Category Archives: Futurism

Scientists suspect that the reason some parts of the world were devastated by the coronavirus pandemic while others were able to contain their outbreaks is that different areas have been hit by different mutations of the virus itself.

A team from Scripps Research have singled out one particular mutation, dubbed D614G, as a particularly-infectious strain of the virus, Reuters reports and they say it could explain the massive death tolls in locations including New York City and Italy.

This mutation was previously identified as one of the dominant forms of the coronavirus and linked to greater rates of transmission, but now the team thinks they know why its so dangerous.

The surface of the coronavirus is covered in spike proteins that help it latch onto a host cell. It turns out that the D614G mutation gives the virus four to five times as many spikes. That makes it far more likely to glom onto and infect a cell, according to research shared online last week thats currently awaiting peer review. The study also found that added spikes help keep the virus intact as it floats inside its host.

Our data are very clear, the virus becomes much more stable with the mutation, Scripps virologist Hyeryun Choe said in a press release.

Viruses with this mutation were much more infectious than those without the mutation in the cell culture system we used, Choe added.

What remains unknown about D614G is whether it causes more severe infections or if its deadlier than other strains of the coronavirus. The Scripps researchers havent yet looked into it, Reuters reports, but plan to conduct more studies soon.

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Scientists: Mutated Version of Coronavirus May Have Hit NYC, Italy - Futurism

According to new research, The New York Times reports, flushing the toilet could kick up a cloud of aerosol droplets that have the potential to carry infectious virus particles including the COVID-causing coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

With the help of computer simulations of bathroom environments, as detailed in the paper published in the journal Physics of Fluids today, the researchers observed a massive upward transport of virus particles that reached above the toilet seat, leading to large-scale virus spread.

Its doesnt come as much of a shock.

The aerosols generated by toilets are something that weve kind of known about for a while, but many people have taken for granted, Joshua Santarpia, professor of pathology and microbiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, who was not involved in the research, told the Times. This study adds a lot of the evidence that everyone needs in order to take better action.

While previous research has found that traces of viral RNA can be spread through feces, those traces are far less likely to still be enough for infection.

But theres good news: its pretty simple to stop a toilet from burping up a cloud of coronavirus. For one, if possible, close the lid first and then trigger the flushing process, as Ji-Xiang Wang, co-author from Yangzhou University told the Times.

Handwashing is also extremely important after using a public bathroom which at this point should really go without saying.

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New Research: Flushing Toilets May Burp Clouds of Virus Particles - Futurism

Todays product is another that makes you question just whether we are, in fact, living in a sci-fi dream. After yesterdays make your laptop touchscreen device one that uses an invisible light field to detect touch activation we bring you another product straight from a 1980s sci-fi movies take on what the year 2020 might look like.

This one lets you place whatever possession you want on a floating, and gently rotating, platform. Even the name, PowerTRCs Levitation Ion Revolution Platform, reeks of futurism. Its the sort of thing youd expect a portly, cigar-smoking galactic senator to place on their desk, proffering a black-pink crystal of immense psychic power with an air of faint menace, slowly revolving while the senator sits on their similarly floating translucent office chair and gazes over the murky skyline. No? Maybe its just me with that one, then.

Buy this today is our list of brilliant stuff you could and probably should own. That includes games, hardware, tech, board games, toys, and more. For all of our product recommendations follow Buy This Today on Twitter

Its a levitating disc that uses magnetism to float above the device underneath it. The hover disc can support up to 13 ounces, which is enough for most small possessions, centrepieces, or Sith Wayfinders. The disc continuously revolves, meaning you can have one of your favourite possessions floating and slowly rotating on display. Four white spotlights are aimed at whatever sits atop the platform, to keep said item visible even in the dark.

You want to turn your computer desk, bookshelf, or side table into a futuristic display something you can show off to your friends and family. It would make the perfect addition to a neon-lit gaming setup, especially the kind that gets posted on r/battlestations. If you have a favourite possession that you want on display (perhaps a gaming figurine, or a trophy, or even a spare peripheral like a gaming mouse), this levitating platform gets the job done in style.

PowerTRCs Levitation Ion Revolution Platform is the best option available. There are other products that use similar levitating tech, but this one lets you decide what you want on display. Thats the unique selling point for this product: not only does it levitate, but you have complete control of what it is that gets levitated (providing you stick to the 13 ounce weight restriction).

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Buy this today: a stand that makes your favourite possessions levitate - PCGamesN

Flare Up

Scientists found something peculiar coming from the center of the Milky Way galaxy: a previously-undiscovered signal they think is coming fromthe supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy.

The team of Keio University researchers think that the signal is caused when the accretion disk around the black hole flares up and give off extremely rapidly-rotating radio spots, according to research published last month in The Astrophysical Journal Letters a glimpse at the unimaginable chaos at the core of our galaxy.

The flickering signals arent entirely new scientists have previously discovered larger and slower flare ups. But thanks to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), now scientists can detect more minute emanations than ever before.

This emission could be related with some exotic phenomena occurring at the very vicinity of the supermassive black hole, Keio University professor Tomoharu Oka said in a press release.

