Lifeboat Foundation

Not long ago, schoolchildren chose what they wanted to be when they grew up, and later selected the best college they could gain admission to, spent years gaining proficiency in their fields, and joined a company that had a need for their skills. Careers lasted lifetimes.

Now, by my estimates, the half-life of a career is about 10 years. I expect that it will decrease, within a decade, to five years. Advancing technologies will cause so much disruption to almost every industry that entire professions will disappear. And then, in about 15–20 years from now, we will be facing a jobless future, in which most jobs are done by machines and the cost of basic necessities such as food, energy and health care is negligible — just as the costs of cellphone communications and information are today. We will be entering an era of abundance in which we no longer have to work to have our basic needs met. And we will gain the freedom to pursue creative endeavors and do the things that we really like.

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Scientists at Australian National University (ANU) have used simple transparent sticky (aka “Scotch”) tape to create single-atom-thick layers of phosphorene from “black phosphorus,” a black crystalline form of phosphorus similar to graphite (which is used to create graphene).

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Renewable energy boom will mean vastly cheaper electricity

Renewable energy, combined with prolific battery storage, will soon result in vastly cheaper electricity — and solar power that’s less expensive than what fossil fuel-based power plants can produce.

Additionally, solar power with lithium-ion and flow-battery storage systems will make the combination of renewable energy so inexpensive that it will surpass nuclear power and obviate the need for futuristic power sources such as fusion, according to Tesla CTO JB Straubel.

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“We have the technology to successfully integrate distributed, renewable energy with the grid to provide a reliable, seamless power source. That includes software that helps renewable-power providers better predict their output throughout the day and feed that information upstream to utilities so they can blend that power with their traditional generation portfolio…The real barrier to greater renewable use is less technological and more philosophical. People worry that connecting all these renewable sources to the grid will bring it down.” Read more

Lightweight composite metal foams like this one have been found effective at blocking X-rays, gamma rays and neutron radiation, and are capable of absorbing the energy of high impact collisions — holding promise for use in nuclear safety, space exploration, and medical technology applications (credit: Afsaneh Rabiei, North Carolina State University)

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University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers have created a nanoscale device that can emit light as powerfully as an object 10,000 times its size. It’s an advance that could have huge implications for everything from photography to solar power.

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I’M driving 550 miles in three days, all by myself, mainly for the fun of it—and I’m not an environmental villain. Behind the wheel of a borrowed bright-red electric Tesla Model S, I click off the miles as I head south from the San Francisco Bay Area on Interstate 5 through California’s San Joaquin Valley, feeling virtuous because my tailpipe spews no pollution.

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‪#‎Handy‬ New Wireless Charger Can Simultaneously Power 30 Mobile Phones at Distance.

Scientists at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have developed an omnidirectional wireless charging technology that can charge multiple devices at once, at a distance and, crucially, at peak efficiency regardless of which way the devices are facing.

An effective wireless transmitting power of 30 watts means the device can, according to the researchers, power either 30 smartphones or five laptops simultaneously.

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Perhaps (for once) some environmental news that we don’t have to fight over.

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