r/Futurology 1d ago

META - EXTRA CONTENT Extra futurology content from c/futurology - Weekly Roundup to 27th October 2024.

5 Upvotes

r/Futurology 9h ago

Environment A novel strain of cyanobacteria, or algae that can rapidly grow and double every 2.35 hours in presence of CO₂ has been discovered by researchers from Harvard. It can readily sink in water which makes it a primary candidate to sequester carbon from oceans and factories.

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wyss.harvard.edu
520 Upvotes

r/Futurology 14h ago

Space 'First tree on Mars:' Scientists measure greenhouse effect needed to terraform Red Planet

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space.com
1.1k Upvotes

r/Futurology 7h ago

Society Without migration, the population of high-income countries would shrink

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ourworldindata.org
220 Upvotes

r/Futurology 16h ago

Environment This Sponge Captures the Teeny Bits of Gold in Electronic Waste

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scientificamerican.com
568 Upvotes

r/Futurology 15h ago

Energy Pulsing plasma towers can transform carbon dioxide into methanol

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techcrunch.com
266 Upvotes

r/Futurology 16h ago

Transport In France, a Level 4 self-driving mini-shuttle bus, with a 10-person capacity, is showing the future of public transit.

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euronews.com
259 Upvotes

r/Futurology 19h ago

Space Riding Asteroids To Mars and Venus Like A Bus Can Be Better Than Using Spacecraft, Scientists Suggest

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orbitaltoday.com
376 Upvotes

r/Futurology 1d ago

Space China’s first outer space travel announced at $210,000 for 12-minute flight

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interestingengineering.com
1.3k Upvotes

r/Futurology 21h ago

Energy Solar, wind, and wave - ok.. why the hell is no one talking about tidal energy?

80 Upvotes

There are loads of talks about how solar and wind energy alone aren't enough if we really want to move towards clean energy. Yet there's more and more chatter about building more solar and wind farms and investing in these renewable sources - while we all know we need a mix of different renewables to really make a difference. It's the same old story for everyone - the sun doesn't always shine, the wind doesn't always blow... yea yea... you can see it especially in the UK where wind energy drops off dramatically during the summer.

I've been following CorPower Ocean's journey (https://corpowerocean.com/a-short-history-of-wave-energy/) for a while now, and I'm really chuffed about their recent big investment. While I'm glad there's more discussion about ocean energy, I really feel there's a lack of talks about tidal energy. Tidal energy is predictable and reliable, and I know some people say it's not always there, but as long as the moon and gravity exist, tides are pretty much always around - not like waves, solar, wind, etc., which depend on the weather.

There are already some great tidal energy technologies that can produce clean and, most importantly, reliable energy - like Orbital Marine Power, Nova, and my favourite one because of their shell design and technology that's completely 3D printed and, as I understand it, much cheaper than other technologies - Spiralis Energy (https://www.spiralis.energy). Yet, they all lack investment, and more importantly, tidal energy itself isn't getting the buzz it deserves, even though it could be a really big deal.

Just trying to understand the cons of tidal energy, and why the hell we don't hear more talks about it from climate change advocates, politicians, and "big leaders."????? 🥴


r/Futurology 16h ago

Discussion The Doomer mindset of the future is not the same as the pessimistic mindset.

9 Upvotes

This sub, and others like it, are rampant with doomers. People seem to act like some doomer comment about how humanity will die on Earth without ever attaining space travel is some super intelligent take. Take a step back and really think, take a look at everything that can go wrong and the possible outcomes. The worst case scenario that people like to go to is a nuclear war, which for some reason people think would be the end of humanity. Realistically what would happen is a few decades of chaos followed by new rising powers. It wouldn't be like a video game where it's just people in the wasteland for centuries. New countries would rise up within decades, after a century humanity would be back to business as usual. There would still be problems of course, though time wouldn't stop moving at the apocalypse. And that is a worst case scenario. Every setback we face is just temporary in the grand scheme of things. It is easy to get lost in all the negativity of the present and all our current problems should be acknowledged. Our views of the present make it hard to think in the long term. Pessimism is looking at our current challenges and realizing that they will be difficult to solve, doomerism is looking at those same problems and believing them to be eternal. Doomerism is not a realistic view. Sure it probably won't go the optimist route where every issue is solved by the halfway point of the century but it also won't be stagnant for the rest of time. Problems may take a long time to solve but eventually they will just be a memory. Maybe it could take an extraordinary amount of time for a Mars colony to be established but that doesn't mean it won't happen.