The fluctuations likely come from the dizzying rotationof gas around the surface of the black hole which could help explain why its so difficult to directly observe it.

In general, the faster the movement is, the more difficult it is to take a photo of the object, Oka said.

READ MORE: ALMA spots twinkling heart of Milky Way [National Institutes of Natural Sciences]

More on supermassive black holes: A Supermassive Black Hole Yeeted This Star at 3.7 Million MPH

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Astronomers Detect Signal Coming From the Heart of Our Galaxy - Futurism

A team of researchers from the Higher School of Economics University and Open University in Moscow, Russia claim they have demonstrated that an artificial intelligence can make accurate personality judgments based on selfies alone more accurately than some humans.

The researchers suggest the technology could be used to help match people up in online dating services or help companies sell products that are tailored to individual personalities.

Thats apropos, because two co-authors listed on a paper about the research published today in Scientific Reports a journal run by Nature are affiliated with a Russian AI psychological profiling company called BestFitMe, which helps companies hire the right employees.

As detailed in the paper, the team asked 12,000 volunteers to complete a questionnaire that they used to build a database of personality traits. To go along with that data, the volunteers also uploaded a total of 31,000 selfies.

The questionnaire was based around the Big Five personality traits, five core traits that psychological researchers often use to describe subjects personalities, including openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

After training a neural network on the dataset, the researchers found that it could accurately predict personality traits based on real-life photographs taken in uncontrolled conditions, as they write in their paper.

While accurate, the precision of their AI leaves something to be desired. They found that their AI can can make a correct guess about the relative standing of two randomly chosen individuals on a personality dimension in 58% of cases.

That result isnt exactly groundbreaking but its a little better than just guessing, which is vaguely impressive.

Strikingly, the researchers claim their AI is better at predicting the traits than humans. While rating personality traits by human close relatives or colleagues was far more accurate than when rated by strangers, they found that the AI outperforms an average human rater who meets the target in person without any prior acquaintance, according to the paper.

Considering the woeful accuracy, and the fact that some of the authors listed on the study are working on commercializing similar tech, these results should be taken with a hefty grain of salt.

Neural networks have generated some impressive results, but any research that draws self-serving conclusions especially when they require some statistical gymnastics should be treated with scrutiny.

READ MORE: Artificial intelligence can make personality judgments based on photographs [National Research University Higher School of Economics]

More on AI: Mind-Melting AI Makes Frank Sinatra Sing Toxic by Britney Spears

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Researchers: This AI Can Judge Personality Based on Selfies Alone - Futurism

Researchers say theyve created a proof-of-concept bionic eye that could surpass the sensitivity of a human one.

In the future, we can use this for better vision prostheses and humanoid robotics, researcher Zhiyong Fan, at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, told Science News.

The eye, as detailed in a paper published in the prestigious journal Nature today, is in essence a three dimensional artificial retina that features a highly dense array of extremely light-sensitive nanowires.

The team, led by Fan, lined a curved aluminum oxide membrane with tiny sensors made of perovskite, a light-sensitive material thats been used in solar cells.

Wires that mimic the brains visual cortex relay the visual information gathered by these sensors to a computer for processing.

The nanowires are so sensitive they could surpass the optical wavelength range of the human eye, allowing it to respond to 800 nanometer wavelengths, the threshold between visual light and infrared radiation.

That means it could see things in the dark when the human eye can no longer keep up.

A human user of the artificial eye will gain night vision capability, Fan told Inverse.

The researchers also claim the eye can react to changes in light faster than a human one, allowing it to adjust to changing conditions in a fraction of the time.

Each square centimeter of the artificial retina can hold about 460 million nanosize sensors, dwarfing the estimated 10 million cells in the human retina. This suggests that it could surpass the visual fidelity of the human eye.

Fan told Inverse that we have not demonstrated the full potential in terms of resolution at this moment, promising that eventually a user of our artificial eye will be able to see smaller objects and further distance.

Other researchers who were not involved in the project pointed out that plenty of work still has to be done to eventually be able to connect it to the human visual system, as Scientific American reports.

But some are hopeful.

I think in about 10 years, we should see some very tangible practical applications of these bionic eyes, Hongrui Jiang, an electrical engineer at the University of WisconsinMadison who was not involved in the research, told Scientific American.

READ MORE: A new artificial eye mimics and may outperform human eyes [Science News]

More on bionic eyes: SCIENTISTS PLUGGED A BIONIC EYE DIRECTLY INTO THIS WOMANS BRAIN

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This Bionic Eye Is Better Than a Real One, Scientists Say - Futurism

Spaceman Simulator

NASA is looking for participants to spent eight months together inside a spaceflight simulator at the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems in Moscow.

The goal is to study the effects of spending time in isolation and confinement sound familiar? while on lengthy space missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Participants will experience environmental aspects similar to those astronauts are expected to experience on future missions to Mars, reads a NASA statement. They will also have to complete simulated space missions during their stay.

The eight month mission will follow a four-month study last year that simulated a journey to the Moon and back at the same Russian facility. The longest mission, called Mars500, went on for 520 days to simulate a trip to Mars.

