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Tag Archives | we are living in the future

Living in the Future: 3D Digital Archaeology, Community-Fiber Cable & Phasers

This week on We are Living in the future: Archaeologists use 3D imaging and printing to reconstruct priceless artifacts, an area of rural Britain installs Fiber cable themselves, and scientists design a “phaser” which uses sound waves instead of light waves.

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Living in the Future: Spider Silk can Stop a Train, “Tricorders” on the horizon, and Carbon Storage through Adsorbtion

This week on We are Living in the Future: Spider silk is often referred to as stronger than Kevlar, or steel – but physics students at the University of Leicester have shown that it has “super powers” too. Inspired by the movie “Spider Man 2″, where Spider Man uses his webbing to stop a speeding [...]

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Living in the Future: Crystal “life”, Health-care via robot, and Gold-extracting bacteria

This week on We are Living in the Future: crystals that imitate some aspects of life, doctors who offer healthcare via robot telepresence, and bacteria that extract gold from sediment. While life has several characteristics that define it, including reproduction, metabolism, and mobility, most people agree that crystal and fire are not lifeforms. But scientists [...]

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Living in the Future: Life-saving Foam, Gravity Powered Lights, and Speedy Airships

This week on We are Living in the Future: Foam that saves lives when injected into the body, lights powered only by gravity, and modern-day airships that can travel at upwards of 130 mph!

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Living in the Future: Alzheimer’s Vaccine, Mercury Treaties, and Hospital Sterilization with UV Light

This week on We Are Living in the Future: Scientists in Quebec develop a way to stimulate the brain’s own defenses against Alzheimer’s, and is starting the work to develop an effective Alzheimer’s vaccine. One of the major issues in Alzheimer’s disease research has been in combating the toxic molecule “amyloid beta”. The brain is [...]

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Living in the Future: Driverless cars, Bridging longer spans, and negative temperatures

Driverless cars – also called self-driving cars – are now legal in three states – Nevada, Florida, and California. As a result, testing by the major automakers has been going on to make these vehicles safe, and auto makers Toyota and Audi are ready to reveal their driverless cars next week at the Consumer Electronics [...]

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Living in the Future: Silk-Steel, Spray-on Skin, and Commercial 3d Printing

First up: Genetic modification on silkworms creates silk stronger than steel. This strength has long been part of Spider silk, but spiders don’t spin enough of it for industrial production. So, a year ago, scientists and researchers at the University of Wyoming announced a hybrid silkworm that uses spider proteins for stronger silk. This silk [...]

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Living in the Future: Thorium Reactors, Muscular Robots, and Moon Crashings

The country of Norway has elected to replace old second-gen nuclear reactors with a thorium fuel supply. Unlike traditional Uranium reactors, Thorium cannot be used to produce plutonium, and is more commonly found in the Earth’s crust. It’s been used before, but because it doesn’t make plutonium, it was dismissed during the arms race of [...]

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Living in the Future: Warp Drive, Green Bean Galaxies, and Nighttime Solar-Planes

Harold White, a physicist with NASA, has announced that he and his team have begun work on a warp drive. Anyone who has seen Star Trek has heard of this device, but how can this science-fiction staple become a reality? Well, the theory has been in place for years as to a device that can [...]

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Living in the Future: Simulated Brains, Origami Kayaks, self-filling waterbottles

Have you ever wondered if we could build a brain? Chris Eliasmith of the University of Waterloo has built a large-scale model of the human brain, using a computer to simulate the nerve clusters. Semantic Pointer Architecture Unifed Network, or SPAUN, has 2.5 million simulated neurons, as well as one simulated eye and one simulated [...]

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