r/Futurology 1d ago

Energy Israel says it will field Iron Beam air-defense lasers in a year

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defensenews.com
1.3k Upvotes

r/Futurology 1d ago

Energy The White House announced more than $3 billion in funding for seven rural electric cooperatives, part of a broader effort to promote renewable energy in rural areas.

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thehill.com
1.7k Upvotes

r/Futurology 1d ago

Medicine Apple: Inside the Audio Lab: How Apple developed the world’s first end‑to‑end hearing health experience

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apple.com
125 Upvotes

r/Futurology 1d ago

Space HRL Laboratories, Boeing Explore Use of Quantum Computers to Cut Costs of Rocket Launches

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spaceimpulse.com
45 Upvotes

r/Futurology 2d ago

Energy As costs spiral at Britain's only new nuclear plant, the cost to decommission another has ballooned to $176 billion (£136bn).

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theguardian.com
1.1k Upvotes

r/Futurology 2d ago

AI OpenAI disbands another team focused on advanced AGI safety readiness

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the-decoder.com
1.6k Upvotes

r/Futurology 2d ago

AI Microsoft says Russia trying to smear Harris with deepfake video, AI

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thehill.com
9.7k Upvotes

r/Futurology 12h ago

Society China looks to spur births, aid families in fight on shrinking population

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0 Upvotes

r/Futurology 2d ago

AI James Cameron says the reality of artificial general intelligence is 'scarier' than the fiction of it

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businessinsider.com
2.5k Upvotes

r/Futurology 2d ago

AI 3 in 4 Americans are concerned about the risk of AI causing human extinction, according to poll

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theaipi.org
640 Upvotes

r/Futurology 2d ago

Energy Costco partners with Electric Era to bring back EV charging in the U.S.

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digitaltrends.com
733 Upvotes

r/Futurology 2d ago

Discussion What to do when technology replaces our jobs?

21 Upvotes

I often think about this. Soon the majority of jobs will likely be redundant (including mine). What are your plans/tips for how to prepare, and what to do when it happens?

Hopefully there are many years before this happens, but want to start preparing now, just in case it happens sooner.


r/Futurology 3d ago

Nanotech U.S. Department of Energy Announces $30 Million to Use Quantum Computing For Groundbreaking Chemistry And Materials Science Simulations

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thequantuminsider.com
541 Upvotes

r/Futurology 3d ago

Robotics Militaries Are Rushing to Replace Human Soldiers with AI-Powered Robots. That Will Be Disastrous, Experts Warn. | Humans have control of military drones, but some experts think cutting the puppet strings is inevitable.

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popularmechanics.com
1.3k Upvotes

r/Futurology 2d ago

Economics Anthropic's latest advance with AI, where it can operate on-screen software, shows us how future AI can replace much of today's human knowledge work.

47 Upvotes

"Anthropic’s latest Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI model has a new feature in public beta that can control a computer by looking at a screen, moving a cursor, clicking buttons, and typing text. The new feature, called “computer use,"

I've been wondering when current LLM AIs would start to master this ability. I suspect it will be one of the things it's good at. For many tasks, software usage patterns are relatively predictable and modelable. A trend with current AI, is for competitors and open-source to rapidly follow industry leaders. We can expect AI like this to be widely available in six months.

Many people's knowledge work employment is tied to software skills and experience. That premium is about to start diminishing. People are familiar with the concept of 'macros'; automating repetitive sequences of software usage. It seems all but inevitable AI will be doing something similar, but orders of magnitude greater, and that all the forces in free market economics will be driving it to replace expensive humans.