According to a call for participants on its website, NASA is looking for healthy participants between the ages of 30 and 55 who have professional experience with science, technology, engineering or math experience. Participants also have to be proficient in Russian and English and of course be willing to be locked up for eight months.

Participants will also be compensated for their time spent inside the simulator, but its still unclear how much theyll get paid.

READ MORE: Love isolation? NASA wants you to spend 8 months locked in a Russian lab [Space.com]

More on space simulators: CHINA OPENS ITS FIRST MARS SIMULATION BASE

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NASA Will Pay You to Chill in a Fake Mars Mission for 8 Months - Futurism

Thar Be Gold

As humanity pushes to settle the Moon, well need to find ways to quickly build shelters and replenish the water supply. As it turns out, the solution to those life-and-death challenges may lie well, within.

When it comes to fulfilling humanitys base needs food, water, and shelter on the Moon, the European Space Agency (ESA) thinks that the secret ingredient could be human urine, Wired reports. According to ESA research, it could serve as a crucial component of the best building material available to lunar settlers.

Wired reports that Moon settlers are likely to build using geomolymer: material made from mashing rocks with liquid to create a sort of clay. In a recent ESA study, building geopolymer rich in urea thats the stuff in your pee made the material stronger and more durable compared to water alone.

Water is very, very valuable on the lunar surface, ESA researcher Marlies Arnhof told Wired. So one of our main goals with this study was to reduce the amount of water necessary to produce a geopolymer.

But there are a challenges to the ESAs plan. The agency is only beginning to study, for instance, whether pee-laden huts would block cosmic radiation. Also, theres the unfortunate reality that pulling together enough urea to settle the Moon would require a herculean community effort.

I dont know if making pee would scale well, University of Central Florida planetary scientist Phil Metzger told Wired. I just dont think youre going to have that many people peeing on the moon.

READ MORE: On the Moon, Astronaut Pee Will Be a Hot Commodity [Wired]

More on Moon urine: Scientists: Astronauts Could Build Moon Base Using Human Urine

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On the Moon, the Real Gold Might Be Human Urine - Futurism

Cult Futures is a new insight and incubation program launched by Cult, one of the worlds fastest growing independent creative agencies. Their latest white paper, The Creatology Report, explores the future of creativity and technology for brands. The first episode went live this week.

The panel will discuss the sensory internet, which explores how brands can thrive as the relationship between the internet and consumers is becoming so blurred that online interaction and real-world experience are fast becoming one and the same thing.

Laura Chen, head of marketing US at Elvie, and Nora Zukauskaite, global head of marketing UK and US at Ciate, join report collaborator award-winning futurist and author Lucie Greene to discuss the implications of technology that now has the capacity to live, breathe, talk and even read consumers minds.

The free live virtual event, hosted by Cults global managing director Bridey Lipscombe and head of strategy Charlotte Bunyan, starts at 4pm on Thursday 28 May. Tickets are available through Eventbrite.

Bridey Lipscombe, global managing director and co-founder of Cult, said: The Sensory Internet explores the increasing shift to more multi-sensory and frictionless ways to engage through digital, and heralds a more human AI experience. As our physical and digital worlds become further blurred, this is the perfect time to be discussing what this means for brands and consumers now and in the near future.

Lucie Greene, futurist: Were at an inflection point in the way we use and think about technology, which has been accelerated even more so with Covid-19. AR, gaming and AI innovations to social platforms are creating a raft of new immersive ways to connect, work and shop. Were seeing a new generation of creatives emerge who are collaborating with technologists, sound artists, developers, and engineers moving the notion of creativity into new realms.

To sign up to the event, please follow the link here.

Read Episode 1 of Cult Futures The Sensory Internet here.

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Cult Futures announces virtual event with global wellness chiefs and futurist Lucie Greene - The Drum

Constant Surveillance

When its complete, a new infrared telescope in Australia will give astronomers an unprecedented glimpse of the universe.

The Dynamic Red All-Sky Monitoring Survey (DREAMS) is expected to be completed early next year, at which point scientists will be able to watch supernovae, star mergers, and other epic cosmic events in real time giving scientists a more detailed understanding of the universe than ever before.

DREAMS camera will be able to map the entire southern sky in surveys that take just three days, allowing astronomers to rapidly find and track cosmic events.

By monitoring the sky continuously and rapidly, we will be able to search for varying and explosive phenomena, Anna Moore, Director of the Australian National University Institute for Space, said in a press release. This real-time astronomy, which allows us to study events taking place over months, weeks or days instead of millions of years, is a window into the great unknown.

In this case, real-time doesnt mean astronomers will see things like an exploding star when the actual explosion happens that light still needs to travel for untold millions of years to reach Earth. Instead, the camera will let them gather more data of the event as its signal reaches Earth, sort of like upgrading from a single photograph to a flipbook.

DREAMS will allow us to see the universe in an entirely new way, Moore added.

READ MORE: New infrared telescope to spot cosmic hidden treasures [Australian National University]

More on astronomy: NASA Telescope Idea Could Spot Vegetation on Distant Exoplanets

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New Telescope Will Watch Entire Southern Sky in Infrared - Futurism