A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience
Viruses attached to a fragment of a bacterial cell wall. “Viruses modulate the function and evolution of all living things,” scientists wrote last year. “But to what extent remains a mystery.”
Continue reading… “Trillions and trillions of viruses fall from the sky each day”
If successful, experiment will mark a major step towards making Mars habitable for human colonies in the future.
Continue reading… “Nasa plans to extract oxygen from Mars to make a new atmosphere”
Realistic visuals and audio are essential to shaping an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience. But these researchers from the National University of Singapore believe VR shouldn’t just cater to sight and sound. For the ultimate VR experience, other senses should come into play as well.
Last year, Nimesha Ranasinghe and his team demonstrated how electrodes can be used to add a sense of taste to VR. Their latest accessory, Ambiotherm, adds another element of realism to the experience: atmosphere.
Continue reading… “Now You Can Feel Wind and Temperature While in Virtual Reality”
Terraforming Mars
While scientists believe that at one time, long ago, Mars had an atmosphere similar to Earth’s and was covered with flowing water, the reality today is quite different. In fact, the surface of Mars is so hostile that a vacation in Antarctica would seem pleasant by comparison.
In addition to the extreme cold, there is little atmosphere to speak of and virtually no oxygen. However, a team of students from Germany wants to change that. Their plan is to introduce cyanobacteria into the atmosphere which would convert the ample supplies of CO² into oxygen gas, thus paving the way for possible settlements.
Continue reading… “Latest thinking about terraforming Mars, introducing cyanobacteria”
Futurist Thomas Frey: Much of the world around us has been formed around key pieces of infrastructure. Most see this as a testament to who we are as a society, and part of the cultural moorings we need to guide us into the future.
Continue reading… “2050 and the Future of Infrastructure”
Futurist Thomas Frey: With all of the water we have in the world, only 2% of it is fresh water. To make matters worse, only one-forth of all fresh water is accessible to humans.
Continue reading… “Tapping into the Waterways in the Sky”
In February, a meteor exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. Pieces of the bus-sized space rock hit the ground while its detonation shattered windows, set off car alarms and injured more than 1,000 people.
Continue reading… “Dust cloud from Russian meteor explosion lingered in the atmosphere for months”
Helium is a very low-density gas.
Jimi Hendrix once said, “I have this one little saying, when things get too heavy just call me helium, the lightest known gas to man.” He was almost right. We know of helium, conventionally, as the lighter-than-air gas that we fill balloons, blimps and zeppelins with in order to quickly and easily “defy gravity” here on Earth. (Video)
Continue reading… “The world is running out of helium”
Concentrations of carbon dioxide emissions, blamed for global warming, will linger in the atmosphere for decades even if the world stopped pumping out emissions today.
The atmosphere contains high levels of carbon dioxide emissions which means the next ice age is unlikely to begin for at least 1,500 years, an article in the journal Nature Geoscience said on Monday.
Continue reading… “Next ice age unlikely to begin for at least 1,500 years”
TrES-2b is so dark that it reflects less than one percent of the starlight falling on it.
TrES-2b, a planet orbiting a distant star is darker than coal, reflecting less than one percent of the starlight falling on it, according to a paper published on Thursday.
Continue reading… “Mysterious new planet is blacker than coal”
If sea levels rose to where they were during the Last Interglacial Period, large parts of the Gulf of Mexico would be under water (red areas),
Melting ice sheets contributed much more to rising sea levels than thermal expansion of warming ocean waters during the Last Interglacial Period, a UA-led team of researchers has found. The results further suggest that ocean levels continue to rise long after warming of the atmosphere has leveled off.
Continue reading… “Is it too late to turn the tides on rising sea levels?”
Soft Cell fabric panels with embedded LEDs
Here’s a new way to create ambience – light up your room with glowing wallpaper. In partnership with Danish textile company, Kvadrat, Philips is looking into bringing luminous textiles to the market.
Continue reading… “Glowing Wallpaper with Embedded LEDs”
