The SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY News Thread

[Bambasa]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

Writers of the Future: 1987 Time Capsule Predictions

Now while I do loathe most anything involved with L. Ron Hubbard (he founded Scientology afterall), I do like the idea of this. Basically, in 1987 they had several well-known sci-fi writers make predictions on what they think 2012 will be like, and then unearth the predictions 25 years later. See for yourself who got close, and who got so far off the mark.

Very interesting read. Most of them got it almost completely right. And I spotted this one:

JERRY POURNELLE

A computer will win the Campbell & Hubbard Awards.

Will anyone confirm for me has this happened or not?

[MrTerrorist]

Hello Giant Robot, You’re Beautiful.

Oh how i wish i could get one....with weapons!

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Bambasa

Very interesting read. Most of them got it almost completely right.

Exactly who got what right? 'cause I don't really see it.

The most regrettable failure: Zelazny didn't live to give us the Grandchildren of Amber.

(Though the lack of utopia kinda smarts, too.)

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

Hello Giant Robot, You’re Beautiful.

Oh how i wish i could get one....with weapons!

I WANT ONE

*now has reason to save up money*

[Vena]

Originally Posted by C.A.

I can see artificial muscles, artificial organs, that can not just be implanted into people with serious injuries or people who needs organ transplants, but also create biological machines.

We can already do this, the growing organs and muscles part, and in a far easier way than re-engineering one cell type into another. I don't know what the goal is at such a scale, considering that *individual* biological entities are a pain to program and keep under one programming. This is all on the microscale and cells at such a level have a tendency to rewrite their own coding at an incredibly rapid rate.

I guess we could build super organs?

But we can already do that too...

[C.A.]

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

Hello Giant Robot, You’re Beautiful.

Oh how i wish i could get one....with weapons!

Seems like VOTOMS, Armoured Troopers are already in production. Next would be KMFs, then AS, Aestivalis and MS.

Originally Posted by Vena

We can already do this, the growing organs and muscles part, and in a far easier way than re-engineering one cell type into another. I don't know what the goal is at such a scale, considering that *individual* biological entities are a pain to program and keep under one programming. This is all on the microscale and cells at such a level have a tendency to rewrite their own coding at an incredibly rapid rate.

I guess we could build super organs?

But we can already do that too...

I just read a book by Michio Kaku where he talks about how technology may develop in the next 100 years.

Medical technology in the future will involve nanomachines in the human body, which will maintain your health by directly controlling the chemical reactions and cell growth and repair in your body. Disease causing bacteria, viruses and even cancer cells are quickly destroyed by nanomachines aiding your immune system.

Doctors in the future will not be working directly with patients any more, instead they will regularly monitor their patients with data from their nanomachines through wireless network databases. And even so, nanomachines will be doing such a good job maintaining the patients that they hardly need to cure diseases. The word 'tumor' will even be a word of the past.

Surgeons will only need to perform operations when there is major trauma, where they will retrieve stem cells from the patients own stem cell account, or even entire pre-grown organs and other body parts to immediately replace them.

And also genetic engineering would be commonplace and the genes responsible for aging would have been unraveled. Each individual can choose to halt their own aging processes at the age they want to, people can maintain youth for as long as they want. And since Michio Kaku is only talking about the next hundred years, the characters he described do not know when they will die because none of the people who has halted their aging has died yet. These so called first batch of guinea pigs for immortality would live for a much longer time and look young till they die.

Couples who want to have a child no longer need to let the mother suffer for nine months, babies can be chosen to grow in 'test tubes' and even have their genes chosen between the parents' genes. Harmful and mutated genes can be picked out ensuring the health of the baby, you can choose to let your baby have the best genes of each parent. Parents can also choose to see how their baby would look like before they are born or keep it a surprise.

[SaintessHeart]

Where is brain transplant technology?

[Vena]

Originally Posted by C.A.

Medical technology in the future will involve nanomachines in the human body, which will maintain your health by directly controlling the chemical reactions and cell growth and repair in your body. Disease causing bacteria, viruses and even cancer cells are quickly destroyed by nanomachines aiding your immune system.

