Monthly Archives: January 2020

Will wages finally pick up in 2020? Will politicians across the Liberal-Labor divide come to a bipartisan agreement that climate change is a real and future danger? Will the influence of our ageing Baby Boomers begin to wane in the wake of Generation Zs withering catchphrase of 2019, OK, Boomer? Can the #MeToo movement maintain its momentum? Which will be the top box office film franchise release this year: James Bonds No Time to Die in April or Fast & Furious 9 in May? Has the avocado smash had its day?

Futurology is a fascinating, if inexact, science.Credit:Tanya Cooper/illustrationroom.com.au

Answering these questions is invigorating stuff. But its all in a days work for futurist Ross Dawson, chairman of the Future Exploration Network, who compares the trajectory of major social movements to a tiny crystal spreading out across an entire frozen block. Take climate change. The anger and frustration among those who accept the science of climate change is growing, while the position of the deniers is becoming more deeply entrenched, he says. This will lead to even greater polarisation. I find it impossible to imagine a scenario in which climate activism will reduce.

Wage growth is likely to remain tepid in 2020, with an expansion in low-wage jobs resulting in a widening wealth divide. If anything, Baby Boomers economic and political clout will increase because asset wealth will continue to outstrip income wealth, with Australia boasting one of the worlds most unaffordable housing markets, Dawson says.

The #MeToo movement sparked a wider debate, not just about sexual harassment but the sexual abuse of power. While there is the inevitable pushback against social movements like #MeToo, its larger implications the balance of power between the genders still has a long way to play out, says Dawson. The recent election of a young, female prime minister in Finland showed whats possible.

While Dawson baulks when I ask him about the likely box-office hits of 2020 and shifting tastes in brunches (Thats not what I do), he predicts the era of peak entertainment content will only intensify in 2020. I read that more than $US100 billion is currently being spent in TV and film production across the Western world. With all our current existential worries, were looking for escapism.

To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.

The rest is here:
Meet the futurist with 2020 vision - Sydney Morning Herald

Imagine that you roll out of bed onto a living fungus floor. The walls and ceiling heck, the whole apartment building, down to the plumbing and electrical systems are made of fungus too. Wood and concrete are remnants of the distant past; this entire city, from the schools to the stores to the hospitals, is made ofliving fungus constantly growing, dying off and regenerating itself.

Thats the visionlaid out in a provocative new paper, which a team of European academics say is the first-ever exploration of living fungus potential as a raw material for futuristic, eco-friendly monolithic structures that would, in their telling, revolutionize the entire built environment and economy.

We propose to develop a structural substrate by using live fungal mycelium, reads the paper. Fungal buildings will self-grow, build, and repair themselves.

The idea is a response to the prospect of catastrophic climate change. Growing our building materials from biological materials, the theory goes, would makeconstruction less dependent on fossil fuels and environmentally-destructive mining operations.

Fungal materials can have a wide variety of mechanical properties ranging from foam-like to wood-like to polymer-like to elastomer-like, Han Wsten, a microbiologist at The Netherlands Utrecht University who co-authored the not-yet-peer-reviewed paper, told Futurism. The fact that we can make wood-like materials implies that we can use it for the building industry.

Along with other forms of living materials, fungal architecture is not a new idea other research groups have explored the idea of growing building materials out of mycelium. NASA,for instance, is currently testingwhether fungus could grow in Martian soil, potentially giving the space agency a low-cost way to grow space habitats onsite.

But those projects all involve killing the fungus after it grows, a process that makes it sturdier as a building material that the team says has already been used for load-bearing structures or boundary walls.

So far, they say, no one else has explored the possibility of building monolithic structures out of living fungus.

The selling point of our materials is that it is biodegradable, thereby helping to create a circular economy, Wsten said. At the same time, it should not degrade when actually used as a building material. We can work around this apparent paradox by coating the material. In fact, we also coat wood with paint of oils to protect it against degradation.

It may be that we will find a fungus that creates wood-like materials without the need of pressing, he said.

Even with a coating, Wsten went on to explain, the goal is to keep the fungal architecture alive so that an architect could rejuvenate it with water and trigger further growth if repairs or alternations were necessary. Those same coatings, the team says, could be used to capitalize on the fungus internal structure of networks to replace things like a buildings plumbing, electrical wiring, or other logistical needs.

