Category Archives: Transhuman News

"It's like high school drama but from people who are very much out of high school."Lonely VRts

Wear a mushroom suit, meet a rabbit, hang out and talk amid a post-apocalyptic wasteland or sub-ocean lair. Or maybe just sit at a regular ol' bar.

Virtual reality-powered metaverse dating is here and it's growing, as Madeleine Aggeler writes for The New York Times and frankly, it sounds, uh, super weird.

"We intend to change the dating market," Cam Mullen, CEO of a recently-launched VR dating service called Nevermet, told the NYT, "where physical attraction will become one of several factors rather than the primary way people connect."

Nevermet is one of several up-and-coming VR dating services, which, like Tinder or Hinge, works to match users in digital spaces. But Nevermet takes digital dating a few steps further. Unlike Hinge's motto "designed to be deleted" suggests of the classic phone apps, Nevermet has faith in a future where entire relationships will be lived in headsets.

"One day virtual reality will be so immersive," Mullen's comments continued, "that more and more relationships will flourish online."

The benefits of these spaces seems somewhat unclear at present. On one hand, as the NYT reports, they can be havens for those who want a safe place to explore their sexual identities; Mullen told the publication that taking virtual forms can allow users to "feel like their best self."

Others, however, say these spaces aren't always so welcoming.

"It's cliquey," Stonie Blue, a 23-year-old VR dater, told the NYT. "It's like high school drama but from people who are very much out of high school."

Besides Nevermet, other services on the VR dating scene include an app called Flirtual, Second Life's Lonely Hearts Dating Agency, and maybe Single Town, a virtual dating space built by Match Group, the corporation behind the dating apps Match, OkCupid, Tinder and Hinge.

On that note, it's worth noting that modern love lives are already heavily integrated with digital spaces, whether they're dating-specific apps or social media platforms. Still, the general belief is still that if you meet someone online, you'll one day make your way offline, which isn't necessarily the goal of these VR services and the jury's still out on whether anybody wants that.

READ MORE: Looking for Love in the Metaverse [The New York Times]

More on virtual reality:VR Company Shows off Full-body Suit That Electrocutes You Everywhere

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People Are Going on Dates in the Metaverse and It Sounds Very Strange - Futurism

Image by Getty Images/Futurism

In a new study, a team of researchers found that feeding rats soft drinks like Coke and Pepsi caused enough damage to the unfortunate critters' brains to trigger memory issues, cognitive impairment, and cellular distress.

Of course, soda isn't exactly considered health food. It's absolutely packed with sweeteners, real and fake, and studies far and wide have confirmed that sugars like those found in soft drinks lead to health conditions including diabetes, heart disease, tooth decay, and liver complications, to name a few.

But according to the new research, consistent, long-term consumption of sugary, cola-based soft drinks specifically may also be directly linked to brain health and behavioral issues and, apparently, the inability to make one's way through a maze. (If you're a rat, that is.)

In order to study how cola-based sodas which were chosen for study due to their prevalence in many modern human diets might impact the rats' brains, the scientists first separated the rats into three age groups: 2-month, 8-month, and 14-month olds. Each of those age groups were then split into water-drinking and cola-and-water-drinking cohorts.

After 57 days, the scientists ran the rodents through some maze-based behavior testing, and ten days after that, the rats were euthanized so that the scientists could then examine any differences in their brains.

Upon examination, the water-drinking rodents were perfectly fine. The soda sippers? Not so much.

During the behavioral tests, the scientists found that most of the soda-drinkers, specifically the 2- and 8- month olds, had worse memories and, generally, lower cognitive function than their purist counterparts thus causing some serious difficulty when they tried to get around those damn mazes.

Poor guys. But considering what the scientists discovered when they opened up the creatures' craniums, that's not terribly surprising.

A closer look at the rattos' brains confirmed that the soda groups had all sustained varying degrees of damage to the frontal cortex, which controls vital mental functions like attention, memory, and judgement, as well as the hippocampus, which plays a major role in both memory and learning.

Neurological damage is never a positive thing. But frankly, not being able to make their way through mazes would perhaps have been the least of the rats' problems, if they'd been left alive. In humans, frontal cortex damage has also been linked to personality changes and over-impulsivity, while injury to the hippocampus is thought to play a significant role in illnesses like anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and more.

It's important to remember that this study is grounded in long-term exposure. If a rat were to barely drink cola maybe just order a glass at dinner from time to time it would probably be fine, a likelihood supported by the fact that the oldest rats, whose brains were most fully-formed, were least affected by soda rations. But a rat that drinks Coke or Pepsi every day... well, that's a different story.

It's also key to point out that rats aren't people, so we can't recommend that the CDC updates its recommendations just yet. Still, considering all that humans have learned about sugary sodas in recent years, we wouldn't be surprised if, sometime soon, cola cans come with some extra warnings on the label.

