liquidiridium's favorite futurism pages, page 1

Online nowLiquidiridium: nunya is a single woman from Utah, USA.; Likes 8,051 pages, 390 videos, 2,114 photos • 211 fans • Received 46 reviews; Member since Feb 10, 2006

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http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=4396: Aug 2, 8:55am 21 reviews futurism, technology, transhuminism
http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=4396; Good luck w/that all you mad scientists out there. Just what we don't need............................ "A group of experts from around the world will hold a first of its kind conference Thursday on global catastrophic risks. They will discuss what should be done to prevent these risks from becoming realities that could lead to the end of human life on Earth as we know it. Speakers at the four-day event at Oxford University in Britain will talk about topics including nuclear terrorism and what to do if a large asteroid were to be on a collision course with our planet. On the final day of the Global Catastrophic Risk Conference, experts will focus on what could be the unintended consequences of new technologies, such as superintelligent machines that, if ill-conceived, might cause the demise of Homo sapiens. "Any entity which is radically smarter than human beings would also be very powerful," said Dr. Nick Bostrom, director of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, host of the symposium. "If we get something wrong, you could imagine the consequences would involve the extinction of the human species." Bostrom is a philosopher and a leading thinker of transhumanism, a movement that advocates not only the study of the potential threats and promises that future technologies could pose to human life but also the ways in which emergent technologies could be used to make the very act of living better. "We want to preserve the best of what it is to be human and maybe even amplify that," Bostrom said. Transhumanists, according to Bostrom, anticipate an era in which biotechnology, molecular nanotechnologies, artificial intelligence and other new types of cognitive tools will be used to amplify our intellectual capacity, improve our physical capabilities and even enhance our emotional well-being. The end result would be a new form of "posthuman" life with beings that possess qualities and skills so exceedingly advanced they no longer can be classified simply as humans." Oh goody! :P

Accelerating Future & 10 Futuristic Materials: Apr 30, 6:55am 51 reviews futurism, science, biotechnology
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog?p=714; 10 Futuristic Materials: #1. Aerogel holds 15 entries in the Guinness Book of Records, more than any other material. Sometimes called "frozen smoke", aerogel is made by the supercritical drying of liquid gels of alumina, chromia, tin oxide, or carbon. It's 99.8% empty space, which makes it look semi-transparent. Aerogel is a fantastic insulator -- if you had a shield of aerogel, you could easily defend yourself from a flamethrower. It stops cold, it stops heat. You could build a warm dome on the Moon. Aerogels have unbelievable surface area in their internal fractal structures -- cubes of aerogel just an inch on a side may have an internal surface area equivalent to a football field. Despite its low density, aerogel has been looked into as a component of military armor because of its insulating properties. Read the rest of the article to discover what other cool things are out there.

Future Blogger: Apr 7, 7:29pm 24 reviews environment, futurism
http://memebox.com/futureblogger/show/76; From the page: "Due to unpredictable weather patterns that destroy millions of tons of crops each year and a growing human population set to peak at about 9 billion, some future-focused innovators are looking for better ways to keep food on the table. Two neo-farm prototypes currently evolving on separate continents share a common concept: urban farming as the future of sustainable agriculture. The first project is the brainchild of Dr. Dickson Despommier, a professor at Columbia University. He imagines 30-story vertical farm skyscrapers in all the biggest cities. Each building would provide food and water to 50,000 people, produce crops year-round, and produce no waste.(???) It would also naturally provide the environmental benefits of reducing pollution, restoring ecosystems, and solving the waste management problem." hmmm. alrighty then.