New technologies bring unintended consequences and often unexpected risks. A new method of treatment introduces a whole new category of risk:

Could genome sequencing in healthy persons create “sick patients for life”?

It was also found that in 2 of the 11 cases diagnosed as carriers, the doctor had misinterpreted the genetic information. The lead study author, Jason Vassy, says that: “Sequencing healthy individuals will inevitably reveal new findings for that individual, only some of which will have actual health implications. This study provides some reassuring evidence that primary care providers can be trained to manage their patients’ sequencing results appropriately”.

New technologies always bring new risks. The threat of EMP attack is predicated on the fact that our modern, electrified, connected world provides so many benefits

Solar Storm of 1859  - didn’t hurt us much because...1859. 

What other new risks are emerging technologies going to introduce? 

Possible categories:

Autonomous vehiclesVirtual Reality

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Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

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We are all realized possibilities.

Before you existed, before you became a part of reality, you were a possibility — and a very remote possibility at that. As we have explored in earlier posts and podcasts, 1,000 years ago, the chances that you would ever exist were infinitesimal. Heck, even a couple of years before you were born, the odds were not great. (And by “not great,” I mean less than the chance that you might win a big Lotto jackpot.) You are a vastly improbable being. We all are.

But luckily, improbable does not mean impossible. We each owe our very existence to the fact that unlikely outcomes do occur. If the vastly unlikely possibility of my existence can be achieved, other unlikely outcomes can be achieved.

What’s the difference between, real, possible, and impossible? What’s the difference between probability and reality?

Let’s explore.

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On the Cool Side Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

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When talking about the possible, we must from the outset confront the big lie that all too often accompanies it.

Unlike many big lies, this one is not always offered with an intent to deceive. (At least, not a malicious intent.) When we say it to others, we are usually trying to be encouraging. And in a world where people can always use a little encouragement, that doesn’t seem like a bad thing.

We’ve all heard the lie. Most of us have probably said it. And some of us, I’m afraid, say it all the time. But starting today, I’d like to invite you never to tell this lie again. And if you hear someone else say it, I hope you will recognize it for the lie that it is.

In this edition of Adjacent Realities, we explore what that lie is and why it can do so much harm.

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On the Cool Side Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

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Most of us like to think that reality is something that human beings can comprehend. And, more to the point, we tend to think that we personally are among those who have a pretty good handle on it.

Maybe not, says Donald Hoffman, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine. He has been studying the relationship between evolution and our grasp of reality. His conclusions are probably not what you’d expect:

“Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know. And that’s pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might be. “

According to Hoffman, actually understanding reality provides no evolutionary advantage. What we have are models of reality that are optimized around keeping us alive and able to reproduce. We can’t get at real reality no matter what we do, because we have been designed (or at least optimized) NOT to get it.

We enjoy movies and other forms of entertainment that break the “fourth wall” between the world of the story and the real(?) world in which we live. Is this because we are constantly striving to break our very own fourth wall — the barrier that stands between the world as we know it and other levels of reality?

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On the Cool Side Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

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Is it possible that we never met any aliens because somebody killed them all? Or might it be that one day WE will kill them all?

Aliens Are Real, But Humans Will Probably Kill Them All, New Paper Says

"What if," Berezin wrote in a new paper posted March 27 to the preprint journal arxiv.org,"the first life that reaches interstellar travel capability necessarily eradicates all competition to fuel its own expansion?"

So maybe the aliens are actually out there and we just haven’t met them yet. And we may “meet” them briefly before they wipe us out.

Or maybe we will be the first to develop interstellar travel and WE will be the ones to wipe everybody out?

Or what if the first (or an early) arrival on the interstellar scene decided to be the scourge of the scourges? We could protect friendly aliens but totally go nuts on those that can’t live and let live.

Maybe the fact that we are nice but not TOO nice could work as an advantage not only for us but for everybody else in the galaxy.

Given sufficiently advanced technology, we might take a more Arthur C. Clarke approach. Isolate a species from the rest of the universe until they are ready to play nice.

And THAT approach might be another answer to the Fermi paradox. Why haven’t we met aliens? We’re on probation. Or as we call it around here: we’re in time out.

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Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

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Is social media killing us? If so, how do we fix it?

Correlation is not causation, but still there is a huge correlation between rising depression rates and the ascendancy of social media. For example, teenage depression started going up about the time the smartphone was introduced.

Now we are in the midst of an opiate addiction epidemic and a suicide epidemic, as highlighted by recent celebrity suicides. We always talk about how 30,000 people are killed by non-self-driving cars every year in the US. Well suicide is lots worse. Last year, 45,000 Americans killed themselves. Suicide is up 30% for the population as a whole, nearly 50% for some demographics.

