Futurist Thomas Frey: On May 24th, Gary Connery, a 42 year old stuntman from Oxfordshire, England jumped from a helicopter hovering over one mile in the air over southern England, and glided to the earth using a specially designed wing suit. His runway was comprised of a cobbled-up crash-pad fabricated from 18,000 cardboard boxes to soften the impact.
Continue reading… “56 Future Accomplishments: Waiting for Someone to go First”
The electric light bulb was a failure.
In the early 1800’s, the British chemist Humphry Davy invented the light bulb but it was a failure. The light bulb spent almost 80 years being passed from one researcher to another. Finally, in 1879, Thomas Edison figured out to to make a light bulb that people would buy. But the technology wasn’t an immediate success. Another 40 years later the electric utilities were stable and profitable businesses. The light bulb only happened because the utilities created other reasons to use electricity. They found a lot of uses for electric motors and the electric toaster and electric curling iron were invented. They also built Coney Island. And they installed electric streetcars lines in towns. All of these other gadgets gave us the light bulb.
Continue reading… “32 technological innovations that will change your tomorrow”
Johnson & Johnson’s Zytiga is kind of a big deal. The FDA approved its use last year for advanced prostate cancer patients who had already received chemo but whose cancer had still metastasized. Prostate cancer is typically treatable for the 200,000 American men who contract it annually, as long as it is caught before it spreads…
Continue reading… “Science may have just beaten Prostate Cancer”
Futurist Thomas Frey: In December 2006, Britain made its final payment of $84 million on a $4.34 billion loan from the U.S. that was made all the way back in 1945. Germany wasn’t the only country to go bankrupt after WWII. This money allowed Britain to stave off its total collapse after devoting almost all its resources to the war for over half a decade.
Continue reading… “When Countries Go Bankrupt”
Would you use a tongue-controlled MP3 grill?
Ever since Zeon took a hammer to my boombox, I haven’t been able to rock out to my favorite New Kids on the Block tunes at work. Aisen Caro Chacin’s invention may prove to be an acceptable alternative. Her tongue-controlled MP3 player uses the palate to carry sound to the ears…
Continue reading… “Play-a-Grill lets you hear music through your teeth”
Harnessing the dynamic Casimir effect.
Precocious young physicist Aisha Mustafa just patented a new system that could propel spacecrafts to the final frontier without using a drop of fuel.
In short her system taps one of the odder facets of quantum theory, which posits that space isn’t really a vacuum. It’s really filled with particles and anti-particles that exist for infinitesimally small periods of time before destroying each other. Mustafa thinks she can harness them to create propulsion, resulting in space craft that need little-to-no fuel to maneuver around in space. Fast Company reports…
Continue reading… “Egyptian teenager invents new space propulsion system based on Quantum Physics”
How is my DNA NOT private?
Unlike the contents of your inbox, bank statement, or Facebook timeline, your DNA quite literally defines you. It’s strange, then, that in an age where sequencing the genome is becoming trivial, we don’t give a second thought about the privacy issues surrounding the chemicals that make us who we are.
In fact, most states in the US have absolutely no laws whatsoever to govern surreptitious genetic testing. If that surprises you, it gets worse. Back in 2006, the particularly forward-thinking state of Minnesota passed a law demanding that written consent had to be obtained for collection, storage, use, and sharing of genetic information. In 2011, however, the Minnesota Supreme Court judged that the state’s own department of health was in violation of that very law.
So, quite literally millions of US citizen have their DNA records stored on databases, and there are few laws governing what’s done with the data. Something has to be done about that—but it’s not necessarily as easy as it sounds.
Clamp down on DNA privacy…
Continue reading… “How Private Is Your DNA?”
Congratulations to the winners of the 2011 Nebula Awards, especially to Jo Walton, who won for her magnificent novel, Among Others. Here they are…
Continue reading… “Nebula Award winners announced”
Charcoal for sale in an African market.
Xipamanine is a sprawling, labyrinthine marketplace in the heart of Maputo, Mozambique’s capital. On the street outside, tinny music blares and a bustling throng mills around. Inside, a series of winding corridors leads you through a maze of colorful booths that boast a wide variety of wares: shoes, stereo equipment, coconuts, toys, tomatoes, rugs, seeds, nuts, goats, and charcoal. Lots of charcoal.
You can buy it wholesale, in a gigantic sack with a month’s worth of cooking fuel, for about $20. An entire open air section of the market is dedicated to storing these bags; they’re stacked in imposing dust-covered piles….
Continue reading… “How deadly charcoal is bought and sold in an African market”
Will the internet be in better hands now?
Cybersecurity and the government have been a volitile combination lately, with proposed bills like SOPA, PIPA, and the still-up-in-the-air CISPA at the center of on-and-off internet outrage. So it’s kind of a big deal when the White House replaces its chief of cybersecurity affairs.
Last week, longtime chief Howard Schmidt stepped down…
Continue reading… “White House hires a new cybersecurity boss”
Futurist Thomas Frey: Scarcity is defined as an economic condition that arises when people have far greater wants than the available resources. Most often we think about the limited supplies of natural resources, but it includes far more than that.
Continue reading… “Inventing Our Next Great Scarcities”
Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO, stands in front of a Falcon 9 rocket at SpaceX’s launch site.
A Falcon 9 rocket will lift-off from Cape Canaveral, Florida tomorrow night. The craft will rendezvous in low-Earth orbit with the International Space Station (ISS) a few days after it has been launched.
Continue reading… “SpaceX set to launch first commercial rocket to ISS”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.