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Meeting the basic needs of humanity is increasingly brought into question as we begin to resemble a cancer to the living organism we inhabit. As mass extinction continues to become an omnipotent reality, it’s apparent that more humans equals more problems. To fix this, we have to approach them in the same way farmers do: with resiliency. Farmers try to nurture their crops and hope for the right season. Although, even the predictability of spring, summer and fall’s outcome can be misleading. Nature has a way of leading things in the exact opposite direction than they seem to be headed. And it is those who’ve treaded, but still embark that truly encounter the rewards. For if farmers were to give up after an adverse season, there’d be no food next year. There’d be no continuity of supply for society. There’d be no method of feeding the hungry. No solution to ease the growing population and its rising demands.

So, with exponential gain in human births this century, how do we combat such problems? One possible solution is to build “green skyscrapers” for the sole purpose of farming, where we are able to control the environment and have multiple levels of plant growth. This could be done by utilizing an array of mirrors to redirect sunlight to every floor, while supplementing with multi-spectral, energy-efficient LED’s. With advanced humidity control and water-recycling techniques, we’d contribute towards the global conservation of water and open up valuable land to reforestation — all through subjugating the unpredictability of nature. This ensures the utmost quality and care goes into producing local, high-quality food, with the added benefit of honing the technology needed for interplanetary colonization.

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The biology of aging is traditionally studied in fast-living organisms such as mice, worms and fruit flies. Short-lived species certainly have a role to play in this field, but they are only the tip of the iceberg.

Within the natural ecosystem, organisms display a range of aging processes, most often accelerated aging, or gradual aging (in the case of humans), but also, a range of species with slow or even negligible aging, which is known as negligible senescence. Unlike humans, such species have a constant mortality rate for the duration of their lifespan, as well as a constant or even increasing fertility rate. The number of negligibly senescent species which we are currently aware of is likely to grow as more and more are studied and discovered, both in the wild and in the lab.

By studying the processes which give these creatures longer lifespans, there is the possibility that they could be recreated in humans in order to extend our own. How negligible senescence is achieved by each individual species varies, but here are five of the most common traits.

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If the $100 billion International Space Station (ISS) had been constructed to orbit our Moon instead of Earth, prospects for the U.S.’ human spaceflight program would arguably be much brighter than today.

Here are a few reasons why:

An International Lunar Space Station (ILSS) would have guaranteed the U.S. maintained its Apollo-era global dominance in terms of crewed interplanetary transport.

Even if NASA had decided not to continue with the Apollo program as originally envisioned, the space agency could have ferried astronauts to lunar orbit using its remaining Saturn V rockets and begun construction of a scaled-down version of the current ISS.

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Elon Musk might think it’s a good idea to warm up Mars with thermonuclear weapons so humans can live on it, but scientists are raising red flags about the idea.

The CEO of Hawthorne-based SpaceX talked Mars colonization, among other topics, on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Wednesday.

When Colbert asked how he would eventually transform the Red Planet into a livable place, Musk said it would need to be warmed up.

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As a follow-up to Shailesh Prasad’s thought provoking video (just below this article), I offer two equally impressive visualizations of the scope and magnificence of our universe. These videos are the epitome of a teachable moment. And it’s fun, too!

Check out this simple, one-button interactive Scale of the Universe by Cary Huang. Simply pull a slider left or right to zoom in or out. It covers the Universe from 1027 meters down to 10-35 meters (from the entire universe to the Plank length and quantum foam).

Charles and Ray Eames
Charles and Ray Eames

Unlike the classic film by Charles & Ray Eames (more about that later), the zoom doesn’t really take viewers closer or further away. Rather, it compares relative size by allowing users navigate by magnitudes (a circle indicates each power-of-ten).

Nikon, the camera and optics maker, created an alternate spin on this idea with more user control (identify and study objects used to illustrate size–and jump directly to any magnitude along the size continuum). Instead of panning in and out, the Nikon presentation crawls familiar objects along the horizontal axis. Interestingly, they end at modest lower limit of 10-15 meters, rather than attempting to illustrate quarks, charm and quantum foam.

Time Dialation-sIn 1968, Charles & Ray Eames were already famous as sculptors, architects and designers of modern furniture. That’s when they created Powers of 10, one of the most popular educational films of all time. Just 9 minutes long, it was intended as a “rough sketch” in an effort to attract an animation partner to add visual punch. 9 years after the original film was released, IBM collaborated with the designers and the film was re-released with improved special effects. Both versions are included on the commercial DVD. I prefer the original rough sketch.

Eames Lounge Chair
Eames Lounge Chair

In the original film, two clocks sit outside the main frame. As we »
accelerate away from earth (covering 10X as much distance every ten seconds), the clocks track relative time from a traveler’s frame of reference –vs– a person on earth.

You can view the 1977 re-release (Be sure to raise quality to 480p). Interestingly, IBM has also posted a user-controlled, Zoomable version.

I can’t find the original film on the web. But I own it. Write to me if you want me to “loan” it to you via a web link.

Philip Raymond is Co-Chair of The Cryptocurrency Standards
Association
. This article originally appeared at A Wild Duck.