future
Exploring the future of science today, while looking back on the achievements from yesterday. Science fiction is science future.
Six Degrees at Ten
When Six Degrees was published, climate refugees in America were languishing far from their homes on the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast. In the Arctic sea ice had shrunk to its lowest ebb in recorded history. The year was 2007 and climate change seemed fated to loom over the lives of all in the new century. The book, written by environmental campaigner Mark Lynas, collected the best guesses of scientists to project a degree-by-degree vision of our warming world, detailing the consequences for humans and nature as the mercury climbed. In 2007 the carbon in our atmosphere hovered around 385 parts per million, but today it is well over 400. Since then global temperatures have also crossed the fateful threshold of 1 degrees Celsius outlined in the book. Each chapter deals with a degree Celsius increment, climaxing as the title would suggest with a climate six degrees warmer than that which has prevailed for most of human existence. So, how closely does our world today follow the trajectory plotted a decade earlier? Reading the first chapter now, and counting the things which have since become ordinary, is startling.
By Jack Elliot Marley9 years ago in Futurism
Alex The Inventor-Chapter 12
Read Chapters 1 - 11 at: Deep Sky Stories Chapter 12 (Part 1) - Belated Truth and Secret Nobility It was an educational time for Alex during the half hour he spent in Rainah's, "Resting Room", as she liked to call it. It was also a time for healing. Miss Vee gently immersed Alex's burned hands in a basin filled with a cool, healing gel compound. After only a few minutes soaking in the gel, Alex withdrew his hands to discover that the throbbing pain had subsided considerably. Bandages were then wrapped around each hand to prevent infection.After the shock and strangeness wore off, seeing Rainah put her prosthetic legs on was quite fascinating. As Miss Vee put it, "Any challenge or hardship in life can be overcome with a determined mind and a little ingenuity."The legs were very interesting because they not only performed perfectly as replacements for the ones that were lost during her hibernation, they also provided Rainah with several distinct advantages. The first and most obvious was that she could literally run the legs off anybody and barely break a sweat. The legs, which had ‘Fluid-Motion High-Speed Servo-Motors’, were powered by high-powered, rechargeable ‘Tritium-Cell’ Batteries, and had ‘Endo-Nerve Ganglia’ sensors which amplified her normal nervous system's electrical impulses.The resulting normalized feedback from her brain mirrored all the proper movements and reactions that any biological legs would have. But because of the nerve amplification and the extreme power output that Tritium-Cell batteries allowed, short bursts of higher than normal strength and speed were possible. But there was more, much more than Miss Vee or John Faraway had expected when they gave Rainah new life with the new legs. Because of the thinner atmosphere on Mars, Rainah's people not only adapted to it, they also learned telepathy because of it. This eliminated the need to waste precious energy (and breath) talking. Because of the two-way biofeedback connection with her nervous system, the new artificial nerves amplified not only Rainah's physical but also her telepathic abilities. A mind could not just be spoken to, she could also read it like a book.Under ideal conditions, such as a mental exercise (like a geography test) Rainah could even find and mentally pull the appropriate memories to the forefront of a person's mind. It was like opening a facet wide and letting the information spill out of the person so fast, that they would have no comprehension of what was happening until it was finished.The first time it happened, Miss Vee was in her kitchen, trying to remember an old cookie recipe that her mother had taught her years ago. She wanted to make enough for both Rainah and Alex, since she was caring for both of them at that time. Before she knew what was happening, ten minutes had elapsed and a fresh batch of oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies was baking in the oven. Miss Vee was completely befuddled and Rainah had a secretive, mischievous grin on her face. The legs had one more distinction: they grew in perfect unison with Rainah‘s natural growth.With the aid of ‘Omni-Balanced Molecular Silicate Growth Plastics’ the bionic legs constantly mirrored their own growth with Rainah's. They were, for all purposes and appearances, her legs. The only time she had to take them off was during the night or any time she needed some rest in her little room. Her prosthetics were then placed into a specially designed recharging container attached to her bed. All Rainah had to do was shuffle over, drop down onto them and then walk away after opening the small container doors.During their time together, the mood in the little Resting Room had soon changed to an upbeat and happier one. And so, after Rainah had had a short rest to allow her prosthetic legs to recharge, Miss Vee called a brief but serious meeting with both of them. During that time, she discussed important matters with Rainah about the Biosphere. A particular issue they focused on regarded the routine operations in the habitat and how well each successive crop was growing in the artificial Martian environment over the past twelve years.Soon, however, the topic began to shift back to a familiar worry that was always on their minds: how much longer they could remain hidden from the Others. Alex soon was forced to realize that there very little time left at all. But out from that ominous train of discussion flowed another topic from Rainah which immediately captured his attention and left him wanting to know much more. Yet, it was how she said it, how she turned to the subject, as though on cue from previously scripted lines that gave Alex his first hint that all was not quite as it should be.
By G.F. Brynn9 years ago in Futurism
Robosexuality: The Science Fiction That Predicted Humans Falling In Love With Robots
Twenty years ago, if you would have said that there would be people out there who have robotic girlfriends or digital girls, most people would have laughed. However, nobody's laughing today. The demand for robotic lovers is growing - and companies are legitimately working to give people the robo-lovers they want.
By Ossiana Tepfenhart9 years ago in Futurism
This Earth Is Hell
“And death shall have no dominion” -Dylan Thomas I’m sending out this message to anyone in the proximity of this planet in the hope that people will stay clear. I... I am all that’s left of our crew. I’ve made contact via a light beam so I am planning to make the jump to safe space and the shar’eel station as soon as our drive can be enabled. What happened…we seem… to have been…trapped…in a-a space- time vortex…our on line communication and holo-instrumentation… failed… and we have been out of contact with home-world now for six weeks… when we managed to get our instruments functional and the server-hybrid controls stable we found ourselves in the proximity of a planet very similar to our own; but as we descended our ship as struck by… metallic slugs. We… that is officers Gorn, Ludlow and I, Tenarish… lost control… of the flight systems the ship. It bucked and was buffeted by winds that span wildly in the upper then lower atmosphere. We fought to get some control but failed. Slamming into a vast desert. We would have died there. If it were not for the creatures of the planet. They are tall, far larger than us, also of the bipedal design and what appears to be in the 4th stage of evolution. As you know the most complex stage of existence; the teenagers of the universe so to speak. Most of the crash is not known to me. I had the impression of a being looking down at me, sensing danger and malignance from it, even though it stared at me with gentle eyes. I felt lies and mistrust… From here, I remember nothing until I found myself alone in grey green room. I was lying flat on a resting station. It felt warm, but the room itself was cool.
By Andrew David9 years ago in Futurism
Star Quest
Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars, let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars in other words, let's reach our true destiny. A take on Frank Sinatra's hit. But, that movie "Interstellar" points out some very real possibilities that could play out in reality sooner than we think. When Tsiolokovsky, the pioneering Russian scientist, remarked that Earth is the cradle of mankind but one cannot live in the cradle forever he understood the vital importance that man must seek out new life forms and to literally go where no man has go before. Now, as the summer winds of the worlds discontent fast approach aided by the prolific findings of Stephen Hawking about the fate of mankind we really need to put our house in order and look to the stars if we have any hope of saving the human race. And, we better do it quick. Mankind has always wondered could there actually be a better world out there? We'd have better hope so.
By Dr. Williams9 years ago in Futurism
