Category Archives: Futurism

This divorce could have a big impact on medicine, the climate, and philanthropy in general.Splitting Up

Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder turned mega-billionaire philanthropist whos currently number four on the worlds richest person standings and wants to actively geoengineer our planet and release gene-edited animals to fight disease, is getting a divorce.

Gates announced the separation from his wife of 27 years, Melinda Gates, over Twitter on Monday.

After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage, Gates tweeted. Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives. We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives.

We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life, Gates concluded his tweet, before broadcasting it to his audience of 54.7 million followers.

Love it or hate it, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has an enormous influence on climate change mitigation, biomedical research, biotech, international medical policy, and much more.

And while Gates said that the two would continue to work on their philanthropic goals together, it seems likely that there will be at least some disruption to the foundations work, which could mean an outsize influence on the world around them.

Moreover, CNBC reports, the financial implications of the split remain unclear. While Bill and Melinda Gates seemed to be equal partners in the foundation, the two of them had different priorities Bill invested more heavily in climate change and energy while Melinda invested in gender equality initiatives so it will be interesting to see whether the foundation changes course as its namesakes go down their separate paths.

READ MORE: Bill Gates and Melinda Gates are splitting up after 27 years [CNBC]

More on Bill Gates: Bill Gates Funded the Company Releasing Gene-Hacked Mosquitoes

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Bill Gates, Who Wants to Geoengineer the Earth, Is Getting a Divorce - Futurism

Itll be the first nighttime splashdown since the Apollo 8 mission in 1968.Weather Delay

After their initial return was delayed due to inclement weather, the astronauts of the Crew-1 Dragon spacecraft are slated to splashdown in the dark of night a first in more than 50 years.

SpaceX hopes to bring back four astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS) in the early morning hours of Sunday, according to The Associated Press. The crew, made up of three NASA astronauts and a Japanese astronaut, was initially slated to come back on Saturday but had their splashdown stalled due to dangerously high winds.

This isnt SpaceXs first rodeo in recovering spacecraft after a nighttime splashdown. The company was able to bring back a cargo capsule in the dark earlier this year.

Theyve also prepared for the chance they might need to recover their crewmembers in the dark.

SpaceX has done numerous dress rehearsals and spent a lot of time with nighttime recoveries, said Rob Navias, a spokesman for the Johnson Space Center in Houston, in a statement attained by AP.

The company plans to have the crew leave the ISS aboard the same Dragon capsule that took them up last year. After a six-and-a-half hour trip, theyre expected to splash down around 3am in the waters near Panama City, Florida.Navias said that that time frame will provide the most ideal weather conditions for landing.

Their upcoming return will mark the first splashdown in the dark since the Apollo 8 mission in 1968.

That mission saw three NASA astronauts go to the moon for the first time before landing in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii in the pre-dawn hours of December 27, 1968.

Anyone whos ever had their flight delayed to weather knows how good it feels to finally get home though not many of us can say they did it in the dead of night while landing in the ocean from low-Earth orbit.

READ MORE: SpaceX making 1st US crew splashdown in dark since Apollo 8 [The Associated Press]

More on Crew Dragon: Pentagon Says SpaceX Near Collision Was a False Alarm

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Crew Dragon Astronauts Stranded in Space by Weather Will Splashdown in Dark - Futurism

As rising global temperatures eat away at the planets glaciers, rivers are physically changing their course.

The resulting river piracy, as its called, risks leaving communities and natural ecosystems without the sources of water they rely on, according to The Guardian. And while most instances of river piracy are expected to be mild a bend here or a slight diversion there new research published in the journal Geomorphology could cause serious harm to Alaskas already fragile ecosystems, and drastically alter human water use.

The first modern case of river piracy happened in 2016, when the Kaskawulsh glacier Canadas largest melted so rapidly that the river it fed reshaped itself thousands of miles off course from its original endpoint in the Bering Sea. And as climate change worsens, The Guardian reports, river piracy will only get worse.

Glaciers by and large around the world are retreating, University of Calgary geoscientist Dan Shugar told The Guardian. That enhanced retreat that were seeing now, we know unequivocally, that is due to climate change.

