Jetman Returns

Jet wing pilot and daredevil Yves Rossy just shared a video of himself taking off and hovering over lake Geneva in Switzerland with his jet-powered wingsuit.

It’s a stunning display of the improved suit’s abilities — it no longer needs its pilot to jump out of a plane or helicopter to get up to speed.

With the aid of his especially engineered jetsuit, Rossy, who calls himself “Jetman,” can fly at speeds of more than 350 km/h (217 mph) at altitudes of up to 6,000 meters (almost 20,000 feet), according to the video’s description.

Jet Suit VTOL

Thanks to four new Jetcat P550 turbine engines, Rossy is able to fly straight upwards at speeds of up to 180 km/h (112 mph), according to an official website. The design of the jet engine’s special nozzles is “based on the same principle as on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets,” allowing Rossy to take off and land vertically.

In the video, you can see Rossy effortlessly hover above the water, operating finger controls built into his gloves.

Rossy has previously flown alongside an Emirates A360 commercial airliner in Dubai in 2015, using an older version of his jetsuit, after jumping out of a separate nearby airplane.

READ MORE: Jetman Yves Rossy can now take off from the ground … autonomously [New Atlas]

More on jet suits: Watch Daredevil Set a New Speed Record In “Iron Man” Jet Suit

The post Watch a Jet Wing Pilot “Jetman” Hover Over a Lake appeared first on Futurism.

See original here:
Watch a Jet Wing Pilot “Jetman” Hover Over a Lake

Family Friendly

Every year, parents visit malls so their kids can have their photo taken with Santa (and let the big guy know what they’re hoping to find under their Christmas tree.)

Thanks to online shopping, though, many malls aren’t seeing nearly as much holiday traffic as they used to, prompting some to give their Santa experiences a digital upgrade in the hopes of luring back parents — and their money.

Santa HQ

Macerich is one of the biggest mall operators in the U.S., according to an NBC News report. This year, it’s decided to replace the traditional Santa’s village at 15 of its malls with “Santa HQ 5.0.”

This updated North Pole stand-in includes a “Magic Mirror” that uses virtual reality to let visitors see how they’d look in various elf outfits. It also features an “Elf-Ray Vision” station where kids can explore Santa’s observatory using augmented reality.

For the ‘Gram

Many malls are also trying to make their Santa experiences more “Instagrammable,” upping the visual ante in the hopes it’ll draw in parents who can’t resist an A+ photo op.

Some of the Santa villages in malls operated by retail real estate company Simon now include sets designed specifically for Instagram selfies, NBC reported. Meanwhile, parents who opt to pay for photos of their kids with Santa can have the pics sent to them via text to make sharing on social media a snap.

READ MORE: Santa Claus visits are going digital, from ‘elfies’ to augmented reality [NBC News]

More on holiday shopping: Robots Decorate Trees, Perform Carols in Store’s Holiday Display

The post Mall Santas Are Using Gimmicks to Court Instagram Parents appeared first on Futurism.

Read more from the original source:
Mall Santas Are Using Gimmicks to Court Instagram Parents

Top Priority

Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders has a suggestion: stop spending so much money on the military and global warfare, and instead put it toward fighting climate change.

He made the argument during Thursday night’s Democratic Party debate, The Hill reports. Sanders, who’s previously introduced legislation to declare a state of emergency to mobilize against the existential threat that climate change poses, argued that the money to fund climate programs exists — but it’s being spent in the wrong places.

Within Means

Thursday’s debate wasn’t Sanders’ first attempt to push back against militarization: in August, he made a campaign promise that would stop police from using facial recognition systems, the flaws of which have only grown increasingly apparent.

“Maybe, just maybe, instead of spending $1.8 trillion a year globally on weapons of destruction,” Sanders said during the debate, “maybe an American president — i.e. Bernie Sanders — can lead the world and instead of spending money to kill each other, maybe we pool our resources and fight our common enemy, which is climate change.”