Doctors in the future will not be working directly with patients any more, instead they will regularly monitor their patients with data from their nanomachines through wireless network databases. And even so, nanomachines will be doing such a good job maintaining the patients that they hardly need to cure diseases. The word 'tumor' will even be a word of the past.

Surgeons will only need to perform operations when there is major trauma, where they will retrieve stem cells from the patients own stem cell account, or even entire pre-grown organs and other body parts to immediately replace them.

And also genetic engineering would be commonplace and the genes responsible for aging would have been unraveled. Each individual can choose to halt their own aging processes at the age they want to, people can maintain youth for as long as they want. And since Michio Kaku is only talking about the next hundred years, the characters he described do not know when they will die because none of the people who has halted their aging has died yet. These so called first batch of guinea pigs for immortality would live for a much longer time and look young till they die.

Couples who want to have a child no longer need to let the mother suffer for nine months, babies can be chosen to grow in 'test tubes' and even have their genes chosen between the parents' genes. Harmful and mutated genes can be picked out ensuring the health of the baby, you can choose to let your baby have the best genes of each parent. Parents can also choose to see how their baby would look like before they are born or keep it a surprise.

This sounds like fantasy to be honest, or maybe I'm cynical.

Nanorobotics barely has anything that's actually nanoscaled post construction (in this way, its a bit of a misnomer or MANY things are a part of the nanorobotics field despite being very large), the modicum of operation is in the 0.1 to 10 micrometer range which is, neatly enough, on the edge of the smallest (and simplest) functioning cell (mycoplasma). If you start trying to put in wifi (being a bit fast and loose with my jargon), you're most certainly not going to be operating on such tiny scales without either magic or a leap in technology that will prevent the massive interference these little machines are going to cause to one another if they are constantly broadcasting. Moreover, your body has a hard enough time making sure it doesn't kill itself that I don't know how much it will appreciate even more (now out of its control) variables running around in your body, susceptible to all the same bad stuff that makes your body muck up and destroy itself.

Stem cells, though, already exists and the only reason you can't just regrow every organ you've ever had and replace your old ones, is some ethical arguing. We can already, literally, have an icebox of our own organs waiting on stand-by but politics and morality are getting in the way.

The aging bit is high fantasy. Its as much environmental as it is little genes running around and making you get older. There's nothing to turn off to prevent your mitochondria from depleting themselves and the *free radicals* issue, these are things that need to either be repaired or replaced. (We're going to need hybernation chambers where stem cells are used to repair your body... not sure what you'd do about the brain though. I guess you can add more cells to depleted regions?)

The last part sounds like Gataca and Nature vs. Nurture/Mother Earth trying to kill you.

[Dhomochevsky]

It's always a bit of a stretch to just go out on tangent, but these things are all soundly based in reality.

For 'nanobots' I doubt they will be able to send data on their own. Wifi is an insane energy hog compared to normal chip operation. Rather communication would work like with RFID chips, in which the chip can transmit data by modulating an external electromagnetic field. The same field would be used to power the bots, or even for movement, because a nanoscale power source that can be used to operate for long times is fantasy. So the bots would only works within certain medical devices that apply the fields, or would have to use ATP to power itselfs like cells do.
However what these bots should actually do is a different question. Maybe deliver drugs to designated locations. The bots currently being developed pretty much lack any ability to manipulate their surroundings.

For aging, there are hints of this being possible.
No immortality, but things like raising average lifetime over 100 years, while staying in a youthful condition for most of that time seems possible.
Look up research on the TOR mechanism. Using that, the above was archieved in certain animals already (worms...), but as always it's a bit more complex within humans.

[C.A.]

Actually I may have missed out a bit, the nanomachines don't directly 'talk' to the doctor, but instead an implant in the body.

This implant would store all the data of the body's information. This implant would then communicate all the information needed to the network.

And in the future, everything is wired and connected to the internet with countless detectors and scanners. You could be sitting in your chair, sofa or even the toilet bowl and it will monitor your body temperature, weight, the chemicals in your breath, sweat and even scan under your skin with lasers.

