Futurism

Every human has a “breathprint” – what does yours say about you?

The chemical signature in your breath is unique to you, and may even be as distinctive as your fingerprint. In fact, researchers think your “breathprint” could soon be used to determine your true identity, or diagnose you with an illness. For years, medicine has relied on blood, urine, and tissue samples to monitor wellness and…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

New Interface Allows Humans to Move a Rat’s Tail With Their Thoughts

In what might be the first documented case of technologically-assisted interspecies telepathy, an international team of researchers has successfully created a non-invasive brain-to-brain interface that allows humans to make a rat move involuntarily. The breakthrough could lead to more advanced techniques in which a person can control the parts of another person’s body with their…

io9 George Dvorsky

Oh this? Nothing. Just the 3D-printed skeleton of a living, breathing animal.

This is what you get when you take data from a CT scan and convert it into a format that can be read by a 3D-printer. It’s a skeleton. But not just any skeleton. The 3D model you see here was printed while the rat whose bones it’s based on was still alive. Intact. Still…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

Is it time we got over the taboo against human enhancement?

Slate writer Will Oremus has put together a fairly revealing article about how easy it’s becoming to supercharge our brains, prompting him to wonder why there’s still so much push-back against the idea of technologically enhancing ourselves. The focus of Oremus’s article is on the surprising benefits that can be gleaned from transcranial direct-current stimulation…

io9 George Dvorsky

I’ve Seen the Worst Memes of My Generation Destroyed by Madness

Cultural critic Evgeny Morozov has just written the essay equivalent of The Social Network. “The Meme Hustlers,” published yesterday in The Baffler, is a fictional-but-true account of a well-known Silicon Valley figure, O’Reilly Books publisher Tim O’Reilly. It’s also a story about the future that Silicon Valley pioneers want to build for the world, using…

io9 Annalee Newitz

How Much Longer Before Our First AI Catastrophe?

What will happen in the days after the birth of the first true artificial intelligence? If things continue apace, this could prove to be the most dangerous time in human history. It will be an era of weak and narrow artificial intelligence, a highly dangerous combination that could wreak tremendous havoc on human civilization. Here’s…

io9 George Dvorsky

This robotic jellyfish could be the future of aquatic surveillance

Engineers at Virginia Tech have developed an autonomous jellyfish weighing 170 pounds and measuring nearly six feet in length. It’s called Cryo, and it’s part of a U.S. Navy funded project that could turn these life-like aquatic robots into spies. Cryo is equipped with eight mechanical legs that circle around its metal chasis. Its body…

io9 George Dvorsky

Magazines have finally killed blogs — but in a way you never expected

When Google recently announced it was killing the RSS reader known simply as Reader, a small corner of the internet went apeshit. The rest of the internet asked, “What the hell is RSS?” The answer to that question reveals a lot about why blogs are doomed to be upstaged by the magazines they tried to…

io9 Annalee Newitz

How Will Humans Respond to Immortality?

Austin Considine from Motherboard recently interviewed UC Riverside philosopher John Fischer about his project to study immortality and its implications to the human condition. During their conversation they talked about immortal jellyfish, near-death experiences, the problematic Higgs boson, and the possibility of living for billions of years. https://gizmodo.com/could-this-immortal-jellyfish-unlock-the-secret-to-hu-5964375 https://gizmodo.com/an-alternative-universe-will-eventually-destroy-ours-s-5985647 Somewhat astoundingly, Fischer just received a…

io9 George Dvorsky

Who should be responsible when your robotic surgeon f*cks up?