Important to note: those ideas, like much of the teams research, remain fairly speculative.

Andrew Adamatzky, a computer scientist at the University of the West of England who also co-authored the paper, told Futurism that the team is working to build fungal versions of neuromorphic circuits and other electronics. He conceded that conventional wires are cheaper and easier to work with, but added that the living circuits will be self-growing, self-assembling and self-repairing, which no traditional circuitry can do.

This is really challenging, but a real opportunity to explore how buildings could grow, self-repair, adapt and disrupt conventional ways of building production by working with highly local resources and growing in-situ to minimize logistics and energy use in material production, said Phil Ayres, a co-author of the paper from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, aiming towards a circular economy for construction.

More on living materials: Scientists Create Living Concrete That Can Heal Itself

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These Researchers Want You to Live In a Fungus Megastructure - Futurism

After analyzing data from the 1950s through 2019, an international team of scientists determined that the averagetemperature of the worlds oceans in 2019 was 0.075 degrees Celsius (.135 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the 19812010 average.

That might not seem like a significant amount of warming, but given the massive volume of the oceans, an increase even that small would require a staggering influx of heat 228 sextillion Joules worth, according to the scientists study, which was published in the journalAdvances in Atmospheric Sciences on Monday.

Thats a hard number to contextualize, so one of the scientists behind the study did the math to put it into an explosive frame of reference by comparing it to the amount of energy released by the atomic bomb the United States military dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945.

The Hiroshima atom-bomb exploded with an energy of about 63,000,000,000,000 Joules, author Lijing Cheng from the Chinese Academy of Sciences said in a press release. The amount of heat we have put in the worlds oceans in the past 25 years equals to 3.6 billion Hiroshima atom-bomb explosions.

That averages out to four Hiroshima bombs worth of energy entering the oceans every second for the past 25 years. But even more troubling, the rate isnt holding steady at that alarming figure its increasing.

In 2019, ocean warming was equivalent to about five Hiroshima bombs of heat, every second, day and night, 365 days a year, study author John Abraham, from the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, told Vice.

And in case atomic bombs are still too abstract of a comparative unit, the 2019 rate is equivalent to every person on Earth constantly pointing 100 hair dryers at the oceans, Abraham told Vice.

The less technical term is: Its a shit-ton of energy, he said and its already having a hugeimpacting the environment.

Ice is melting faster, causing sea levels to rise. Dolphins and other marine life are dying because they cant adapt quickly enough. Even the increase in the amount of water evaporating into the atmosphere due to the heat is negatively impacting on our planet.

It makes hurricanes and typhoons more powerful, and it makes rainfall more intense, Abraham told Vice. It puts our weather on steroids.

And remember, the rate is increasing meaning that every moment we delay taking action to slow or reverse the warming, the situation is only going to get worse.

READ MORE: 5 Hiroshima Bombs of Heat, Every Second: The Worlds Oceans Absorbed Record-Level Heat Last Year [Vice]

More on ocean warming: Scientists: Warming Oceans Will Lead to Catastrophic Future

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Scientists: Ocean Warming at the Rate of Five A-Bombs per Second - Futurism

Its Alive!

Scientists at the University of Colorado, Boulder have created whatThe New York Timescalls a living concrete, teeming with photosynthetic bacteria, that can grow itself and regenerate itself much like a living organism.

The concrete is a mixture of gelatin, sand, and cyanobacteria that cools similarly to Jell-O, the Times reports. The resulting structure was able to regenerate itself three times after researchers cut it apart, suggesting apotential breakthrough in the nascent field of self-assembling materials.

The living concrete, which the Colorado scientists made in partnership with DARPA, starts out as a sickly green color that fades as the bacteria dies off, according to research published Wednesday in the journal Matter.

It really does look like a Frankenstein material, UC Boulder engineer and project leader Will Srubar told the NYT.

Even as the color fades, the bacteria survive for several weeks and can be rejuvenated resulting in further growth under the right conditions.

DARPA is particularly interested in a self-growing material that it can use to assemble structures in remote desert areas, or potentially even in space, according to the NYT.

If the living concrete can scale up to that level, it could reduce the amount and weight of materials that space agencies will need to launch.