Implants could be made up of extremely flexible and durable metamaterials that are completely harmless to your body and is powered by piezoelectricity from the movement of your body. They can lie just under or on your skin and be scanned for all the data in your own home while you are doing your own things.

For example it could be on your palm and every time you use your mouse or something more high tech in the future, you can send data to the network.

Your doctor or even your own home interface can then tell you that you your body conditions and whether you need to get certain medical nanomachines to treat a new condition.

Whether immortality can be achieved by humans is not known yet, but humans can definitely live longer in the future. Nature already has some immortal animals so its not impossible for humans to try and achieve that.

[LoweGear]

More on the Kuratas mech:

You can apparently operate the weapons simply by smiling. And of course, getting frags will make you smile. Such a wonderful self-perpetuating cycle

Also, a couple of pics from WonFes:

Images

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[Vena]

Originally Posted by C.A.

Actually I may have missed out a bit, the nanomachines don't directly 'talk' to the doctor, but instead an implant in the body.

That's more reasonable but wifi is still a massive power-hog and heat source to be pumping out a respectable signal that doesn't fall off too quickly (1/r). Implanted chip technology has been done (most recently a few months back, last years, where they gave a chimp a robotic arm) but even that has a high power and heat output, there are big hurdles to overcome.

Originally Posted by C.A.

Your doctor or even your own home interface can then tell you that you your body conditions and whether you need to get certain medical nanomachines to treat a new condition.

Sounds like a good way to create phobias and, in the case of a power outage, mass panic.

Originally Posted by C.A.

Whether immortality can be achieved by humans is not known yet, but humans can definitely live longer in the future. Nature already has some immortal animals so its not impossible for humans to try and achieve that.

You mean the polyp jellyfish? That's a few tens of orders of magnitude less complex and process is, effectively, regrowing your entire body. So, stem cells go!

[MrTerrorist]

Future foods: What will we be eating in 20 years' time?

I hope to taste these future foods.

[aohige]

^ "In the UK, meat prices are anticipated to have a huge impact on our diets. Some in the food industry estimate they could double in the next five to seven years, making meat a luxury item."

What, you mean, where Japan has been for like forever?

Meat = pricey and valuable
This has been our standard as far as I can remember.

The West eat way too much meat anyways, you can get by just fine with half the current meat consumption ya know.
And this is coming from a friggin' Texan.

[Sumeragi]

Originally Posted by aohige

What, you mean, where Japan has been for like forever?

Except Japan is eating too much fish.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Sumeragi

Except Japan is eating too much fish.

They won't remember that their fellow shoalmates have been eaten anyway; they have memories of only a few seconds.

And fish >>> poultry. I could one-man an entire sashimi buffet on my own.

[Bri]

Originally Posted by MrTerrorist

Future foods: What will we be eating in 20 years' time?

I hope to taste these future foods.

Guess I'll have to put my hopes on lab-grown meat. Pass on bugs and seafood...

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Sumeragi

Except Japan is eating too much fish.

This is not true.

Rice, various pasta, and vegetable takes up vast majority of a Japanese diet.
The most popular food are curry rice (usuall pork or beef), ramen, soba, udon, various okonomiyaki dish, cha-han (fried rice), etc.
And a simple traditional Japanese meal is a small fish, Rice, miso soup, and veggies. Very low on both volume and calories.
An average meal in Japan consume way less fish than the west consume beef & chicken (which is on pretty much every single menu in US)

Sushi, sukiyaki, korean style yakiniku, beef steak, etc are all popular but expensive as hell and usually a once-in-a-while luxury.
Only popular everyday meal that has very high amount of meat that I can think of is the gyu-don.

If anything, I think Japanese consume too much carbohydrate.

[Paranoid Android]

Watch NASA's Mars Rover land, live!

Watch it here (not now, when it happens)
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

On this upcoming Sunday (August 5th). Stream starts at 11:30pm eastern time. The calculated landing time is 1:31 am EST monday.

Kind of exciting, but possibly really boring. It's probably gonna be like 2001: Space Odyssey. Ridiculously long-ass time of some object moving through space.

[FDW]

I believe this is appropriate for the thread, right?

http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/28/31...he-science-guy

And I believe this would be appropriate to go with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbzouFaMJU4