Futurology

For eons, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) has served as a sort of instruction manual for life, providing not just templates for a vast array of chemical structures but a means of managing their production.

The last time a human visited the moon was in December 1972 during NASA's Apollo 17 mission. Since then, there have been many foiled plans to go back.

Advances in artificial intelligence have prompted extensive public concern about its capacity to contribute to the spread of misinformation, bias, and cybersecurity breaches—and its potential existential threat to humanity. But, if anything, AI can aid human beings in making decisions aimed at improving social equality, safety, productivity—and mitigate some existential threats.

"If you can project someone who's no longer living onto a holographic screen, why can't you do it with an animal, a horse, an elephant?"

Is this the perfect battery? Go to https://brilliant.org/Undecided/ and get 20% off your subscription and a 30 day free trial with Brilliant.org! What do you...

Historian Yuval Noah Harari tells the UN's AI for Good Summit that "while we are learning to use AI, it is learning to use us," and that we should slow down its deployment, not development.

Bryan Johnson tweeted on Tuesday about some details of his daily routine, including that he finishes eating early in the day.

Monthly traffic and unique visitors were down in June, the first sign of decline since it launched in November.

I'm happy to announce that /m/Futurology has reached 2000 subscribers!

However, I also want to encourage you to post more content and engage more with each other. Lately, it seems like I’m the only one posting here and I don’t want this magazine/community to become a one-man show.

So please, don’t be shy and post or comment more often. Whether it’s a link to an interesting article, a question , predictions, or basically anything that relates to the topic, we want to see it. The more content we have, the more discussion we can generate, and the more we can learn from each other.

Stripped down to a skeletal genetic blueprint, the artificial cells were dealt a losing hand for survival—yet they thrived.

A study led by the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, has investigated a seemingly contradictory phenomenon of sleep deprivation leading to mood improvement in patients with depressive disorders.

Two U.S. food companies have received the go-ahead to sell chicken grown from cultivated animal cells in a production facility. It's the first time meat grown this way will be sold in the U.S.

U.S. states with a long history of coal mining have struggled with sinking demand for the fossil fuel amidst the energy transformation and ecological concerns. Repurposing active coal mines into rare earth production could offset possible job losses and reduce the U.S. dependency on China.

Lima, Peru: A team of Japanese archaeologists from Yamagata University discovered four new geoglyphs in Peru’s Nazca desert thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) technology known as Deep Learning (DL). Researchers say the Deep Learning tech can significantly speed up the time it takes for scientists to identify new geoglyphs. The Nazca Lines are a group […]

A proposed plastics treaty could join the rescue of the ozone layer as a landmark success, says specialist environment correspondent Geoffrey Lean

A new experiment by IBM computers shows that quantum computers could soon outperform classical digital computers at practical tasks in the next two years.

A team of U.S.-based researchers ... employing a comprehensive machine learning technique for brain responses [achieved] a remarkable hit song prediction accuracy rate of 97%...

During the study, participants – outfitted with a commercially available sensor platform – listened to a 24-song playlist. Their neurophysiological responses were measured throughout ... Even when brain activity from the first minute of the songs was used, accuracy stayed high at 82%

Travel has come a long way since the age of Silk Road caravans, daunting sea voyages and steam locomotives -– and will continue to transform in years to come.

Concepts that feel plucked from sci-fi novels and films are quickly making their way into mainstream travel, shaping every step of the journey.

In this week’s science newsletter, discover the next big extraterrestrial business, learn how a human ancestor walked, marvel at ancient life forms, explore Saturn’s moon, and more.

TNW spoke with futurist Nick Foster about the danger of designing the future with sci-fi in mind and why mundanity is far more exciting.

Researchers and industry leaders have warned that A.I. could pose an existential risk to humanity. But they’ve been light on the details.