Back in 2007, a surgical robot’s arm broke off inside a patient’s body during a procedure for prostate cancer. The fracture was so bad that the urologists had to enlarge the wound to get the broken instrument out. The question now is, who’s responsible? The surgeon using the device, or the manufacturer? As we’ve discussed…

io9 George Dvorsky

Video games help the blind navigate new environments

When most of us get lost in unfamiliar territory – a hotel, for example – we consult a map to orient ourselves. But for the blind it’s not so easy. With this in mind, researchers have developed a virtual gaming platform that uses other sensory cues to help blind individuals develop mental maps of new…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

The 1969 novel that accurately predicted the world of 2013

John Brunner isn’t just one of the great underappreciated science fiction authors — he also has a pretty amazing track record at predicting the actual future. At least, in one novel, the Hugo-winning Stand on Zanzibar, he makes a number of predictions that turn out to be spot-on about 2013. Zanzibar is set in 2010,…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders

New brain scan predicts criminal activity before it happens

Neuroscientists have identified a brain scan that enables them to predict whether convicted felons are likely to land themselves back in jail after they’ve been released. But have they discovered the “repeat offense area” of the brain? Far from it. Nature News’ Regina Nuzzo summarizes the researchers’ findings (emphasis in bold): Kent Kiehl, a neuroscientist…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

The Pentagon Wants a Computer That Can Teach Itself

In an effort to pick up the pace of research and development in AI, the U.S. military’s advanced concepts research wing is launching an initiative to design automated tools that will make it easier to not just program computers, but to help computers teach themselves. DARPA is not happy with the way machine learning is…

io9 George Dvorsky

Will Old People Take Over the World?

One of the consequences of radical life extension is the potential for a gerontocracy to set in — the entrenchment of a senior elite who will hold on to their power and wealth, while dominating politics, finance, and academia. Some critics worry that society will start to stagnate as the younger generations become increasingly frustrated…

io9 George Dvorsky

Swarms of robots could be mining asteroids within a generation

Within your lifetime, we could have a permanent Mars colony, says Eric C. Anderson, chairman and co-founder of Space Adventures in a new interview with The Atlantic. But that’s not all — Anderson also believes we’ll have tons of relatively cheap-to-produce robots mining asteroids, sooner than you probably expect. Top image via Planetary Resources. Anderson…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Will we survive our technology?

Our technologies are becoming more powerful with each passing year — and with an eerie regularity. This has led some to believe that we’re hurtling towards a sort of nexus point, the so-called Singularity. Looking to explore this possibility, director Doug Wolens recently put together a fascinating documentary on the subject. We spoke to him…

io9 George Dvorsky

What Will Human Cultures Be Like in 100 Years?

Get ready for etiquette books on when it’s OK to reboot your sinuses in public, and the teenager-ization of senior citizens. Here are some predictions from the experts on how human cultures will transform over the next hundred years. You hear a lot about “next gen” science and technology, but not so much about will…

io9 Annalee Newitz

What it’s like growing up with a futurist mother

Science writer Veronique Greenwood has written a really cool article about her mom, a techno-happy early adopter. While there was never a dull moment having a futurist for a mom, it was also a bit disconcerting, living at “that knife’s edge between the next big thing and a truly embarrassing evolutionary dead-end.” Greenwood describes futurists…

io9 George Dvorsky

The incredible bridge design that could take Portland into the future

What would happen if we designed new urban megastructures using the latest scientific information about green design? Portland architect Bill Badrick has the answer. The new Columbia River Crossing bridge, in Portland, Oregon, should be a double-decker, carbon-neutral engineering marvel — complete with a huge park on top. The best part? It’s all possible with…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Every human has a “breathprint” – what does yours say about you?

New Interface Allows Humans to Move a Rat’s Tail With Their Thoughts

Oh this? Nothing. Just the 3D-printed skeleton of a living, breathing animal.

Is it time we got over the taboo against human enhancement?

I’ve Seen the Worst Memes of My Generation Destroyed by Madness

How Much Longer Before Our First AI Catastrophe?

This robotic jellyfish could be the future of aquatic surveillance

Magazines have finally killed blogs — but in a way you never expected

How Will Humans Respond to Immortality?

Who should be responsible when your robotic surgeon f*cks up?

Video games help the blind navigate new environments

The 1969 novel that accurately predicted the world of 2013

New brain scan predicts criminal activity before it happens

The Pentagon Wants a Computer That Can Teach Itself

Will Old People Take Over the World?

Swarms of robots could be mining asteroids within a generation

Will we survive our technology?

What Will Human Cultures Be Like in 100 Years?

What it’s like growing up with a futurist mother

The incredible bridge design that could take Portland into the future

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