Chemists are getting closer to finding ways to cheaply make bulk quantities of the hallucinatory molecule found in magic mushrooms. This will surely be awesome for…somebody.
https://gizmodo.com/magic-mushroom-chemical-harvested-from-bacteria-for-t-1838624959
The story about the recent “AI-generated drug” was oversold, and the drug will benefit only about 180 people in the U.S.
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/09/30/an-ai-generated-drug
The discovery of “GlycoRNA” puts into relief how little we know about intracellular signaling and enzymology.
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2019/10/03/enter-glycornas
Geneticists have made “hornless bulls.” This benefits animal welfare since it’s harder for the bulls to hurt each other, and because chopping off horns is painful.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49962130
Many serious health problems, such as heart attacks and diabetes, are partly genetic, and each day we’re discovering new genes that cause them.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-51258-x
A new study of population genetics suggests that the poor, rural areas of Britain are like that because most of the smart people left for better and more interesting lives in the cities (mainly London), leaving only lower-IQ people behind to breed. IQ score is about 50% genetic.
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/opinion–the-nature-of-social-inequalities-in-great-britain-66607
23andMe’s 4-million-person genetic database reveals how many people are living with undetected chromosomal anomalies.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/10/when-you-have-more-dna-one-parent-other/599812/
If China or Russia hacked into the huge commercial database of American user-submitted DNA samples, it would be a disaster.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614642/dna-database-gedmatch-golden-state-killer-security-risk-hack/
A new genetic engineering technique called “prime editing” allows scientists to edit DNA with unprecedented accuracy and low error rates.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/prime-editing-new-form-crispr-technology-make-gene-editing-more-precisie-180973381/
Stimulating the brain with electricity can cure depression.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/health/deep-brain-stimulation-depression.html
Farm scientists have developed a newer, better type of apple called the “cosmic crisp.” Ain’t science great?
https://apnews.com/b108210233784b3fb1753d1bf6315a14
A network of tree-mounted microphones spread across central Africa to count elephant populations and poaching activity shows how a mass surveillance network could be created with mostly simple technology. I predict that someday, the whole surface of the Earth will be continuously monitored.
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/25/760487476/elephants-under-attack-have-an-unlikely-ally-artificial-intelligence
Facebook and Google scan any alphanumerical characters they find in user-uploaded photos, and then embed those characters in the image file’s description. That means you can type in a car license plate number or a gun’s serial number into the Google or FB search bar, and find any photos of the car or gun.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2019/10/22/google-firearm-serial-numbers/
The U.S. and Britain hit “peak resource use” in 2007 or 2008, meaning resource consumption of things like cement, copper and fertilizer stopped growing in spite of the fact that GDP kept increasing. This is good news since it means technology is allowing us to use existing resources more efficiently, meaning less waste.
https://reason.com/2019/10/09/the-economy-keeps-growing-but-americans-are-using-less-steel-paper-fertilizer-and-energy/
Objects made of polystyrene plastic break down into CO2 on scales measurable in as little as decades, not millennia as is commonly believed. I predict that all the trash produced by humans will someday be cleaned up.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.9b00532
Here’s a fascinating way to slow down global warming: Deploy autonomous barges to the Arctic Ocean that make hexagonal icebergs.
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/refreeze-arctic-design-scn/index.html
After the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown, Japan temporarily shut down all its other reactors for safety inspections. This caused the price of energy in Japan to skyrocket, and many people couldn’t afford to pay their heating bills. The number of people–overwhelmingly poorer elderly people–who froze to death as a result far exceeded the death toll from the meltdown itself (only one person dead from radiation exposure).
https://www.nber.org/papers/w26395
“Smart plugs” are a versatile device I’ve never heard of: They’re small, Wifi-connected plugs that you insert into your electrical outlets, letting you remotely turn the electricity on or off in those outlets, in turn controlling any devices plugged into them.
https://www.amazon.com/Gosund-Compatible-Required-appliances-Certified/dp/B079MFTYMV/
Tesla just bought a Canadian company that builds robots that assemble batteries. It takes fewer workers to build an electric car than a gas-powered car because the former has fewer parts . Car factory jobs will disappear even faster once guys like Elon Musk figure out how to make better robot workers.
https://business.financialpost.com/technology/battling-battery-cell-scarcity-and-manufacturing-hiccups-tesla-quietly-buys-ontario-automation-firm
The Alexa AI personal assistant now has a Samuel L. Jackson voice. It even curses at you.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/09/25/samuel-l-jackson-first-celebrity-voice-amazon-alexa/2447992001/
Google’s OpenAI company just build a robot hand that can solve Rubik’s Cubes. It’s an impressive demonstration of pattern recognition and physical dexterity.
https://mobile.twitter.com/OpenAI/status/1184135128869527552
Google’s DeepMind AI just became a “grandmaster” in StarCraft 2, meaning it can beat 99.8% of humans. When the company started this project two years ago, its AI could barely perform basic in-game functions and couldn’t beat anyone. Note that DeepMind has been handicapped in that it can’t issue commands during games faster than human players can (about 264 actions per minute).