READ MORE: Sanders: Instead of weapons funding we should pool resources to fight climate change [The Hill]

More on Bernie Sanders: Bernie Sanders Vows to Ban Police From Using Facial Recognition

The post Bernie Sanders: Spend Money on the Climate Instead of Weapons appeared first on Futurism.

Read more from the original source:
Bernie Sanders: Spend Money on the Climate Instead of Weapons

Hidden Treasure

Deep within the central zone of the Milky Way, a bizarre cluster of dense gas clouds has taken the unusual form of a gigantic, cosmic candy cane.

CNN reports that the observation may help scientists understand the process through which our galaxy forms stars — because the cosmic candy cane, and the clouds surrounding it, contain the raw materials necessary to generate tens of millions of new stars.

Star Power

The straight part of the candy cane — which researchers call “The Sickle” — is likely the source of high-speed electrons that NASA detected with a space telescope called GISMO, according to a NASA press release.

Scientists from the space agency published research in The Astrophysical Journal last month that connects those signals to areas that are actively churning out new stars.

“We’re very intrigued by the beauty of this image; it’s exotic,” Johns Hopkins University scientist Johannes Staguhn, who led the research behind that new paper, told CNN. “When you look at it, you feel like you’re looking at some really special forces of nature in the universe.”

READ MORE: A ‘cosmic candy cane’ at the center of the Milky Way could hold clues to star formation, NASA says [CNN]

More on Christmas miracles: Watch an Electric Eel Light Up a Christmas Tree

The post Scientists Discover “Cosmic Candy Cane” in Milky Way Galaxy appeared first on Futurism.

The rest is here:
Scientists Discover “Cosmic Candy Cane” in Milky Way Galaxy

Team Trees

In October, YouTuber Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson publicly launched Team Trees, a campaign to raise enough money to plant 20 million trees at a dollar a pop(lar).

Within days, the campaign secured a million dollar pledge from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, which was soon followed by a pledge of a million and one dollars from Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke.

Now, less than two months later, the tree-planting campaign has announced that it’s officially surpassed its $20 million fundraising goal.

Global Growth

According to the Team Trees FAQ page, the Arbor Day Foundation will oversee the planting of the trees, which will begin in January 2020 and wrap up no later than December 2022.

“Due to the sheer volume of trees planted (20 million), they will be planted in a variety of forests on public and private lands in areas of great need,” Team Trees wrote, adding that the aim is to “plant trees on every continent not named Antarctica!”

Tasty CO2

Numerous researchers have noted the benefit that adding more trees to Earth could have on our climate — in February, ecologist Thomas Crowther even went so far as to tell The Independent that trees are “our most powerful weapon in the fight against climate change.”

And thanks to Team Trees and its donors, 20 million more trees will soon be sucking carbon dioxide out of Earth’s atmosphere.

READ MORE: YouTubers, Silicon Valley, and fans help MrBeast raise $20 million for tree charity [The Verge]

More on the campaign: Elon Musk Donates a Million Dollars to Plant a Million Trees

The post Elon Musk-Backed Tree-Planting Campaign Meets $20 Million Goal appeared first on Futurism.

Read the rest here:
Elon Musk-Backed Tree-Planting Campaign Meets $20 Million Goal

Flashing Lights

With rare exception, stars die in one of two ways: they either slowly transition into white dwarfs or quickly explode as supernovae.

But some stars appear to temporarily die without a whimper or a bang they just disappear from the night sky and then appear again later and the scientists behind a newly published study believe this strange phenomenon could have one of two explanations: were either witnessing something brand new in astrophysics or seeing signs of alien activity.

On Thursday, the scientists involved in the Vanishing and Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations (VASCO) project published their first study in The Astronomical Journal, a prestigious and peer-reviewed publication. It details their hunt for objects that appeared in surveys of the night sky dating as far back as the 1950s, but that no longer appear in modern surveys.

That hunt turned up a hundred red objects that have blinked in and out of existence over the past 70 years.

Study co-author Martin Lpez Corredoira noted in a press release that the VASCO team hasnt found any direct evidence linking the lights to extraterrestrial intelligence but the studys abstract implies that the authors arent ruling out the possibility, either.

The implications of finding [vanishing and appearing sources] extend from traditional astrophysics fields to the more exotic searches for evidence of technologically advanced civilizations, they wrote.

READ MORE: Unexplained Lights in Sky Could Be Alien Structures or Communication Lasers, Scientists Say [The Independent]

More on aliens: Penn States SETI Center Could Legitimize Alien Research

Read the original here:

Newly Discovered Blinking Space Lights Could Be Signs of Aliens - Futurism

Rewriting History

A new image of the center of the Milky Way has astronomers rewriting the history of our galaxy.

Thats because the image, which reveals new information about 700,000 stars near the galaxys core, contradicts scientists assumption that new stars are constantly forming in that region, CNET reports. Rather, it suggests that star formation in the galactic center occurred mostly in our galaxys infancy before dying down for most of its life.

Existing scientific dogma holds that there was a more constant stream of star formation, but the new data suggests that 80 percent of stars in the region were created during the first high-activity period.

The Very Large Telescopes new survey found that the center of the Milky Way sprang back to life and began rapidly churning out new stars again about a billion years ago, accordingto research published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

This burst of activity, which must have resulted in the explosion of more than a hundred-thousand supernovae, was probably one of the most energetic events in the whole history of the Milky Way, lead author Francisco Nogueras-Lara of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy said in a press release.

But other astronomers arent quite ready to rewrite history one new paper isnt necessarily enough to overturn everything they know. Monash University astronomer Michael Brown, who didnt work on the study, told CNET that the particularly-complex methodology of the new research didnt fill him with confidence.

I find the evidence presented tentative rather than absolutely compelling, he said.

READ MORE: This unreal image of the Milky Ways center could rewrite galactic history [CNET]

More on the Milky Way: The Milky Ways Supermassive Black Hole Just Did Something Wild

Go here to read the rest:

Astronomers May Have Been Wrong About The Milky Way's History - Futurism

A first-of-its-kind health study has yielded bad news for e-cigarette users and even worse news for those who both vape and smoke conventional cigarettes.

On Monday, a team from the University of California, San Francisco, published the results of the first long-term study focused on the relationship between e-cigarettes and respiratory illness in theAmerican Journal of Preventive Medicine.

For the study, they analyzed data collected as part of a study called the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH), which tracked the tobacco usage of more than 32,000 American adults from 2013 to 2016, noting any new lung disease diagnoses they received.

The UC San Francisco team looked at people who had no reported lung disease at the beginning of the PATH study and found that vaping alone increased their chances of developing chronic lung disease by about a third over the course of the studys three years.

We concluded that e-cigarettes are harmful on their own, researcher Stanton Glantz said in a press release, and the effects are independent of smoking conventional tobacco.

Using traditional cigarettes made a person 2.6 times more likely to develop lung disease, so it would seem that vaping is comparatively safer than smoking, as some vape manufacturers have claimed.

The problem, though, is that the vast majority of e-cigarette users dont fully give up smoking cigarettes and using both forms of tobacco more than triples a persons risk of developing lung disease.

Switching from conventional cigarettes to e-cigarettes exclusively could reduce the risk of lung disease, but very few people do it, Glantz said. For most smokers, they simply add e-cigarettes and become dual users, significantly increasing their risk of developing lung disease above just smoking.

Read more:

Study: Just Three Years of Vaping Increases Lung Disease Risk - Futurism

Trypophobia

Even putting its Great Red Spot aside for the moment, Jupiter is a bizarre place covered in gigantic, swirling storms.

NASA recently discovered another storm this one the size of the United States on the planets south pole, joining an array of six others that were already swirling around in abeautiful hexagonal pattern, according to an agency press release.

NASA first observed the new storm when the space agencys Juno spacecraft flew past the south pole in late November.