Theres no way were going to carry building materials to space, Srubar told the NYT. Well bring biology with us.

READ MORE: Bricks Alive! Scientists Create Living Concrete [New York Times]

More on materials: Scientists Create Material With Living Metabolism

Excerpt from:
Scientists Create "Living Concrete" That Can Heal Itself - Futurism

Accomplishments in business. Charitable contributions. Daring leadership. Out-of-the-box thinking. Over the course of the past year, RISMedias 2020 Real Estate Newsmakers contributed to the housing industry in numerous ways, bettering their communities, consumers and larger sphere, across eight categories: Achievers, Crusaders, Futurists, Influencers, Inspirations, Luminaries, Trailblazers and Trendsetters. Here, we showcase their stories.

Matthew BeallCEOHawaii Life

In 2019, Beall and Hawaii Life acquired two firms: Country Brokers and East Oahu Realty. We have enjoyed incredible growth, Beall says. I love my Hawaii Life.

David MarineChief Marketing OfficerColdwell Banker Real Estate

In 2019, Marine led Project North Star, Coldwell Banker Real Estates first rebrand in 40 years. When I go to work or give a talk, I constantly think about how Im not just representing myself, but so many others, Marine says. Its never just about you.Vini MoolchandaniREALTORCompass

In 2019, Moolchandani helped a $900,000 listing sell in 21 daysafter it had been listed by two others and on the market for more than 400 days. I am beyond grateful to be part of this amazing industry and to be able to serve so many families, Moolchandani says.Ward MorrisonPresidentMotto Mortgage

In 2019, Motto Mortgage and Morrison celebrated the companys 150th franchise sale, as well as its third anniversary. One-hundred fifty franchises sold in only three years is an extraordinary feat for a startup franchisor, Morrison says. This growth demonstrates the demand and potential of our business model.Fiona PetrieExecutive Vice President & Managing Director of U.S. OperationsRE/MAX INTEGRA

From 2018 to 2019, RE/MAX INTEGRA grew substantially, with Petrie facilitating 20 new office openings, 36 expansions and 13 mergers and acquisitions. I strive to empower others to discover their own talents in the industry, Petrie says.Lindsay SmithChief Strategy OfficerTitle AllianceIn 2019, Title Alliance appointed Smith as chief strategy officer. My motto is every personemployee, partner and clientshould feel like a VIP at all times, says Smith.

Allen AlishahiCo-Founder & PresidentShelterZoom

In 2019, Alishahi and ShelterZoom debuted Mithra Contract, a fully digital, tokenized smart contract platform. I am helping to bring next-generation technology to our industry, which presents an enjoyable challenge, Alishahi says.AJ CanariaCreative Director & Executive Brand AmbassadorInside Real Estate

At the beginning of the year, Canaria was appointed creative director and executive brand ambassador for Inside Real Estate. I am one of real estates storytellers and connectors, Canaria says.Vy LuuGeneral ManagerReal Estate Webmasters

In 2019, Luu was appointed general manager for Real Estate Webmasters, contributing to its core initiatives, including bringing data standards worldwide. This will open up data and facilitate competition, ultimately benefitting both sides of real estate transactions, Luu says.Mike MiedlerPresident & CEOCentury 21 Real Estate LLC

In 2019, Century 21 Real Estate LLC appointed Miedler to president and CEO, formerly from chief growth officer. Success in real estate comes down to two factors: taking care of and valuing the customer, Miedler says.

Kasey StewartDirector of Member DevelopmentNational Association of REALTORS

In 2019, Stewart continued to develop educational programs at the National Association of REALTORS, including the Commitment to Excellence (C2EX) program. Im incredibly proud to work with NAR volunteer leaders and staff on C2EX, says Stewart. It truly takes a village to launch and grow a program of this magnitude.Gayln ZieglerDirector of Operations, Keller OffersKeller Williams

In 2019, Keller Williams launched Keller Offers, an iBuying program, and appointed Ziegler as its director of Operations. We feel very passionately that the consumer needs an advocate in their corner with all the changes going on in the industry right now, says Ziegler.For more from the 2020 Real Estate Newsmakers, go toRISMedia.com/2020-Newsmakersor RISMediasReal Estate magazine. For consideration for the 2021 Real Estate Newsmakers, please email nominations tomaria@rismedia.com.

See more here:
2020 Real Estate Newsmakers: The Achievers and the Futurists - RisMedia.com

Young FuturistsYoung Futurists is our annual list of the 25 best and brightest young African-Americans who excel in the fields of social justice and activism, arts and culture, enterprise and corporate innovation, science and technology, and green innovation.

The 2020 election is shaping up to be one of the most consequential elections in American history, and frankly, many of us are stressed just thinking about choosing a new leader (and getting rid of the old one).

But what if you had a chance to choose the leaders of tomorrow? Were looking for the young, outspoken social justice activists who are doing the real work on the ground to change their communities for the better; the savvy young entrepreneur who is already providing real jobs and real opportunities; the young environmentalists who are literally fighting to save the planet and their future; the techy kids who would rather code and create new apps than play basketball (not that theres anything wrong with that, were looking for that young superstar athlete in the making, too); the creative geniuses who can tell their stories through art, music and film.

If you know any African Americans between the ages of 10 and 24 who fit those descriptions, now is the time to nominate them for The Roots 2020 Young Futurists.

We will select 25 young leaders who are already making their mark in the fields of social justice and activism; arts and culture; enterprise and corporate innovation; science and technology; and green innovation (environment).

Last year, our list included some incredible kids, like 12-year-old Mari Copeny, who has been advocating for clean drinking water for her hometown of Flint, Mich., earning the title of Little Miss Flint in 2015when she was 8. Or Black-ish star Marsai Martin, who is already crushing the Hollywood game after making history as the youngest executive producer of a major Hollywood film at age 14. Or Elijah Precciely, who entered college as a sophomore after receiving a full-ride scholarship to Southern University in May 2018, when he was 11.

Heres your chance to tell us about the feature leaders who are destined for great things. The nomination period will run through Feb. 7. Please tell us about potential Young Futurists by filling out this nomination form.

The rest is here:
The Roots Young Futurists 2020: Nominate the Leaders Who Are Ready to Change the World - The Root

Busted

MIT has placed tenured mechanical engineering professor Seth Lloyd on administrative because of a failure to disclose ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased and disgraced financier accused of sex trafficking and other crimes.

Over the years, Epstein donated $225,000 to Lloyds research and also gave him a personal gift of $60,000, according to an extensive report about Epsteins connections to MIT that the university released Friday. Lloyd hid the source of the donations by processing them through various administrators ultimately tainting his research by linking it to Epsteins disgraceful legacy.

The news about Lloyd and his subsequent suspension is just the latest in a string of grim revelations regarding MITs ties to Epstein. While Lloyd admitted to having visited Epstein in prison, Epsteins influence on the university extended far beyond one engineering professor.

Joi Ito, the since-resigned director of the MIT Media Lab also accepted and obscured the source of hundreds of thousands of dollars from Epstein and millions more that were funneled through Epsteins company. Computer scientist Richard Stallman also resigned in the wake of controversy surrounding off-color comments he made about the scandal.

As news about Epsteins contributions to MIT continued to break, university president Rafael Reif vowed to donate an amount equivalent to Epsteins donations to a charity supporting victims of sexual abuse.

So far, Reif has committed to donating $850,000. But as InsideHigher Ed reports, he hasnt yet determined what organization its going to support.

READ MORE: More Epstein Fallout at MIT [Inside Higher Ed]

More on Epstein and MIT: Bizarre MIT Meeting About Jeffrey Epstein Ends in Tears, Yelling

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MIT Suspends Another Professor for Epstein Ties - Futurism

Open Sesame

On Tuesday evening, Trump complained that Apple refuses to help law enforcement investigate violent and drug-related crimes.

The previous day, Attorney General William Barrhad criticized Apple for refusing to unlock the Pensacola Naval Air Station shooters iPhones or provide a backdoor that would allow the government to do so directly, according toCBSNews.

While Trumps tweet blasts Apple over that refusal, the company says its been actively collaborating with law enforcement, according to a statement published in Input Mag.

Its already possible to crack some iPhones encryption, especially since the shooters used older models with outdated security, 9to5Mac reports. And while Apple says it fulfilled the FBIs requests, it wont let the FBI access the shooters communications directly. Apples logic: implementing backdoor access would make investigators jobs easier, but it would also create a major threat to the safety and privacy of all iPhone users.

Apple toldInput that The queries resulted in many gigabytes of information that we turned over to investigators. In every instance, we responded with all of the information that we had.

We have always maintained there is no such thing as a backdoor just for the good guys, reads Apples statement. Backdoors can also be exploited by those who threaten our national security and the data security of our customers.

READ MORE: Apple responds to AG Barr over unlocking Pensacola shooters phone: No. [Input News]

More on privacy: Big Tech Splits Over Privacy Issues, at Least on the Surface.

Link:
Trump Demands That Apple Give Government Access to iPhones - Futurism

With your arms around the future; And your back against the past the Moody Blues

Wyoming was on my mind, even though I was basking in 70-degree temperatures in Texas recently. Let me explain:

One of the high points of our annual New Years trip to see Dallas relatives is my yearly visit with the smartest person I know.

Of the 301,000 employees at Hewlett Packard a few years ago, one special employee stood out, their lone futurist, Jeff Wacker.

He is retired now and working on a book.

He also used to live in the same neighborhood as our daughter in Allen, TX.

A Nebraska native, Jeff would fit comfortably in Wyoming. His values and those of the Cowboy State pretty much line up. If his wife Nancy did not have some health issues, he might be living right now on the family homestead near Sidney, an area he calls eastern Wyoming.

He has the same typical bad news for fossil fuels we Wyomingites all are hearing. But he blames it on an amazing future of batteries and even exotic fuel sources like anti-matter.

Wacker feels strongly that the hysteria about global warming is over-stated. He is an expert on just about everything. He challenges folks who believe Al Gores theories to dig into where that 90 percent of scientists . . . story came from. Instead, he says we are in a 1,000-year cycle and the heating of the earth occurs 600 years after CO2 increases.

As a futurist, he thinks on a global scale and in big pictures. He worries about eternal life. We are very close to providing a path where people dont have to die, that one of the biggest future problems will be should we die and how should we die? Suicide?

He also says the future of work could be the biggest issue of the 21st century. Automation, unique robots including microscopic nanobots, and Artificial Intelligence will continue to erode the job market. I have a friend who says we will always need people to keep the robots running really? We already have robots that repair other robots, he says. He divides all the various technologies into five areas:

Nanotech is the creation of super tiny robots that can float around inside your bloodstream and keep you healthy. He sees billions of nanobots taking care of the trillions of cells in the body.

Biotech will see cures and inventions occurring at fantastic rates in the near future and far future. Again, he really believes a huge problem for the youngest people living on the planet today is how do they want to die? He believes young people in the near future have the potential to live as long as they want to.

Robotech is already changing the world. What will people do when there are no jobs? Typical workweek might be 26 hours or less. He says three-fourths of all manufacturing jobs are already gone and not coming back.

Infotech leaves him discouraged especially when it comes to social media. He quotes a favorite author who said, When everybody is an author, there are no editors.

He thinks amazing sensors will be developed on a micro level while, on a macro level, the world will be covered with satellites similar to the doomsday prediction of the Terminator movies, which saw all those troubles caused by a structure called SkyNet.

Energytech may see more change than any other sector. Look back 200 years to 1820. We have advanced 2,000 years in the past 200 years. This will just accelerate, he concludes. He also credits it to the gradual warming of the climate over those two centuries. We went from horse and buggy to planning a Mars launch today.

In 1820, the most valuable material on earth was aluminum because it was only created when lightning would strike bauxite. A nine-inch pyramid-shaped piece of aluminum is used as the cap of the top of the Washington Monument, for example.

Having this chat with Jeff Wacker left my head spinning. We are heading into a strange new world that sounded both hopeful and daunting to me.

Wacker really is worried about the robots with artificial intelligence taking over. When it happens, it will happen exponentially, so we probably will not know what hit us until it has already happened! On that dreary note, Happy New Year and Happy New Decade.

Check out additional columns at http://www.billsniffin.com. He has published six books. His coffee table book series has sold 34,000 copies. You can find more stories by Bill Sniffin by going to CowboyStateDaily.com.

Original post:
Fossil fuel issues, nanobots, and the end of work as we know it - Kemmerer Gazette