Scientific Breakthroughs

On this thread, I would like to post new developments in science and technology that may have big influence on our lives.
This thread is not about the newest feature of the iPhone 6 or similar menial topics but about the big picture!

The OP will contain all sorts of interesting links that I hope you will contribute during the course of this thread.

To begin, I have selected a few topics that will hopefully start a fruitful exchange of ideas in this thread.



The increase of life expectancy in the last decades was mainly due to the improvements during parturition and the reduction of infant mortality and less due to an actual extension of life expectancy. However this is changing. There are several approaches to increase life expectancy and I will show a few examples:

The Biogerontological Approach by Aubrey de Grey

The Transhumanistic Approach



What every poster on this board has in common is that they have played Mass Effect (why else would you be here?). And one of the principles of any space opera is that there has to be a form of improved propulsion system. Most of the times it is some sort of FTL (faster than light), but I will not limit this section to FTL propulsion theories.

Propulsion Systems of the near Future - Link 1; Link 2

Warp Drives and other FTL Propulsion Systems - Link 1; Link 2



This section is rather self-explanatory.

The Future Of Physics

Not a scientific breakthrough, but it's a short comparison of ME technology, like Mass Relays, with modern physics. Definitely a good and accurate read, because the blogger actually played ME1 and ME2:

http://only-logical.blogspot.de/2011/02/physics-of-mass-effect.html


For the more patient but curious of you, here a longer article on that 'warp drive' you might've heard NASA is looking at:

http://io9.com/5963263/how-nasa-will-build-its-very-first-warp-drive

MaximizedAction wrote:Not a scientific breakthrough, but it's a short comparison of ME technology, like Mass Relays, with modern physics. Definitely a good and accurate read, because the blogger actually played ME1 and ME2:

http://only-logical.blogspot.de/2011/02/physics-of-mass-effect.html


For the more patient but curious of you, here a longer article on that 'warp drive' you might've heard NASA is looking at:

http://io9.com/5963263/how-nasa-will-build-its-very-first-warp-drive

Nice, I will read them tomorrow.

I thought this was a rather ingenious approach to organ creation:

Saving lives with help from pigs and cells

Take an existing organ and immerse it in special detergents for a certain period until only a tough scaffolding remains. Then introduce stem cells from the recipient that begin to grow around the scaffolding until they have eventually created a working, living organ. Such a simple concept. Pretty amazing.

Here's the Royal Society of Chemistry on how to create a truly sustainable source of Hydrogen to use as fuel via artificial photosynthesis: http://www.rsc.org/ScienceAndTechnology/Policy/Documents/solar-fuels.asp

Meanwhile, here's how governments could apply a key scientific tool - the Randomised Controlled Trial to public policy in a way that might help stop them wasting huge amounts of money on interventions that don't actually accomplish anything. Maybe not a scientific breakthrough, but could be a breakthrough for social justice if it ever became widespread.

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/resource-library/test-learn-adapt-developing-public-policy-randomised-controlled-trials

Though this is only a promotion video and I have a considerable amount of doubt, I still think this could be awesome, if it worked:
Deep Space Industries

Restrider wrote:Though this is only a promotion video and I have a considerable amount of doubt, I still think this could be awesome, if it worked:
Deep Space Industries

That looks really cool.

Restrider wrote:Though this is only a promotion video and I have a considerable amount of doubt, I still think this could be awesome, if it worked:
Deep Space Industries

While I think it is inevitable that we'll begin to "harvest space" within this century, our prime focus should be cost reduction for travelling into orbit. The most promising and cost reducing option for that would be a space elevator imho. There's only one problem: we do not have the technology to create carbon nanotubes longer than 20cm (~8 inches) yet, and for a space elevator we would need carbon nanotubes that are about 100,000km (~60,000 miles) long.

Norlond wrote:

Restrider wrote:Though this is only a promotion video and I have a considerable amount of doubt, I still think this could be awesome, if it worked:
Deep Space Industries

While I think it is inevitable that we'll begin to "harvest space" within this century, our prime focus should be cost reduction for travelling into orbit. The most promising and cost reducing option for that would be a space elevator imho. There's only one problem: we do not have the technology to create carbon nanotubes longer than 20cm (~8 inches) yet, and for a space elevator we would need carbon nanotubes that are about 100,000km (~60,000 miles) long.

I agree that a more efficient way to orbit is quite important for any form of commercial deep space operations.
As far as I know, one idea was to capture asteroids in the Terra-Luna-System and mine them for precious metals (since the concentration of such metals is quite high there).
I guess we will have several developments that will fuel space travel:

1. More efficient way into orbit (i.e. elevator).
2. Fabrication in low gravity (for more complex spacecrafts/habitats).
3. Space mining (using asteroids as raw material for 2.).
4. Advances in energy production (i.e. fusion reactors to energize NTR and/or VASIMR propulsion systems for faster movement in the solar system).
5. Advances in FTL travel (later than the other four points).

While a little bit old (2007), this is also an interesting video about what might happen in the coming years and decades.

Restrider wrote:While a little bit old (2007), this is also an interesting video about what might happen in the coming years and decades.

Intresting. I wonder how far we are with these idea's now.

Kesak11 wrote:

Restrider wrote:While a little bit old (2007), this is also an interesting video about what might happen in the coming years and decades.

Intresting. I wonder how far we are with these idea's now.

Well, regarding magnets -- and who doesn't love em -- there exists one that is strong enough to keep a random frog floating.
(I'm sure most of you have probably saw this one in the news, but I still find it funny enough to post it here)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1vyB-O5i6E

The frog is all alive and well afterwards (you can't see it in the video but I've seen this on TV once and heard about it also in a lecture). This facility is huge btw, cuz you need to generate an incredibly strong field to hold a non-ferromagnetic object with the mass of a frog - or any organic thing.