Now, the National Park Service geologists behind the new paper predict that Alaskas Alsek river, fed by the rapidly-vanishing Grand Plateau glacier, is going to spend the next few decades drifting miles off course, leaving behind the local communities that rely on it.

Its going to be complicated, lead researcher Michael Loso told The Guardian. Its going to involve a combination of people who use that area changing their expectations and their plans and their patterns of behavior to accommodate the river not being there.

READ MORE: Receding glaciers causing rivers to suddenly disappear [The Guardian]

More on river piracy: Climate Change Causes Immense Canadian River to Dry Up In Just Four Days

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Rivers Around the World Are Disappearing - Futurism

You get an Oculus, and you get an Oculus!Gift Bag

Facebook is reportedly providing an Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality headset to any employee that wants one.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the new program during an internal Q&A session on Thursday, according to Alex Heath, a reporter at The Intercept. Employees will be able to buy their own VR headsets and expense them through the company, Zuckerberg said, in whats likely asimultaneous bid to reward employees, drum up more sales for the popular VR system, and build a broader company culture around its nascent VR offerings.

Zuckerberg also speculated that the VR headset expense would fall under Facebooks workplace benefits and specifically within its health and wellness perks, according to Heath.

With a growing library of mental health content and resources being developed for VR headsets, its a reasonable way to justify doling out the headsets to Facebooks tens of thousands of employees.

Oculus is inexorably linked to Facebook. As PC Gamer reports, the powerful VR headsets price tag of $299 makes it one of the best deals on the market but thats because it requires users to link it to a Facebook account and allow some aggressive data-mining practices.

Without the Facebook account, the Oculus Quest 2 costs an additional $500 plus a $180 annual fee, suggesting that its worth it to Oculus and Facebook simply to get the headsets into as many peoples hands as possible, even if the units are loss leaders.

More on Oculus: Mark Zuckerberg Says Hes So Excited About New Project That Hes Forgetting To Eat

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Facebook Is Giving a VR Headset to Every Employee Who Wants One - Futurism

Earlier today, SpaceX and NASA successfully launched four astronauts into orbit on board a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

The launch went by without a hitch but the crew of four did experience a scare while en route to the International Space Station when they were notified of a potential collision with an unidentified object.

The NASA/SpaceX team was informed of the possible conjunction by US Space Command, NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries told Futurism. The object being tracked is classified as unknown.'

There was no time, Humphries said, to perform an avoidance maneuver to get out of the way of the object. Instead, SpaceX advised that the astronauts put on their pressurized suits in case of a collision.

The possibility of the conjunction came so close to the closest approach time that there wasnt time to compute and execute a debris avoidance maneuver with confidence, so the SpaceX team elected to have the crew don their pressure suits out of an abundance of caution, Humphries said.

US Space Command spokesperson Erin Dick told Futurism that the Pentagon notified NASA of the potential collision at about 1:30pm EST today, about seven hours after the spacecraft launched.

After further analysis, the 18th Space Control Squadron quickly determined there was no conjunction threat, all aboard are safe and the spacecraft was not at risk, Dick said.

Numerous questions remain. How big was the piece of space debris? And what was it?

In hindsight, Humphries said, the objects closest approach was 45 kilometers from the spacecraft not far in the grand scale of space, but close enough for concern.

Humphries added that there was no real danger to the crew or the spacecraft.

Endeavour is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station tomorrow morning.

Updated with comment from NASA and US Space Command.

More on the launch: SpaceX Sends Four Astronauts Into Space On Reused Spacecraft

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SpaceX's Spacecraft Just Had a Near Collision With an Unidentified Object - Futurism

"I think I've lost 10 pounds in the last month from this, but our new products are going to be [fire emoji]."Forgetting to Eat

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is just like us.The billionaire is so excited about his work, he says, that he can hardly keep it together.

Do you ever get so excited about what youre working on that you forget to eat meals? the CEO wrote in a Thursday status update (remember those?) on his Facebook profile.

Keeps happening, he added. I think Ive lost 10 pounds in the last month from this, but our new products are going to be [fire emoji].

Given Facebooks propensity to do just as much bad as it does good in the world or, as many have argued, far more bad than good people were understandably a little taken aback by Zuckerbergs revelations.

Something incredibly bad is about to happen, progressive Washington, DC radio station District Sentinel wrote in a tweet about Zuckerbergs admission.

But the reality is likely innocuous.

A day later, Zuckerberg uploaded a video of himself customizing his own adorable Oculus Quest avatar, a new feature that is he says is landing today.

Its a new feature so mundane it may not even bear reporting. Oculus Avatars are a series of, well, customizable avatars for those of us who own Oculus Quest headsets. According to the Facebook-owned company, character movements were also enhanced thanks to machine learning.

Its unlikely well ever find out what exactly Zuckerberg was so excited about that he forgot to eat. But then again, creating virtual reality avatars is a nice distraction and a lot more fun than acknowledging your companys platform is facilitating or covering up genocide in other parts of the world or giving your workers PTSD.

More on Facebook: Facebook Lets Chinese Government Run Genocide-Denying Ads

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Mark Zuckerberg Says He's So Excited About New Project That He's Forgetting to Eat - Futurism

Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi is getting ready to say goodbye to space.Farewell ISS

In a bittersweet video uploaded to YouTube, Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi took the time to say farewell to the International Space Station by playing a somber tune on a Yamaha electric keyboard, as the Earth drifts in the background.

The video was uploaded on the same day SpaceX and NASA launched yet another crew of four astronauts. Noguchi will soon return back down to Earth on April 28, according to NASA.

Accompanying the slideshow of various images Noguchi has taken since arriving at the space station in November a melancholic farewell to Noguchis temporary home in space.

What makes the performance truly authentic, however, is Noguchis well-but-not-perfectly rehearsed rendition and the incredible views of Earth behind him as he plays.

Noguchi appears to be playing a medley of songs from the 1984 J-pop album NO SIDE by artist Yumi Matsutoya.

Noguchi made his performance from what appears to be the Cupola, an ESA-built observatory module that features seven windows, with one large 31 inch diameter window in the center.

The astronaut has kept himself busy apart from conducting research and doing space walks by uploading numerous videos to his YouTube channel during his stay on board the ISS, including a heartfelt rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, accompanied by dazzling views of the night sky.

Noguchi is also the first non-American to launch to space on board three different spacecraft: the Space Shuttle, the Soyuz, and the Crew Dragon.

Have a safe trip Soichi its time to come back down to Earth.

More on the ISS: SpaceX Sends Four Astronauts Into Space On Reused Spacecraft

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Watch an Astronaut Play Piano on the ISS as the Earth Drifts in the Background - Futurism

They're calling it "The Unicorn."Howdy Neighbor

A team of scientists from The Ohio State University (OSU) say theyve found the closest black hole to Earth ever discovered, and its just 1,500 light-years away.

The team decided to name the black hole The Unicorn because of its location in the Monoceros constellation but also because it is, so far, one of a kind, according to a university press release. As for what makes it so unique, the Unicorn is unbelievably tiny for a black hole. With only three times the mass of the Sun, the black hole exists in a category that, until recently, astronomers didnt even believe was physically possible.

The OSU team didnt directly image the Unicorn. But they found something weird going on with a nearby red giant star: An invisible object appeared to be locked into its gravitational pull and exerting such a strong tug of its own that it was physically reshaping the star as it orbited.

The simplest explanation is that its a black hole, study coauthor Todd Thompson said in the release, and in this case, the simplest explanation is the most likely one.

Thompson is OSUs astronomy chair and his new research, set to be published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, is just the latest piece of his ongoing work to discover and understand these bizarrely tiny black holes. Aside from a scientific oddity, finding black holes like The Unicorn helps to unravel the mysteries of how stars develop and die.

I think the field is pushing toward this, to really map out how many low-mass, how many intermediate-mass, and how many high-mass black holes there are, Thompson added, because every time you find one it gives you a clue about which stars collapse, which explode and which are in between.

READ MORE: Black hole is closest to Earth, among the smallest ever discovered [The Ohio State University]

More on black holes: New Paper Says Black Holes Could Be as Large as an Entire Galaxy

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Astronomers Discover Closest-Ever Black Hole to Earth - Futurism

What do most people think of when imagining a farm? Typically: Acres upon acres of crops, fed by an extensive irrigation system, with tons of pesticides and heavy machinery in other words, an image of modern farming thats simply dated. Todays most technically advanced farms dont require nearly as much water or chemicals, and take up just a fraction of the footprint. How? The answer is simple: Vertical farming. Specifically, the brand new Greenery S hydroponic system by Freight Farms.

Vertical farming is nothing less than exactly what it sounds like. As opposed to spreading crops out along the ground, beds are effectively turned on their side, and grown on vertical panels. This isnt exactly new; some of the earliest indigenous farmers would plant crops on layered terraces to achieve similar results. But the modern form of vertical farming is barely two decades old. While its proven hyper-efficient, the technological cost of entry has also traditionally proven to be high, requiring expensive lights, temperature and irrigation control systems, and enormous amounts of electricity to say nothing of capital. Until now.

Enter Freight Farms, a fully-functional farm in a 40-foot container. Launched in 2011, Freight Farms mission is to build accessible, modular vertical farming technology that empowers anyone to grow fresh, healthy food in their local communities wherever that may be. While industrial farms tend to rely on GMO seeds, extensive pesticides, and centralized distribution systems, Freight Farms has worked tirelessly to cram 2.5 acres worth of farmable land into a 320-square-foot shipping container that can be placed almost anywhere, and scaled up (or down) to meet your individual needs. Whether youre a small restaurant looking to grow your own vegetables, an entrepreneur looking to bring fresh food to a food desert, or even just a homestead hobbyist, the Greenery S by Freight Farms is here to make your vertical farm aspirations a reality.

Freight Farms brings a decade of experience to the Greenery S. The Greenery S uses 99% less water than traditional industrial farm systems, mainly because you dont need to worry about losing so much water to evaporation over acres and acres of land. Furthermore, the Greenery S has built in temperature controls that make farming viable year round, with a minimum temperature of -40 degrees fahrenheit and a maximum of 120 degrees fahrenheit. And with over five hundred supported crop varieties, you can throw out your hardiness zone map and grow pretty much whatever you want, wherever you want.

Besides being far more cost effective than purchasing, tilling, planting, irrigating, and harvesting multiple acres of land, Freight Farms also uses data to help you get the most out of your yield. The proprietary farmhand software integration gives operators complete automation and control over their grow operations. The software connects hundreds of farmers, and is constantly compiling data from them to help you better manage your own crops based on learnings from the entire Freight Farms network.

The Greenery S is available now, to everyone. Whether youre a seasoned farmer looking to scale out your operation or youre simply looking for an exciting new business opportunity, Freight Farms intelligent automation and exceptional design can transform any small space into a commercial scale farm. Head here to learn more and reserve yours now.

Futurism fans: This post was paid for byFreight Farmsand was written by non-editorial staff. This content does not necessarily reflect the views or the endorsement of the Futurism.com editorial staff.

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This Is What The Future of Farming Looks Like - Futurism

It's like a real life Green Goblin.City Hoverboard

The hoverboard from Back to the Future II is finally here.

But its a lot less inconspicuous than a sleek 80s era skateboard that just happens to defy gravity and a lot more like the Green Goblin from the Spiderman franchise.

In a new viral video captioned this man is living in 2030, a person can be seen zipping along a public road, riding on top of what looks like a high-powered drone with eight propellers.

Its likely the stunt broke several laws, but at least the drone rider decided to wear a helmet.

As it turns out, the video isnt some CGI trickery. The amazing flying contraption is sold by a company called Omni Hoverboards and likely costs upwards of $20,000, as TMZ points out. Its unlikely,though, that youll be able to get your hands on one any time soon.

Several videos online show what the drone hoverboard is capable of. One video shows a man soaring above the tree line over the top of a country-side pond.

According to the companys website, its the first real hoverboard. Its inventor Catalin Alexandru Duru broke the world record for the longest hoverboard flight with it, some 905 feet, back in 2015, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

READ MORE: Real-Life Hoverboard Seen Zipping Through Streets, Retails for $20k [TMZ]

More on hoverboards: Inventors Create Working Hoverboard

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Man Sighted Flying Through City on Giant Drone - Futurism