Connecting a human brain to a computer is as much a materials science problem as a biology one. What kind of interface is delicate enough not to damage nerve tissue, but resilient enough to last decades? Researchers have come up … Continued
The Human Brain Project, with its billion-dollar plan to recreate the human mind inside a supercomputer, sounds like a science fiction nightmare. But those involved hope their ambitious goal of simulating the tangle of neurons and synapses that power our … Continued
A team of scientists at the Boston Children’s Hospital have invented what is being considered one the greatest medical breakthroughs in recent years. They have designed a microparticle that can be injected into a person’s bloodstream that can quickly oxygenate … Continued
The impending edition of The Futurist magazine contains some thoughts about how our collective future might evolve, written by Dick Pelletier who is a science and technology columnist and futurist, and editor of the Positive Futurist weekly newsletter and Web site, www.positivefuturist.com/about.html “What … Continued
You may be as amazed as I am that there is a website called PhD comics, and the good folks there have produced an eight minute video explaining what the search for the Higgs Boson is all about. It is … Continued
German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity – equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity – through the midday hours of a Friday and Saturday, the head of a renewable energy think tank … Continued
Springer, the largest publisher of academic journals has expanded its range of open access peer-reviewed journals to include titles such as: Human Centric Computing and Information Sciences, and Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship The full list of open access journals … Continued
One difficulty faced by conservationists is getting hold of reliable statistics on the animals they are looking after. For good reasion, many species of predators are rather shy. In a paper just published in Current Biology a small group of … Continued
Michael Marien, long time editor of Future Search for the World Fuiture Society has created a new website summarising and analysing books focusing on the future. Those who register at the wrebsite can receive a monthly email listing new books. … Continued
The first thing to realize is that Facebook is in fact a bank. It doesn’t have a charter and its not regulated*, but it accepts deposits from consumers, and provides means for payment using those deposits. In my book, thats … Continued
An article in this week’s Economist magazine discusses the creation by a Doctor in Pennslyvania of an electronic dictionary designed to easily allow speakers of rare languages to preserve their language. Many, many ethnic languages are under threat and would … Continued
In an article in the Jan 2012 edition of The Futurist Magazine, the CEO of the DaVinci Institute poses 8 grand challenges which he reckons would change the world if they were achieved. To give some idea of the scope … Continued
There is a generation gap between children and teachers that can make it hard for them to relate to each other. Teachers are used to paperback books and abacuses, while the youth understand e-readers and Justin Bieber. That is why … Continued
IN A 1992 issue of The Times Literary Supplement, the philosopher Jerry Fodor famously complained that: “Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it would be like to have the slightest idea about how … Continued
If you think the art of mind-reading is a conjuring trick, think again. Over the past few years, the ability to connect first monkeys and then men to machines in ways that allow brain signals to tell those machines what … Continued
From the vibrations filling the air when jets to take off to the waves generated by radio and television transmitters, our environment is full of largely wasted energy. Now, Align Full (Alt + Shift + J)researchers are seeking ways to capture … Continued
Jan Lee Martin, founder and driving force of the futures foundation for nearly twenty years passed away in Sydney yesterday. After the demise of the Australian Commission for the Future, the futures foundation was the only significant future focussed organisation … Continued
By 2014, all of South Korea’s elementary-level educational materials will be digitized, and by 2015, the entire school-age curriculum will be delivered on an array of computers, smart phones and tablets. While the country’s education ministry is yet to announce the … Continued
The Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) has developed scenarios for social and economic vulnerability in the U.S. and is seeking comments before these scenarios are finalized. The scenarios provide alternative futures for the year 2030, and were developed with funding from the Robert … Continued
You can never predict who might have a good idea. That’s why companies are starting to enlist employees to make innovations both big and small, even if it’s not part of their job description. The idea of crowdsourcing—outsourcing a task … Continued