More on soda being horrible for you: Experts Propose Slapping Photos of Diseased Organs on Sugary Drinks

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Scientists Fed Rats Sugary Soda for Two Months and They Got Demonstrably Stupider - Futurism

"It will carry living organisms farther into space than ever before."Bread Space

NASA's Artemis 1 Moon mission, launching later this month, will contain living samples that will be launched into deep space because Terran life forms trapped beyond the stars is exactly what we need right now.

Freaky as it may sound, the samples will just be yeast.Still, the hope is that the experiment will provide unprecedented data on the effects of deep space on Terran life forms.

"BioSentinel is the first of its kind," Matthew Napoli, BioSentinel project manager at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, said a NASA statement.

Hundreds of yeast strains are set to be carried aboard a briefcase-sized satellite as part of the BioSentinel experiment.If all goes according to plan, the Artemis 1 mission will launch on NASA's uber-expensive and years-overdue Space Launch Systems (SLS),which will subsequently shoot the tiny BioSentinel cubesat into an orbit around the Sun, similar to that of Earth, to study the effects of solar radiation on organisms that have left our planet's magnetic field.

We've actually known about the BioSentinel experiment which is also studying yeast cells aboard the International Space Station and on Earth as well since 2019, when NASA announced that its Moon mission would be carrying yeast cells out into the great beyond.

The yeast cells in the Artemis 1 mission are set to join fellow travelers such as three test mannequins, a Snoopy dog toy, and an Amazon Alexa unit that for some unknown reason will be included on the SLS' Orion capsule.

The fact that the BioSentinel yeast will embark on the longest known trip that anything alive has ever taken into space is significant, and could be hugely important for understanding how deep space affects living organisms before humanity starts making longer and longer trips out into the stars ourselves.

Here's hoping the yeast don't mutate into something scary, though!

READ MORE: Stowaways on NASAs massive Moon rocket promise big science in small packages [Science Magazine]

More space effects:Disturbing Discovery Finds That Space Does Something Bad To Astronauts' Bones

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NASA's Moon Mission This Month Will Shoot a Probe Containing Life into Deep Space - Futurism

With everyone in the house relying on a speedy connection, paying top dollar for a high-speed internet plan through your internet service provider just doesnt cut it anymore. With school coming back into session, youll be needing some serious WiFi connectivity for all of the homework, studying, and research projects (not to mention tv shows, gaming, and your own work).

With a router, your whole familys devices are brought together under one network wirelessly, and the connectivity throughout your house gets a much-needed boost. Thankfully, theres an unbelievable amount of back-to-school deals going on now that will make this crucial upgrade to your home sting a whole lot less.

If youre finding dead zones throughout your house, or you need a router that can support multiple devices at once, the Meshforce Mesh WiFi System Pack may be your best option. This three-pack contains enough range to cover up to 6,000 square feet, eliminating the need to stay in one spot when accessing the internet. With increased speeds and strength, you can connect up to 60 devices and still enjoy top-notch connectivity, making it a great option for large families, or frequent entertainers.

These mesh routers are extremely easy to set up and control. The My Mesh mobile app assists with adding a router to your network, WiFi status, and managing parental controls or guest networks. The sleek, little systems have two Ethernet ports each for more powerful connections and can upgrade your current speeds to 1,200 Mbps, making it ideal for streaming in 4K. With the three-pack going for over 25 percent off the original price, upgrading your router couldnt come at a better time.

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NETGEAR Nighthawk Cable Modem WiFi Router Combo, $115 (Was $217.99)

TP-Link Deco X20 WiFi 6 Mesh System (3-Pack), $179.99 (Was $249.99)

TP-Link AX1800 WiFi 6 Router Archer AX21, $89.99 (Was $99.99)

TP-Link AX6600 WiFi 6 Gaming Router, $224.99 (Was $249.99)

Tenda WiFi 6 AX3000 Smart WiFi Router, $79.98 (Was $99.99)

Tenda Nova Mesh WiFi System (3-Pack), $89.99 (Was $99.99)

This post was created by a non-news editorial team at Recurrent Media, Futurisms owner. Futurism may receive a portion of sales on products linked within this post.

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Save 26% on the Meshforce WiFi System and Other Back-to-School Deals on Routers - Futurism

For the better part of the last century, one question has dogged humanity: what would happen after a nuclear war?

Climate scientists devised a terrifying simulation to find answers, published in theNature Food journal this week, and the results are nothing short of apocalyptic.

The waves of terror would be almost impossible to comprehend. Death at ground zero for miles around. Famine. Radiation. Climate destruction. It's all there, and all as horrific as imaginable.

As the researchers at Rutgers noted in their study, it wouldn't even necessarily take two global superpowers to lead to mass death.

If any nuclear-armed country were to attack another with a nuclear weapon the scientists used the lengthy geopolitical dispute between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region as an example not only would they kill countless people at and around the site of their target, but the soot from the detonations would cause such devastation to the global climate that upwards of five billion people would be at risk of death.For perspective, that's more than half the global population.