The flyby, which marked the 22nd time Juno checked up on Jupiter, was actually a bit of an evasive maneuver: NASA had to reroute Juno to keep it from dying in an eclipse that would have blocked its solar panels and ended the mission.

We realized that the orbit was going to carry Juno into Jupiters shadow, which could have grave consequences because were solar powered, Juno principal researcher Scott Bolton said in the release. No sunlight means no power, so there was real risk we might freeze to death.

Lo and behold, first thing out of the gate on the other side, we make another fundamental discovery, he added.

READ MORE: NASAs Juno Navigators Enable Jupiter Cyclone Discovery [NASA]

More on Jupiter: Scientists: Jupiters Great Red Spot Isnt Dying After All

More:

Check Out This Hypnotic Array of Colossal Storms on Jupiter - Futurism

Space Rocks

Russian space agency Roscosmos is creating a center devoted to monitoring meteors, comets, and asteroids to ensure they dont collide with Earth even it means having to blow them up in space.

As part of the creation of a monitoring system and information support for the safety of space activities in near-Earth space, we plan to launch the Russian Center for Small Celestial Bodies, whose main task will be to detect and track celestial bodies approaching Earth, Igor Bakaras, a senior official at Roscosmos subsidiary TsNIIMash, told Russian-owned news agency Sputnik.

Pakistani news agency UrduPoint News has reported that officials are expected to approve the center in mid-2020. It will go online shortly after and then remain in operation until 2030.

Russia also recently announced plans to build a series of telescopes on the Moon to help it track potentially hazardous space rocks, so it seems likely the new center will play a role in bringing that effort to fruition.

Before Russia can blast any dangerous asteroids out of the sky, itll need to do a lot of research. To that end, Bakaras told Sputnik that Russian scientists are currently exploring a variety of ways to destroy or redirect a space rock heading toward Earth, including through the use of satellites, rocket engines, and solar sails.

At present, work in these areas is limited largely to theoretical research and the mathematical modeling of various countermeasures, Bakaras said and that research could be key to saving the planet if an asteroid does make its way toward Earth.

READ MORE: Russia Working on Means to Destroy Dangerous Asteroids Hurtling Toward Earth [Sputnik]

More on asteroids: Russia Wants to Build an Observatory on the Moon

Read the rest here:

Russia Is Working on Its Own Plan to Blow up Killer Asteroids - Futurism

Star Light

Scientists just observed a new galaxy for the first time, and at 13 billion lightyears away, its one of the most distant galaxies spotted to date.

The galaxy, MAMBO-9, isnt setting any long-distance records. Scientists have found galaxies at similar and even greater distances from us. But MAMBO-9 is nearly as old as the universe, CNN reports, so the new finding could help astronomers reveal more information about the earliest days of the cosmos.

MAMBO-9 is only about 970 million years younger than the universe itself, according to research published Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal. Thats an unfathomable length of time for humans, but a mere blip in the cosmic calendar.

The new discovery presents a rare opportunity to watch a galaxy form. Light from MAMBO-9 that just reached Earth which portrays things that actually happened 13 billion years ago reveals a vast cloud of dust that will someday form into new stars and exoplanets.

We expect 100 times more stars than dust, lead researcher Caitlin Casey from the University of Texas at Austin told CNN. But MAMBO-9 has not produced that many stars yet, and we want to find out how dust can form so fast after the Big Bang.

READ MORE: Meet MAMBO-9, one of the most distant galaxies to ever be observed [CNN]

More on space: Something Very Strange Seems to be Synchronizing Distant Galaxies

Read the original here:

Scientists Spot One of the Most Distant Galaxies Ever: MAMBO-9 - Futurism

This figure is the end of the world for the average people. It reflects a rather depressing picture: The state and the economy are advancing by storm but the workers are almost not benefitting from this progress and are left behind. It is almost a catastrophe.

Thats Dr. Roey Tzezana, a future studies researcher at Tel Aviv University and a research fellow at Brown University, referring to the growing gap between labor productivity and wages, as seen in this chart:

In other words, as automation continues to render jobs obsolete, the divide between the rich and everybody else will only continue to grow, and the middle class as we know it will cease to exist. Such a scenario will create a society of extreme pockets of wealth and those who can barely get by.

