Here is a funny Time Magazine article highlighting all those dire predictions made decades ago:
Mind control, a steep uptick in kelp farming, and other crazy predictions that have yet to come true.
Category: food – Page 344
History: I know that we often write about the future, etc
However, one also must look at the past for insights and guidance on things that were done wrong to ensure bad history is not repeated.
Therefore, let me share with you a part of history that we need to be aware of and protect our future from ever repeating again.
Many folks have never heard of Poor Farms in the South and Poor Houses in some parts of the Midwest. Before soc. Security and Welfare we had poor farms/ houses. They date from the late 1800s until 1930s.
Poor farms/ houses were often filled with the elderly and others that had no money or anyone to take care them. People often worked the land for 16+ hours days, dressed in rags, and had very little to eat. Once you were there you could not leave ever until you died.
My grandfather always taught us that if Social Security and Welfare were ever eliminated, that a model of Poor Farms/ houses would return.
Poorhouses promised to be a much more efficient and cheaper way to provide relief to paupers.
Cotton Candy May be the Key to Creating Artificial Organs
Cotton Candy’s new inspiration.
Scientists are now able to spin a three-dimensional slab of gelatin that contains a microvascular network, something very like our capillaries, using a cotton candy-esque machine.
What do cotton candy and artificial organs have in common? More than you might think.
Leon Bellan, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University, is using a cotton candy machine to spin out networks of tiny threads comparable in size, density, and complexity to the patterns formed by capillaries.
Mammal brain frozen and thawed out perfectly for first time
Interesting. What do you think of this?
A mammal brain has been defrosted from cryogenic storage in an almost perfect state for the first time. This breakthrough, accomplished using a rabbit brain, brings us one – albeit tiny – step closer to the prospect of reanimating a human brain that has been cryogenically preserved.
After death, organs begin to decay, but we can delay this by cooling these tissues, just like freezing food. But in the same way that a frozen strawberry becomes soggy when defrosted, it is difficult to perfectly preserve mammals at cold temperatures. We, and strawberries, contain large amounts of water, which freezes into ice crystals that damage cells.
Cryoprotectants can prevent this ice damage, working like medical-grade antifreezes and preventing organs from freezing. This works in small worms and rabbit kidneys, but it needs to be administered quickly, which usually causes brains to dehydrate and shrink.
Inside SU’s First Salon: Lab-Grown Organs, Cybersecurity, and AI Music Apps
“We will find new things everywhere we look.” –Hunter S. Thompson
At the rate of 21st century technological innovation, each year brings new breakthroughs across industries. Advances in quantum computers, human genome sequencing for under $1,000, lab-grown meat, harnessing our body’s microbes as drugs, and bionic eye implants that give vision to the blind —the list is long.
As new technologies push the boundaries of their respective industries, fields are now maturing, growing, and colliding with one another. This cross-pollination of ideas across industries and countries has changed the world—and will continue to—and it’s one of the reasons Singularity University exists.
Scientists create synthetic biopathway to turn agriculture waste into ‘green’ products
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have engineered a new synthetic biopathway that can more efficiently and cost-effectively turn agricultural waste, like corn stover and orange peels, into a variety of useful products ranging from spandex to chicken feed.
Robot Chef Serves Up the Future of Home Cooking
Moley Chef Robots reappearing again today across the web. These do hold a lot of opportunity for restaurant franchises as well as homes. However, AI in a business has a break even point before the investment is no longer a wise or sound investment.
Always step back and look at the bigger picture 1st (e.g. look at all costs & any risks/ liabilities). Look at initial purchase/ lease costs, any write off/ depreciation opportunities, know your customer & your brand (if your restaurant is because of your master chef then a robot is a line chef which you consider how much your spending on a line chef as well as replacing them v. a robotic chef), know your local food & safety regs. Never good to put in a series of robotic chefs and local ordinances and city committees pass restrictions that forces you to de-install your $60K robot after 1 or 2 yrs.
Moley Robotics is the company behind creating an electronic chef that mimics the hand movements of actual cooks.
This new soft robotic gripper can gently pick up objects of practically any shape
Robots aren’t exactly known for their delicate touch, but soon, the stereotype of the non-gentle machine may change. Scientists say they have managed to develop a robot with “a new soft gripper” that makes use of a phenomenon known as electroadhesion — which is essentially the next best thing to giving robots opposable thumbs. According to EPFL scientists, these next-gen grippers can handle fragile objects no matter what their shape — everything from an egg to a water balloon to a piece of paper is fair game.
This latest advance in robotics, funded by NCCR Robotics, may allow machines to take on unprecedented roles. “This is the first time that electroadhesion and soft robotics have been combined together to grasp objects,” said Jun Shintake, a doctoral student at EPFL. Potential applications include handling food, capturing debris (both in space and at home), or even being integrated into prosthetic limbs.
Space and Technology Review: Our Home Among the Stars
At Singularity University, space is one of our Global Grand Challenges (GGCs). The GGCs are defined as billion-person problems. They include, for example, water, food, and energy and serve as targets for the innovation and technologies that can make the world a better place.
You might be thinking: We have enough challenges here on Earth—why include space?
We depend on space for telecommunications, conduct key scientific research there, and hope to someday find answers to existential questions like, “Are we alone in the universe?”. More practically, raw materials are abundant beyond Earth, and human exploration and colonization of the Solar System may be a little like buying a species-wide insurance policy against disaster.