Author Archives: Charles Brass

Ray Kurzweil is famous for making predictions that have actually become true. There’s no denying that we live in an era of rapid technological changes. New inventions are taking place in AI, machine learning, and nanotechnology. Over the last decade … Continued

Hundreds of billions of dollars are being invested in a high-tech gamble to make hydrogen clean, cheap and widely available. In Australia’s Outback, that starts with 10 million new solar panels. For eons this has been a quiet, unremarkable place. … Continued

For a small but growing network of countries, the world’s go-to metric of economic health is no longer fit for purpose. Mostly led by women, Finland, Iceland, Scotland, Wales and New Zealand are all members of the Wellbeing Economy Governments partnership. … Continued

Over the past ten years, food trends have become the basic tool for many actors in the food industry: in executive offices as well as in departments of product development and innovation, in international corporations, SMEs and start-ups, in the gastronomy … Continued

“Mom answered questions from grieving relatives after they had watched her cremation.”   Marina Smith, a 87-year-old woman who passed away in June, was able to address the mourners at her own funeral in the UK — sort of, at … Continued

In what is set to be a world first, a robot lawyer will appear in a United States court next month, representing a client facing traffic charges. The artificial intelligence (AI) tool uses machine learning to match text and voice recognition … Continued

Riding on the shoulders of the Apollo generation, the Artemis missions will pave the way for humans to return to the moon, begin human exploration of Mars, and someday for humanity to reach the edges of our solar system and … Continued

Those words are: “You can’t predict the future, but you can weigh the probabilities.” Bezos’ financial advice was offered when he counseled his Twitter followers that it’s time to prepare for possible economic turmoil. The probabilities in this economy tell … Continued

Sitting on the Marine Atlantic ferry, I’m watching the Newfoundland skyline disappear on the horizon as I type away. I see the rocking of the ocean waves, inhale its salty breeze, feel and hear the buzz of the ship’s rumbling … Continued

Roads of the future could be lit by glowing trees instead of streetlamps, thanks to a breakthrough in creating bioluminescent plants. Experts injected specialized nanoparticles into the leaves of a watercress plant, which caused it to give off a dim … Continued

One of the main arguments against a rapid transition to renewable energy is the potentially enormous cost. But a new study shows that moving quickly could actually save us huge amounts of money compared to taking things slowly or doing … Continued

California is spending $20 million on a pilot project that will install more than a mile of solar panels over sections of important water sources, including canals — a futuristic effort to fight a devastating drought hitting California this summer with green … Continued

Scientists have successfully taught a collection of human brain cells in a petri dish how to play the video game “Pong” — kind of. Researchers at the biotechnology startup Cortical Labs have created “mini-brains” consisting of 800,000 to one million living … Continued

Cast your mind back, if you will, to 1965, when Tom Lehrer recorded his live album That Was the Year That Was. Lehrer prefaced a song called “So Long Mom (A Song for World War III)” by saying that “if there’s … Continued

How do 1.4 kg of brain tissue create thoughts, feelings, mental images, and an inner world? The ability of the brain to create consciousness has baffled some for millennia. The mystery of consciousness lies in the fact that each of … Continued

 A California-based organisation wants to harness the power of machine learning to decode communication across the entire animal kingdom. But the project has its doubters A dolphin handler makes the signal for “together” with her hands, followed by “create”. The … Continued