And thats a problem for everybody, he said.

It doesnt match the ideas of democracy because democracy is based on the middle class, Tzezana told Haaretz. It is harder for workers from the lower class to vote in an intelligent manner and make intelligent decisions. It is a situation that over time does not enable the continuation of democracy as we know it.

He used an example of a factory with 1,000 workers scaling back to just 100 by keeping those with high-level skills to operate the machines that replace the lower-level workers, who are then relegated to service jobs at markedly less pay.

This is not the problem of just one or two people, Tzezana continued. When a lot of people experience this drop, we are talking about an economic crisis: It is not just a problem only for those who cant pay their mortgages 60% of the sales of most companies are to the general public and if the public cant afford to buy a new computer, the entire economy enters a crisis.

To listen to more from Tzenana, check out his TED Talk:

Go here to see the original:

End of the world: This futurist has some grim news for the middle class - MarketWatch

Imaging Pisces

For the first time, NASA managed to map the entire surface of a neutron star (read: the cosmic carcass of a massive star after it detonates in a massive supernova explosion).

The neutron star, J0030+0451 is found within the Pisces constellation. Its only 16 miles wide, according to Astronomy, but still has at least 1.3 times the mass of our Sun. By using NASAs x-ray-measuring satellite NICER, scientists managed to construct a map of unprecedented detail, helping them build out their (and our) understanding of the universe like never before.

The discovery, described in a new series of papers published in The Astrophysical Journal, took about a month to assemble with NASAs supercomputers. Compiling the various recordings and measurements from this project into a coherent map was such a complex task that it wouldve taken about a decade to do on a standard computer, according to Astronomy.

Its unclear what exactly what scientists want to use the new map for. NASA announced plans to recreate the map with more neutron stars, Astronomy reports, but in the meantime, its worth taking a minute and just appreciating how cool this astronomical accomplishment is.

READ MORE: Astronomers map a neutron stars surface for the first time [Astronomy]

More on neutron stars: Scientists Have Learned Why Neutron Stars Shine So Bright

Read more:

Stare Into the Brutal Maw of This Barbarous Neutron Star - Futurism

Imagined by Artisitc Director Virgil Abloh, Louis Vuitton Men's 2054 is a luxury lifestyle ready-to-wear collection built for the great unknown.

Fashion has long flirted with futurism. What began as a cutting-edge movement among early-20th century painters and sculptors quickly swept over the design studios and runways of Milan and Paris. It played out as a celebration of everything new, urban and industrialfabrics, designs, colors and cuts that reflected movement and speed.

But what exactly is futurism now that we are living in the future? It is here, in Louis Vuitton Mens 2054 capsule collection: 14 pieces made of 100% water-repellent technical fabrications with transformable features and multifunctional values. In the collection, Artistic Director Virgil Abloh revisits the idea of compressomorphosisfirst introduced in his pre-fall 2019 collection. The term applies to garments accessorized with wrapper bags into which they can be entirely compressed for travel purposes. For instance, the back pocket of an oversized coat unrolls into a life-size tent raised with included tent poles, the coats back-zip adornment transforming into the tent door; a padded over-shirt with multiple zips for adaptation compresses into its own back pocket and morphs into a pillow native to trekking.

The name is a nod to 1854, the year the house was founded, and signals a fusion of the past, present and future. In other words, its clienteles uniform 200 years from its point of origin. The future is now.

Pieces in the Louis Vuitton Mens 2054 collection range from $6,535 for the 3-in-1 parka to $920 for the 3D effect T-shirt, all at Louis Vuitton Design District.

Photography by: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton

Read more from the original source:

Virgil Abloh Merges Fashion and Futurism with the Louis Vuitton Men's 2054 Collection - Ocean Drive Magazine

Yeah, Got That Water

After surveying 19 exoplanets, a University of Cambridge-led research team found 14 had water vapor in their atmospheres more than theyd expected. The amount of water vapor, meanwhile? Less than theyd anticipated. Yet: These new insights could go a long way toward narrowing our hunt for extraterrestrial life.

