now, a new announcement from SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell confirms that they are changing the timeline yet again. A mission, named Red Dragon, to Mars is now set to launch in 2020 so that SpaceX can focus on other equally ambitious projects like their commercial crew program and Falcon Heavyprograms.

We were focused on 2018, but we felt like we needed to put more resources and focus more heavily on our crew program and our Falcon Heavy program. So were looking more for the 2020 timeframe for that, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said at a recent pre-launch conference.

Missions to Mars would ideally belaunched every 26 months when the planet is aligned with Earth. The 2020 planned lander will be critical for future possible manned missions as it will test technology required to land heavy equipment on the Martian surfacea task that, given Mars unfamiliar terrain and thin atmosphere, could be difficult to execute. Heavy payloads entering Mars wont have the planets atmosphere to cushion their landing and so there is the risk of very abrupt and hard landings.

What sets Red Dragon apart from other Mars landers is its use of a supersonic retro-propulsionwhich means it will use rockets embedded in the hull to allow for larger spacecraft to land safely. Should the technique prove to be successful, this lander will be the biggest vehicle to land on the planet thus far.

Moving the launch to 2020 also means that SpaceX will be able to join several other Mars-bound expeditions stemming from government agencies and private outfits. NASA is expected to launch its next Mars rover within the same year. The ExoMars mission, a joint initiative from the Roscosmos and European Space Agency (ESA) who originally planned its second phase to take place in 2018, has also been moved to the end of the decade. Theres also talk of the United Arab Emirates sending an orbiter to the red planet by then, along with China who has expressed its intent to reach Mars by 2020.

If all these missions make their targets, it will indeed be a busy 2020 for the red planet.

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Elon Musk Has a New Timeline for Humans Living on Mars - Futurism

New Rules

Its possible that robots will take over some human jobs. In fact, it seems like it could be only a matter of time before they do. Increasing automation will lead to massive job displacement, and less people working means less employed citizens paying taxes. So, the question is, how will communities make up the difference if automation is inevitable in the future of employment?

Co-founder of Microsoft Bill Gates suggests that robots that take human jobs should pay taxes.

Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, Social Security tax, all those things. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, youd think that wed tax the robot at a similar level, Gates explained in an interview with Quartz.

This robot tax money could be taken from what companies would save given the efficiencies that an automated workforce provides them, or a tax imposed on companies that employ robots. The collected taxes could be used for anything from the care of the elderly or to support youth projects in public schools. Gates believes there will be little resistance from companies that employ a robot workforce.

Half of jobs today are already at riskof becoming obsolete due to automation, and evidence of an industrial future defined by an automated workforce is steadily building. According to a report by McKinsey, about 60 percent of all occupations could have 30 percent, or more, of theiractivities automated with technology that exists today. And, as technology rapidly advances, those numbers will only climb higher.

Gates tax idea has already been proposed by European Union lawmakers, but the law was rejected. Another proposal that looks to also provide a solution is the implementation of a universal basic income (UBI), which tech industrialist Elon Musk is a strong proponent of.

Regardless of what solution is put into place or how governments will treat taxes and a waning organic workforce in the age of automation, Gates asserts that this is something that people should start talking about now:

Exactly how youd do it, measure it, you know, its interesting for people to start talking about now. There will be some great conversations and be some ideas about new investments that can be made.

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Bill Gates Says Job Stealing Robots Need to Pay Taxes - Futurism

Our Robotic Future

Attitudes towards robots, especially artificially intelligent (AI) robots, are mixed at best. As AI technology evolves and robots become eerily similar to living, breathing, thinking organisms, people seem to be less and less likely to trust them. Robots stir up unsettling memories of science fiction nightmares, images of robots surpassing humans in intelligence and taking over, lording over us and causing mass mayhem.

According to Elon Musk, AI technology is progressing so quickly that we may need to start mergingwith it soon, essentially becoming cyborgs. Its easy to see where he gets that notion, considering robots are already threatening to replace lawyers, childcare workers, checkout clerks, and more.

In an effort to gauge public opinion, the European Commission recently conducted a survey that looked at peoples attitudes towards robots, and the results of that effort are now available.

While the general reaction was mostly positive, there are a few areas in which people expressed a fairly obvious distrust. For instance, the study asked participants if there were any areas of work from which robots should be banned and received asignificant affirmative response for some industries. For example, 60-61 percent responded that robots should be banned from caring for children, the elderly, and the disabled, 30-34 percent said that robots should be banned from education, and 27-30 percent said that robots should be banned from healthcare.