While this all sounds very "Biblical plague," the Rutgers climate science simulation is grounded in atmospheric science. The soot from the blast and the leftover burning could be enough to partially or completely encircle the planet, the study found, which would in turn result in further global cooling and harm agriculture so harshly that there would be a reduction in food production from anywhere between 7 and 90 percent, depending on the size of the nuclear conflict.

A India-Pakistan-sized war would blast between five and 47 million tons of soot into the atmosphere. If the US and Russia were to have it out, it would release 150 million tons of soot, cutting the global food supply by 90 percent. That level of famine would lead to death at an incredible scale within the first three to four years after a war, and would add to the death toll of the blasts and their aftermaths as well.

While these horrific scenarios are absolutely nightmarish, the researchers did note a few caveats. First, that the simulation required lots of simplifications and presumptions about how global food supply chains would reactduring nuclear winter. And second, even in worst-case scenarios, there are regions that could fare better than others, with Australia seeming to fare the best on their devastation-prediction maps.

"The first time I showed my son the map," Lily Xia, the Rutgers climate scientist who led the research, said in a Nature new release, "the first reaction he had is 'lets move to Australia.'"

Nonetheless, the findings from this simulation are jarring and should be taken as seriously as a heart attack.

"A large percent of the people will be starving, Xia warned. "Its really bad."

Given these stark possibilities, it's very hard to argue.

READ MORE:Nuclear war between two nations could spark global famine [Nature]

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Horrific Simulation: Nuclear War Would Kill Five Billion People - Futurism

And you'll never guess what it's growing first.Orbital Greenhouse

A private space company called Redwire Corporation has announced plans for what it's calling the "first-ever commercially owned greenhouse" in space.

Redwire is hoping to install the facility on the International Space Station no earlier than spring 2023. The startup was awarded a contract with the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, which manages US lab operations on board the ISS.

The greenhouse is meant to serve as a testing bed for growing sustenance in a microgravity environment, which will be important as humans start to embark on longer trips through deep space.

Despite the lofty promises, we have yet to even see any renders of Redwire's greenhouse, meaning the ambitious project will have a lot to prove.

The company does say it's building on "decades of flight heritage and innovation of world-class technologies," according to its website,

Redwire has also managed plant investigations for NASA's Advanced Plant Habitat, a small, fully automated growth chamber on board the ISS, since 2018.

"Redwire Greenhouse will expand opportunities for scientific discovery to improve crop production on Earth and enable critical research for crop production in space to benefit future long-duration human spaceflight," said Dave Reed, Redwire's greenhouse project manager, in a statement.

"Growing full crops in space will be critical to future space exploration missions as plants provide food, oxygen and water reclamation," he added.

During the greenhouse's inaugural flight, Washington-based cannabis company Dewey Scientific will grow "industrial hemp" for a gene study.

Redwire is also collaborating with Tupperware Brands yes, that Tupperware to develop a nutrient delivery system.

The company is also hoping to help NASA on its Artemis missions to the Moon "and beyond," according to Reed.

More on growing stuff in space: NASA Contractor Signs Deal to Build Greenhouses in Earth's Orbit

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Plans Announced for Full Greenhouse on International Space Station - Futurism

Climate change has doubled the likelihood.Biblical Vibes

The state of California is no stranger to natural disasters, always on edge in fearful anticipation of the next "Big One." But what if Californias worst catastrophe came not from wildfires, droughts, or earthquakes, but a megaflood?

A new paper, published last week in the journal Science Advances, examines two scenarios: a more or less current megaflood in the recent historical climate, and a future scenario in the projected climate of 2081-2100. The findings indicate that the likelihood of that type of extreme storm flooding has roughly doubled thanks to global warming, and only increases in likelihood as the planet continues to heat up.

A megaflood would not be an unprecedented event in Californian history. Far from it, as ruinous floods typically occur every five to seven times per millennium, according to the researchers, and the latest one in 1862 came off the back of weeks-long winter storms that turned the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys into a 300 mile long "inland sea."

And now thanks to climate change, the next storm is not only more likely to happen, but it's likely to be even more destructive.

"In the future scenario, the storm sequence is bigger in almost every respect," said study co-author and UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain in a press release.

Such a flood would be big enough to generate up to 400 percent more runoff water in the Sierra Nevada Mountains than in historical records. Some spots would get hit with over 100 inches of rain in a month, and even the more conservative estimates of the current climate scenario indicate that widespread areas would sag under some 40 inches of rain in 30 days.

The 1862 flood happened when the state's population was just 500,000. Today, it's nearly 40 million, and the researchers estimate that a modern day megaflood would be devastating: over $1 trillion in damages, and no doubt countless lives lost and displaced.

"Every major population center in California would get hit at once probably parts of Nevada and other adjacent states, too," Swain said.

More on climate change: Scientists May Be Able to Fight Global Warming by Supercharging Plankton

Link:
Scientists Warn of Megaflood That Could Drown California - Futurism