Futurism

Here’s How We’ll Build A Cheap, Safe Lunar Base

The “magnificent desolation” of the Moon might offer some great views, but otherwise it’s a lousy place to live. Human explorers would need protection from a constant bombardment of radiation and extreme temperature shifts. A new video shows how we can inexpensively build an ideal shelter with robotic 3D printers. The concept video, produced by…

Why Science Fiction Likes To Look 50 Years Into The Future

Our favorite stories can come in from any time period, from our own to the long, long ago to the not-so-distant future all the way to the very far future. So what makes 50 years or so such a popular benchmark for us to look towards? Author Karl Schroeder joined us today to answer questions…

This Gamer Used His Thoughts To Control The Movements Of Another Player

An upgraded brain-to-brain interface has allowed researchers to transmit signals from one person’s brain over the internet and use those signals to control the hand motions of another person. Remarkably, the system allowed the participants to collaborate on a computer game. Photo: Mary Levin, U of Wash. This latest experiment by University of Washington researchers…

Denmark Will Stop Using Coal by 2025

Denmark is already one of the greenest countries in the world, thanks to its offshore wind farms, and now its climate minister has made a dramatic promise. The nation will stop burning coal for energy in ten years. Photo via Vattenfall Because Denmark already has a fairly robust alternative energy infrastructure, this plan might actually…

Here Is What Real Online Civil Disobedience Looks Like

Internet politics aren’t just about trolling and doxxing. In new book The Coming Swarm, internet researcher Molly Sauter takes us into the secret history of civil disobedience online, and reveals a world where people fight for justice, without hashtags or personal glory. These activists do it because they believe in something bigger than themselves. Excerpt…

How Universal Basic Income Will Save Us From the Robot Uprising

Robots are poised to eliminate millions of jobs over the coming decades. We have to address the coming epidemic of “technological unemployment” if we’re to avoid crippling levels of poverty and societal collapse. Here’s how a guaranteed basic income will help — and why it’s absolutely inevitable. Illustration by Tara Jacoby The idea of a…

RocketSkates Look Fun, Damn Hard To Use

Ars Technica’s Andrew Cunningham got a chance to try out a pair of RocketSkates, a motorized pair of step-in, battery-powered skates that recently brought in over half a million bucks in Kickstarter funding. We’ll admit, these things look like they could be pretty fun to use – once you got over the learning curve, anyway.…

Researchers Have Just Found A Better Way To Edit DNA

Sorry CRISPR, but there’s a new genomic editor in town — and this one’s better than you. It’s a new approach to site-specific gene targeting that will allow scientists to safely replace disease-causing genes with functional copies. And they’ve already used it to relieve the effects of hemophilia in mice. One of the most important…

What will future historians say about the 21st century? A new book, written by a historian in 2393, looks at the 21st century and the “Great Collapse of 2093” due to climate change. Co-author Naomi Oreskes says writing science fiction “gave us the freedom to extrapolate and show what’s at stake.”

Self-Driving Vehicles May Usher in a New Era of Extreme Driving

We’re on the verge of a new era, where self-driving cars promise to make road transportation safe, efficient and, well, kind of dull. But, for those who will still crave the open road, automated cars in cities might free up designers to create vehicles built explicitly to enjoy driving outside of populated areas. Just as…

​ISIS Drones Show Us the Future Of War

In recent years, U.S. military planners have been considering an uncomfortable scenario: What happens as more countries acquire drones? How will warfare change when the skies are filled with vehicles controlled remotely by enemies? We’re getting a preview right now in the Middle East. https://gizmodo.com/within-a-decade-every-nation-will-have-weaponized-dron-1572941407 At the Lawfare Blog, analyst Cody Poplin shows screenshots taken…

Incredible Photographs of the Hungarian Internet Tax Protests

Thousands of people in Budapest, Hungary, protested an “internet tax” proposed by the country’s right-wing ruling party Fidesz. The tax would force Hungarians to pay 150 forints ($0.60) per gigabyte of data traffic. In these photographs taken by Cink‘s Attila Nagy, you can see the massive protest firsthand. https://cink.hu/demszky-gabor-is-ott-volt-a-fidesz-szekhaz-ostromanal-1651055036

Nevermind Cargo Containers — These Are the Best Post-Apocalyptic Homes

Instant architecture is fascinating because it allows us to imagine cities built ultra-fast in the wake of some apocalypse. And now, a group of inventors in Italy have created a robot that can build houses in hours, by extruding mud into the perfect design. This video was taken at the Maker Faire in Rome, where…

Why We Love To Watch The World Burn

Whether by sweeping pandemic, by natural disasters of biblical proportions, by a horde of zombies, or by some unspecified slowly-unfolding environmental destruction, world-destroying fiction is having a moment. But what is it that makes it so appealing to see the world fall down around us? Today, we read responses from 5 authors explaining what made…

Freezing Your Eggs Isn’t the Future of Reproduction. Here’s What Is.

When Facebook and Apple announced that their new health plans include an option to freeze the eggs of female employees, the news was greeted with a mix of cheers and outrage. But freezing women’s eggs is just a starting point. The future demands more than that. Image via Batman and Robin It pisses me off…

Meet The Man Who’s Building Robots For Political Resistance

Right now, we’re developing a lot of devices whose sole purpose is to spy or control us. To counter this, an MIT visionary decided to take matters into his own hands by inventing equal and opposite robots to empower people who are being menaced or disempowered by military robotics. Top image: Automata (2014) The remarkable…

In the Future, Your Umbrella Will Be Half-Vibrator, Half-Airgun

Umbrella technology innovation has really ground to a halt these past few hundred years, but luckily some inventors in Beijing and Nanjing have come up with an umbrella for the twenty-first century. It uses a high-powered fan to blow water up to three feet away from you. Called the Air Umbrella, it has the advantage…

The Food Crisis Is Coming — Are You Ready for It?

A geography professor who specializes in food security and an artist have teamed up to create one of the most interesting dystopian comics we’ve seen in a while. Welcome to the world of #foodcrisis, set in a famine-plagued future that is all too believable. Evan Fraser works at the University of Guelph in Canada, researching…

Lockheed Says It’ll Have A Truck-Sized Fusion Reactor In 10 Years

American defense contractor Lockheed Martin has issued a statement declaring it has made a technological breakthrough in developing a power source based on nuclear fusion. It’s hoping to have a prototype ready in five years — and a small, functional unit ready by 2024. It’s a big claim, but if they’re being honest it could…

Is This the Single Most Important Statistic About Millennials?

The U.S. Council of Economic Advisers just released a fascinating report about Millennials, packed with statistics about their demographics and economic prospects. It charts a lot of differences between Gen X and Millennials, but there’s one statistic that reveals a true generation gap. What you can see in this simple pie chart comparison, above, is…