As AI is already being used within healthcare in the form of IBM Watson, it is easy to imagine that any of these sectors could be home to AI technology and robots in the future. However, the report did show that there are several areas where people are already excited to have robotshelp propel us forward, with 45-52 percent in favor of their use forspace exploration, 50-57 percent for manufacturing, and 41-64 percent for military and security operations.

AI and robotics technology is clearly progressing much faster than many people may have expected and not just in the areas wed hope. AI robots are no longer a thing of the future, and they will only continue to get more intelligent and more prevalent in our daily lives. It is important to know how people feel about them and what can be done to minimize the risks of a sci-fi-style robot takeover, but it really all comes down to one question: How much do we trust robots?

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Would You Let a Robot Watch Your Children? - Futurism

The Mysterious Black Hole

Believe it or not, weve never actually been able to catch a glimpse of a black hole. All those images featuring a starry sky with a perfectly circular dark blob in the middle? Simply an artists rendition.

Although scientists believe that there are hundreds, even thousands, of black holes that might be hiding in our own galaxy, its extremely difficult to prove their existence. They cannot be observed from a telescope because light is completely consumed once it passes the event horizon. To make matters more confusing, we arent even sure how black holes form, but we could be getting some answers very soon.

Last year, scientists announced the creationof the Event Horizon Telescope. This powerful telescope would be able to photograph black holes, and now, scientists are saying they believe the device willbe operable as soon as April. If it can successfully capture an image of this mysterious entity, wed retrieve a tremendous deal of evidence that would bring us several steps closer to understanding these unanswered questions.

The Event Horizon Telescope will operate through a network of radio receivers erected across the planet. Between April 5 and 14, itwill utilize a technique called very-long baseline interferometry (VLBI) in which the receivers collect radio signals emitted by a precise point in space.Once effective, sights are being set on our own galaxys black hole, Sagittarius A*,which is located 26,000 light-years from Earth with an event horizon stretching 20 million kilometers (12.4 million miles) in diameter.

Even though scientists have never been able to directly observe a black hole, there is pretty substantial evidence that points towards their existence.

For one, the influence that the proposed Sagittarius A* has on surrounding stars proves to us that something strange is affecting their orbit. The same is observed for several other black holes weve theorized to exist in our Universe.

Scientists are also able to detect the presence of a black hole by the amount of radiation being emitted from an area. The extremely hot x-rays weve detected are thought to come from the incredibly fast-moving disk of particles surrounding the hole.

The Event Horizon Telescope hopes to uncover this long-awaited evidence of a black holes existence. The images will mark a new milestone in humanitys understanding of the Universe. But given the amount of data and the time itll take to process it, images wont likely be ready until late 2017 or the beginning of 2018.

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We May Finally Get a Picture of a Black Hole - Futurism - Futurism

Modern Mechanix magazine. October, 1934.

Airships have often served as the symbol of a brighter tomorrow.

Even before the first zeppelin was invented, airships featured prominently in utopian visions of the future. This 1898 poster advertised a musical comedy on the New York stage:

Musical theater poster. 1898.

And these German and Frenchpostcardspredicted air travel in theyear 2000:

German postcard, circa 1900

French postcard. 1910.

Futurists of the early 20th Century often combined lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air technology, as in this urban skyscraper airport and solar-powered aerial landing field:

Popular Science magazine. November, 1939

Modern Mechanix magazine. October, 1934.

Sometimes futurist airship visions were promoted by companies which were actually involved in the lighter-than-air business.

For example, the Goodyear-Zeppelin company, which built the American airships Akron and Macon, and which had a financial interest in the promotion of the passenger dirigible, frequently offered alluring illustrations of future airship travel.

Goodyear president Paul Litchfield and publicist Hugh Allen included the following pictures in their 1945 book, WHY? Why has America no Rigid Airships?:

These drawingsfrom Hugh Allens The Story of the Airship(1931)imaginedan Art Deco dining salon, promenade, and even a lounge with a fireplace.

Airships could even advance medical technology, such as this airshiptuberculosis hospital.

Under the illusion that communism was the way of the future, Soviet propagandists loved images of modernity and enlisted the airship in their cause.

Soviet poster, 1931. (We Are Building a Fleet of Airships in the Name of Lenin. Azeri text)

Sometimes illustrators got so carried away depicting lavish interiors that they neglected to leave room for much lifting gas, as in this illustration from The American Magazine.