Its important to know about even the most remote presence of water elsewhere [given] that water is a key ingredient to our notion of habitability on Earth, project leader Nikku Madhusudhan said in a press release,

For their survey results of which were published on Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal Letters the researchers gathered spectroscopic data on the 19 exoplanets using numerous telescopes, including Hubble and Chiles Very Large Telescope.

Using that data, they were able to estimate amounts of various chemicals in the exoplanets atmospheres and hope to do the same for additional exoplanets in the future.

We look forward to increasing the size of our planet sample in future studies, Madhusudhan said. Inevitably, we expect to find outliers to the current trends as well as measurements of other chemicals.

READ MORE: Water common yet scarce in exoplanets [University of Cambridge]

More on exoplanets: Exoplanet Water Worlds Could Hold Unfathomably Deep Alien Oceans

Read the rest here:

Survey Finds That Water Is Common Around Exoplanets - Futurism

Be the change or be changed, saysNikolas Badminton, futurist and TechTour alumnus.

What does that mean for agriculture? Well, according to Badminton, it means that farmers are either going to have to adapt and evolve their practices, technology, and equipment, or someone else willing to do so will be the one farming and not them.

Its perhaps a strong message for an industry steeped in tradition like agriculture, but history shows that farmers have always been able to adapt, change, and move forward. The rate of that change and the costs associated with it is increasing, however, and farmers are going to have to be nimble in the face of rapidly advancing technology, urbanization, and social shifts.

According to Badminton there are some key areas of advancement that farmers need to pay attention to and adapt with. These are:

All of these areas have big money behind them for research and development, and change is happening at a rapid pace. That said, Badminton doesnt agree with those that are calling for a very abrupt end to how much of the worlds protein is raised as livestock.

Data, too, is already re-defining how most businesses operate and farming is no different. Sensor technology is growing in leaps and bounds, he says, and its this data that will shape technology and push change.

We shouldnt be scared of the opportunity. Yes, we need to work out the business casebut lets pilot projects, lets see what can work, he says, If farmers evolve, theyll flourish, if they dont, businesses will move in and do the work required, Badminton says.

Hear more about what Badminton sees happening and not happening in agriculture in the next 10 years:

Related: What will farmers do when they no longer drive tractors?

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android |

Original post:

Change or have change happen to you, says futurist - RealAgriculture

Before the end of the year, Turkey will become the first nation to get its hands on a brand new military drone equipped with a machine gun.

Its called the Songar, and it can carry 200 rounds of ammunition. A New Scientist story notes that the drone is accurate enough to hit a human target with every bullet fired from 200 meters (656 feet) away a devastating level of accuracy in the already troubling space of drone warfare.

Songar is the work of Turkish electronics firm Asisguard, and according to the companys website, a human can control the drone from a distance of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). Using a single controller, they can operate up to three Songars simultaneously during the day or at night, looking through the devices cameras and deciding when to fire their guns.

Asisguard equipped the drone with two systems designed to address the issue of recoil affecting accuracy. One uses a group of sensors that accountfor variablesranging from a targets distance to the current wind speed. The other uses robotic arms to manually move the gun as needed to counteract the recoil.

Songar isnt the first machine gun-equipped drone weve seen, and its easy to see why the devices appeal to militaries: with an armed drone, a soldier can attack the enemy while staying out of harms way.

But as more and more armed drones emerge, it seems like just a matter of time before militaries decide to remove human operators from the equation altogether. In fact, that may already be happening as United States Defense Secretary Mark Esper accused China in November of selling autonomous killer drones to nations in the Middle East.

So, while the drones that Asisguard plans to sell to Turkey later this month might require a human operator, theres a chance the next armed drones the nation adds to its arsenal will be autonomous and thatll be when things get really scary.