And as usual, there is an anecdote attached to this strong magnet:
Some priest got wind of this and wrote the scientist who were working in this facility a letter asking what it would cost to build a similar magnet that could lift humans. He also asked whether this thing could be built to be small enough to hide it behind a wall.
Why?
So he could make himself float during the church service to 'help his words reach the audience'.

Goodbye smartphones!

http://www.google.com/glass/start/how-it-feels/

http://www.google.com/glass/start/what-it-does/

Norlond wrote:Goodbye smartphones!

http://www.google.com/glass/start/how-it-feels/

http://www.google.com/glass/start/what-it-does/

I will finally be able to do this!
Fun aside, I have mixed feelings when it comes to the control commands via voice. What about using your hands in the augmented vision to control the glasses. The best way would be some form of mind-control, which is also being developed (at least there are examples for handicapped people being able to control a cursor via a chip attached to the brain).

Here is a rather old documentary on solar weather, cosmic rays and the terran climate:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Sadly, I could only find a german version, though, since it is an ARTE production, there should be a french version somehwere. I am not sure if there is an english version.
Not only the scientific ramifications are interesting, the reaction of the scientific community as well reminds me of a certain theory...

spotlessvoid wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2281403/U-S-Air-Force-developing-terrifying-swarms-tiny-unmanned-drones-hover-crawl-kill-targets.html

Oh dear, the Daily Mail - you need to take anything that appears in there with a pinch of salt the size of a large asteroid. It's less of a newspaper and more a place that right-wing, closet sexists, racists and homophobes (basically the sort of people who start sentences with "I'm not racist, but [INSERT RACISM HERE]) can go to have their twisted world-view confirmed. Correspondingly, their science reporting is about as accurate as a myopic drunk firing a revenant one-handed from the hip.

Rankincountry wrote:

spotlessvoid wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2281403/U-S-Air-Force-developing-terrifying-swarms-tiny-unmanned-drones-hover-crawl-kill-targets.html

Oh dear, the Daily Mail - you need to take anything that appears in there with a pinch of salt the size of a large asteroid. It's less of a newspaper and more a place that right-wing, closet sexists, racists and homophobes (basically the sort of people who start sentences with "I'm not racist, but [INSERT RACISM HERE]) can go to have their twisted world-view confirmed. Correspondingly, their science reporting is about as accurate as a myopic drunk firing a revenant one-handed from the hip.

This video and others released by DARPA show the same things. Just because it's the DM doesn't mean the video isn't authentic. It's from the USAF.

spotlessvoid wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2281403/U-S-Air-Force-developing-terrifying-swarms-tiny-unmanned-drones-hover-crawl-kill-targets.html

How long before the tax collectors send their seeker swarms ahead of an audit?

Sure, I'm joking, but it's pretty scary what can be done these days, even within the law.

BlueLogic wrote:

spotlessvoid wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2281403/U-S-Air-Force-developing-terrifying-swarms-tiny-unmanned-drones-hover-crawl-kill-targets.html

How long before the tax collectors send their seeker swarms ahead of an audit?

Sure, I'm joking, but it's pretty scary what can be done these days, even within the law.

Especially when you consider the executive branch has deemed assassination of citizens on American soil legal. Add in how the NDAA classifies enemy combatants and ....yeah. Crazy times.

spotlessvoid wrote:

BlueLogic wrote:

spotlessvoid wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2281403/U-S-Air-Force-developing-terrifying-swarms-tiny-unmanned-drones-hover-crawl-kill-targets.html

How long before the tax collectors send their seeker swarms ahead of an audit?

Sure, I'm joking, but it's pretty scary what can be done these days, even within the law.

Especially when you consider the executive branch has deemed assassination of citizens on American soil legal. Add in how the NDAA classifies enemy combatants and ....yeah. Crazy times.

I guess the development of personal EMPs is something to look forward to.

spotlessvoid wrote:

Rankincountry wrote:

spotlessvoid wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2281403/U-S-Air-Force-developing-terrifying-swarms-tiny-unmanned-drones-hover-crawl-kill-targets.html

Oh dear, the Daily Mail - you need to take anything that appears in there with a pinch of salt the size of a large asteroid. It's less of a newspaper and more a place that right-wing, closet sexists, racists and homophobes (basically the sort of people who start sentences with "I'm not racist, but [INSERT RACISM HERE]) can go to have their twisted world-view confirmed. Correspondingly, their science reporting is about as accurate as a myopic drunk firing a revenant one-handed from the hip.

This video and others released by DARPA show the same things. Just because it's the DM doesn't mean the video isn't authentic. It's from the USAF.

Fair enough. I can't help it, I just have this visceral reaction to the mention of the Daily Mail. Probably for the best that I don't have a flamethrower or orbital nuclear strike capability (Orbit-o-nuke(TM) - it's the only way to be sure!).

Back on topic. Scary stuff.

spotlessvoid wrote:Especially when you consider the executive branch has deemed assassination of citizens on American soil legal. Add in how the NDAA classifies enemy combatants and ....yeah. Crazy times.

Makes the future start to look bleak. Easy to dismiss it as something that just happens to other countries, but if one government can get away with this sort of abuse of its citizens, you can bet others won't be far behind.

UK is in lock step with their counter parts across the pond.

And DARPA and Homeland keep yapping about pre crime technology.
Cameras and microphones everywhere feeding data back to their processing hubs.

You can debate the intentions, but a total surveillance apparatus is being built and it's not even secret to anyone who isn't ignoring everything being said.

Norlond wrote:Brain-to-brain interface allows transmission of tactile and motor information between rats

That's how it begins... in a few centuries the first human Reaper will emerge!