The jump in depression and suicide  may not ALL be technology-driven,  but what if it’s just MOSTLY technology-driven? What if it’s just 25% technology driven? Would we put up with anything else doing that kind of damage?

How is it doing it?

Unhealthy memes?

Narrowing narratives?

Status anxiety?

Nihilism-inducing pointlessness?

Possibles Cures:

RelinquishmentPower throughESCAPE! We Adapt 

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Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

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Are breakthrough technologies progressing faster than we think? Phil and Stephen review three recent news items that indicate they may be.

Sucking carbon dioxide from air is cheaper than scientists thought

Siphoning carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere could be more than an expensive last-ditch strategy for averting climate catastrophe. A detailed economic analysis published on 7 June suggests that the geoengineering technology is inching closer to commercial viability.

Driverless street cleaning trucks begin trial operations in Shanghai

A fleet of driverless street cleaning vehicles has begun trial operations at an industrial park in Shanghai, according to the Shanghai-based news portal The Paper on Friday.

The convoy, which includes a 6m-long truck and a 3m-long minibus, has been designed and developed by Autowise.ai, a Shanghai technology company, for different road widths.

3D-printing human corneas

Scientists can 3D-print a human cornea in ten minutes.

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Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

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Phil and Stephen discuss two recent examples of the amazing potential of lasers to change everything.

Lasers Could Make Computers 1 Million Times Faster

A billion operations per second isn't cool. Know what's cool? A million billion operations per second.

That's the promise of a new computing technique that uses laser-light pulses to make a prototype of the fundamental unit of computing, called a bit, that could switch between its on and off, or "1" and "0" states, 1 quadrillion times per second. That's about 1 million times faster than the bits in modern computers.

The researchers also raised the possibility that their lattice could be used for quantum computing at room temperature.  

 

Stimulating brains with lasers can create ‘Matrix’-like false experiences

At the University of California at Berkeley, researchers have been busy exploring ways to project a holographic image directly into the brain. As they have discovered, this can be used to both read neural activity and also to stimulate it.

The results could mean one day being able to activate or suppress thousands of neurons at once; copying patterns of real brain activity to trick the brain into thinking that it’s felt, seen or sensed something. So Star Wars with a touch of The Matrix or Inception, then!

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Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

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In this edition of FastForward, Dave Schrader talks with us about the unexpected relationship between business analytics and sports analytics. What does the world of sports have to teach us about doing business in the age of digital transformation and data driven business models? 

Dave talks us through the story of how an analytics guru from the business world become an expert in sports analytics. He tells how he came to be spearheading "Moneyball" projects at college campuses all over the world. In these projects, students with an interest in math or statistics take on an analytical challenege using real data from one (or more) of the school's athletic programs.

Dave also shows why there is more to sports analytics than most of us realize. It isn't just batting averages these days. Projects in sports analytics can deal with complex issues like fan loyalty and player health markers.

Join us for a fascinating discussion.

About Out Guest

  

With PhD in Computer Science from Purdue, Dave Schrader - - known to many as “Dr Dave” -- has managed engineering and marketing functions in a number of settings within the analytics and database field, most recently for Teradata. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Teradata University Network  – a free resource with 5000 faculty and 12,000 student participants. Dave is best known for his role as an advocate for sports analytics. Last year alone he gave 59 talks on the subject at 32 different universities, reaching more than 2,200 students.  

Music: www.bensound.com

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We may be entering an age of wonder materials that save the planet.

High-quality carbon nanotubes made from carbon dioxide in the air break the manufacturing cost barrier

“The most valuable material ever sold”

Carbon nanotubes are super-materials that can be stronger than steel and more conductive than copper. So despite much research, why aren’t they used in applications ranging from batteries to tires?

Answer: The high manufacturing costs and extremely expensive price, according to the researchers.

The good news:

High-quality carbon nanotubes at a low cost.

Carbon Nanotubes have a huge variety of potential applications for energy, medicine, industry, consumer devices. https://bit.ly/2GRLALW

And we’re only just beginning to figure out what they’re good for. Make them widely available at a low cost and there’s no telling what people will figure out to do with them.

More Good News:

In this process, the carbon comes straight from CO2 in the atmosphere. A “gold rush” for CO2 would have the geoengineering benefit of reducing atmospheric carbon. A self-funded way to mitigate climate change?  

Potential Downside:

What id the gold rush goes on and sucks too much CO2 out of the atmosphere. Could it trigger an ice age?  

 

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Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

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