READ MORE: Turkey is getting military drones armed with machine guns [New Scientist]

More on drones: New Warfare Drones are Small as a Quadcopter

Read the original:

Middle Eastern Nation First to Buy Drone Armed With Machine Gun - Futurism

That Sticky-Icky in Space

On Sunday, a SpaceX Dragon capsule docked with the International Space Station hauling nearly three tons of cargo. SpaceXs next ISS resupply mission is scheduled for March 2020, and while that trip might not include any super-buff mighty mice, itll be packing something equally unique: cannabis.

On Tuesday, agri-tech company Front Range Biosciences announced plans to send cannabis to the ISS. No, its not space-shipping weed to get astronauts high. Instead, itll send plant cultures of hemp, the legal cannabis strain with low levels of compound THC.

The cultures will remain in an ISS incubator for 30 days while BioServe Space Technologies (a Front Range project partner) monitors them remotely from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

After their 30 days in space, the cannabis cultures go home to Earth so Front Range can see what effect, if any, microgravity and space radiation had on their gene expression.

There is science to support the theory that plants in space experience mutations, Front Range CEO Jonathan Vaught said in a release. This is an opportunity to see whether those mutations hold up once brought back to earth and if there are new commercial applications.

READ MORE: A Company Is Sending Cannabis and Coffee to Space to See if They Mutate [Motherboard]

More on cannabis: Seven Ways Cannabis Legalization Will Make the Future Better

The rest is here:

SpaceX Is Delivering Cannabis to the Space Station - Futurism

Growing Divide

As jobsare automated out of existence, the division between the very wealthy and the very poorwill grow and any notion of a comfortable middle class will vanish.

Thats according to Roey Tzezana, a future studies researcher at Israels Tel Aviv University, according to Haaretz. That stands in contrast to the common argument that new jobs will emerge as others vanish, painting a grim picture for the workforce and global economy.

Tzezana argues that the jobs that tend to survive automation are lower-paying, according to Haaretz, meaning that as companies generate increased wealth, almost none of it ends up in the pockets of workers. Instead, more people are stuck living paycheck to paycheck, even if unemployment rates are technically low.

This figure is the end of the world for the average people, Tzezana said, speaking about the growing gap between labor productivity and wages. It reflects a rather depressing picture: The state and the economy are advancing by storm but the workers are almost not benefitting from this progress and are left behind. It is almost a catastrophe.

The end result? A society defined by pockets of extreme wealth but otherwise dominated by people who barely have enough to get by.

READ MORE: Futurist Sees The End of the World as We Know It for Average Person [Haaretz]

More on automation: Globally, Most Workers Think Robots Couldnt Handle Their Jobs

View original post here:

Futurist Predicts "The End of the World as We Know It" - Futurism

New Addition

Every year since 1927, TIME magazine has chosen one person, group, object, or idea that for better or for worse has done the most to influence the events of the year.

The list of past recipientsincludes a slew of presidents, monarchs, and religious leaders, as well as scientists, journalists, and even the computer itself.

And now, 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

In August 2018, Thunberg began skipping school on Fridays so she could protest outside her nations Parliament, demanding it do more to address climate change. Her protest inspired other youths to demand action from their own governments, and soon, Thunbergwas the face of a global movement.

She symbolizes the agony, the frustration, the desperation, the anger at some level, the hope of many young people who wont even be of age to vote by the time their futures are doomed, Varshini Prakash, co-founder of the climate advocating Sunrise Movement, told TIME.

In the 16 months since Thunberg started striking for the climate, shes addressed the United Nations, met with Pope Francis, and urged every person in power whod listen to do more to protect the environment if not for themselves, then for the generations to come.

We cant just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow, Thunberg told TIME. That is all we are saying.

READ MORE: Greta Thunberg Is the Youngest TIME Person of the Year Ever. Heres How She Made History [TIME]

More on Greta Thunberg: Shrinks Are Treating Climate-Traumatized Kids for Eco-Anxiety

Go here to read the rest:

Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Is TIMEs Person of the Year - Futurism