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1724-z
A summary of how future quantum computers will benefit us:
https://www.quantumrun.com/prediction/how-quantum-computers-will-change-world-future-computers
Google says it has achieved quantum supremacy by building a quantum computer that can do a specific type of math calculation in 200 seconds that the best classical computer would take 10,000 years to do.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1666-5
IBM, which made the current world’s best classical computer, quickly issued a rebuttal to Google’s claim.
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/10/on-quantum-supremacy/
And Scott Aaronson, a world-renowned theoretical computer scientist, wrote a blog post about both of those press releases, which essentially says Google is right, but by a narrower margin than they claimed, and that all disagreement about this issue will vanish in a few years once quantum computers improve so much that the performance gulf between them and classical computers gets too wide for anyone to contest.
https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4372
Here’s an awesome mini-documentary about “extreme ultraviolet lithography”–a new technique for making computer chips even smaller and better than they are. I wish everything on TV were this intelligent and polished.
https://youtu.be/f0gMdGrVteI
The man who discovered the first exoplanet just won a Nobel Prize in physics, believes that aliens exist, and thinks we could build a telescope in as little as 30 years able to verify whether exoplanets have Earth-like atmospheres.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/10/08/cambridge-university-planet-hunter-says-mankind-could-find-alien/
Edward Snowden said he searched through the vast archive of secret U.S. intelligence files for proof of aliens and found none. Keep in mind that he’s an international fugitive and has nothing to lose anymore and no reason to cover up anything for the U.S. government.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/24/whistleblower-edward-snowden-says-us-government-isnt-hiding-aliens/4081616002/
The Peacekeeper ICBM’s inertial guidance system was a work of art.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30254/this-isnt-a-sci-fi-prop-its-a-doomsday-navigator-for-americas-biggest-cold-war-icbm
The U.S. Air Force’s X-37B autonomous “space plane” has landed after two years in orbit. Its purpose is secret.
https://apnews.com/51cbcc00c49c49249f258db9de6b1427
Here are some interesting early designs for what would later become the International Space Station.
http://www.astronautix.com/d/dualkeelspaestation-1985.html
http://www.astronautix.com/p/powertowersestation-1984.html
China has nearly finished a massive new military shipyard that it will use as an aircraft carrier factory. I predict that in about 20 years, China’s military will be strong enough to have at least a 50% chance of defeating the U.S. military in the western Pacific. However, it’s unclear if China will choose to fight even if it has the advantage. They’d much prefer to get what they want through diplomatic and economic pressure, and military intimidation.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-military-carrier-exclusive-idUSKBN1WW0KM
More ships sunk during the Battle of Midway were found. Recall my prediction: [Between 2101 and 2200] Every significant archaeological site will be excavated and every shipwreck found. There will be no work left for people in the antiquities.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7586959/Deep-sea-explorers-seek-sunken-World-War-II-ships.html
Here’s a fascinating exploration of the different WWII-era design and manufacturing philosophies of the Americans, Germans, and Soviets. It might be unfairly critical of the Germans since it forgets that their smaller pool of manpower might have rightly forced them to focus on making their tanks higher in quality at the expense of quantity.
https://www.historynet.com/profiles-cold-steel-making-tanks.htm
Photos from a modern Russian tank factory, where T-72 tanks are upgraded. Note the close-up photo below, which clearly shows the “Kontact-5” explosive reactive armor attached to the tank turret’s exterior. The turret itself has a smooth, rounded shape, and it only looks angular thanks to the blocks of Kontact-5.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7589915/Fascinating-photographs-construction-testing-deadly-45-ton-T-72B3-battle-tank.html
A new study challenges the belief that humanity is getting less warlike.
https://phys.org/news/2019-09-international-conflict-isnt-declining-analysis.html
The transhumanist movement probably began in the 1920s.
https://lithub.com/early-visions-of-transhumanism-were-wild/
Thin, flexible LED sheets like this will someday be incorporated into clothing. I predict this will lead to personal “cloaking devices” made of clothes studded with the LEDs, e-ink sheets, or some other metamaterial and pinhole cameras colored e-ink. The cameras will monitor the appearance of the person’s surroundings and tell the display pixels to change their colors to match. Ski masks made of the same material would let wearers change their facial features, fooling most face recognition cameras and certainly fooling the unaided eyes of humans. The pixels could also be made to glow bright white, allowing the wearer to turn any part of his body into a flashlight.
https://youtu.be/5fy91AdzfJw
An important weakness of small, flying drones is that they won’t be able to fly when it’s windy, raining or snowing. This reliability problem will dash any plans to create an economy where the drones have replaced ground vehicles for delivering goods, and seriously hinder efforts to make a military force comprised mainly of small attack drones.
https://now.tufts.edu/articles/how-do-birds-survive-storms-and-other-harsh-weather