The article described future airships to be built by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Company, which would be fitted up as sumptuously as a Palm Beach winter hotel:

The American Magazine. May, 1930.

This illustration of an atomic dirigible from a Soviet magazine in the 1960s left no room for lifting gas at all:

Soviet Atomic Dirigible

Modern Mechanics. July, 1931.

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The Airship and Futurism: Utopian Visions of the Airship ...

In Brief

SpaceX was all set to take off from the historic launchpad at Cape Canaveral this morning, but the unmanned mission was called off due to an engine nozzle issue.

The launch is being delayed while the issue is investigated. Once its back on track, the launch will be the first to take place at Launch Complex 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center since the final shuttle launch back in July of 2011. NASA leased the pad to SpaceX for twenty years back in 2014.

The launchpad was built in the 1960s as a part of the fabled mid-century Space Race. The pad has been the site of some of the most significant launches in the history of space flight. Nearly all manned Apollo-Saturn V launches, commencing with Apollo 8, used Pad 39A. The pad also played important roles in the launches of Skylab as well as the first space shuttles. Once the technical wrinkles are ironed out for SpaceX, some exciting new entries will likely be added to that storied history.

SpaceX has made some significant strides in its programs, but they do often get overshadowed by theirhiccups. Back in September of 2016, the company was dealt a heavy blow with an explosion after a fueling accident that damaged their nearby launch pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Still, the strides SpaceX has made are remarkable. This past December, they celebrated the anniversary of the first completed launch and landing cycle of their reusable Falcon 9 rockets. Reusable rockets will significantly reduce the cost of space missions, thus making the volume of launches more accessible to greater numbers of researchers or adventurers.

One of the companys loftiest goals is to put a human on Mars by the end of 2025. Perhaps Launch Complex 39A will get to add another first to its storied history.

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Here's Why SpaceX's Next Launch Is Going to Make History - Futurism

In Brief

Gabe Newell. the co-founder and president of Valve, has authored projects that have garnered so much attention that he has been meme-ifiedinto a god.

But looking past the deification by those who support his work, Newell is heavily involved in the future of virtual reality. His company has worked intimately with HTC to produce the Vive VR platform, one of the few mainstream software that consumers can use to access virtual reality. Yet, even though there are over 1,300 apps on the steam VR marketplace and there was an 86% growth in users in the end of 2016, the revenue stream isnt uplifting. There are30 VR apps that have made just over $250,000, which are not the most promising of figures.

SteamVR by Valve:

While Newell is optimistic, he says hes pretty comfortable with the idea that it will turn out to be a complete failure. He went on to say that, if you dont try things that dont fail you probably arent trying to do anything very interesting.

But that doesnt mean hes inclined to fail. By upgrading the VR console to have a stronger CPU and better resolution, having an open source platform for developers to tinker with software, hardware, and everything in between, and unleashing a litany of new games (valve is currently developing three games of its own). Newell believes that the shared optimism of developers and consumers alike will drive the newborn industry into its place in the family living room for years to come.

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CEO of Biggest VR Company Asserts That the Tech May Be A Complete Failure - Futurism

In Brief

Prof George Church and his team at Harvard University have been studying the DNA from frozen mammoths found preserved in the Arctic. Specifically, theyve been looking for genes that separated them from elephants.

Since elephant species are currently on the brink of extinction, the team is attempting to splice mammoth DNA into the genome of an elephant embryoin order to create a mammoth-elephant hybrid. The goal is to eventually grow a mammoth embryo within an artificial womb, as to not compromise the reproductive system of a healthy elephant.

Professor Church stated, Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant/mammoth embryo. Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits. Were not there yet, but it could happen in a couple of years.

As awesome as playing Ice Age Jurassic Park sounds, there are also other preventative applications for this technology. According to Dr. Edze Westra of the University of Exeter, One can also use this technology for engineering the DNA of rapidly declining species or those that are becoming too inbred to increase their chance of survival.

Prof Church said the mammoth project has two main goals: securing an alternative future for the endangered Asian elephant and helping to combat global warming. Chruch explains that the animals could, keep the tundra from thawing by punching through snow and allowing cold air to come in. In the summer they knock down trees and help the grass grow.

Any of these possibilities are well worth the continued research. Technology is allowing for the impossible to become reality. Just a few years ago, we couldnt have dreamed of an extinct animal brought back, and now we could be within a few years of actually seeing that.

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Biologists Plan to Bring the Woolly Mammoth Back to Life by 2019 - Futurism