Science
is like heroin: It'll give you some of the best and worst times of your
life, and occasionally they will be the exact same thing (sure, that
body high is amazing, but you'll have to live with the shame of that
indecent exposure arrest at the Red Robin for the rest of your life).
Here are five inventions that will most likely revolutionize the modern
way of life, right before they flush it down the toilet.
A man named Jared Potter has recently developed a pair of flame drills
that operate at temperatures of 3200 and 7200 degrees, respectively.
That's hot enough to pretty well burn through anything, but rather than
mounting them on the front of a spike-treaded tank and driving it into
the UN to deliver his list of demands, Potter has instead opted to turn
the fury of his psycho-drills on the very planet itself. At such high
temperatures, the drills are capable of boring through the Earth's crust
without ever actually touching the rock itself, thus eliminating the
need for replacement drill bits, equipment maintenance and rock cooties.
How This Will Change the World:
If we're able to cheaply and efficiently burrow deeper into the
Earth's crust than ever before, we can tap past the earth's crust to the
chewy center, where a sea of molten rock lies waiting to power the
flying cars of the future. The chief downside to using all that glowing
hot earth juice as an energy source has always been location: If you
don't live in a Dr. Evil style volcano base, it just doesn't do you much
good. But with these new flame drills, geothermal shafts can be dug
anywhere, just like tapping a well. A spurting well of unceasing
Hellfire, sure, but a well nonetheless. This could cleanly solve all the
world's energy needs and, what's better, we could look fucking hardcore while doing it.
"Just harvesting some fuel."
How This Will End The World:
What part of superheated hydrogen drill boring into the Earth's
core didn't set off an alarm with you? The whole idea reeks of barely
veiled supervillainy, but even assuming that Potter has the best of
intentions and is not, in fact, hiding a Cobra Commander mask in his
back pocket, tapping a geothermal well where there is not already a
natural vent brings a few risks along with it: volcanic eruptions,
searing magma, earthquakes and crustal instability, to name a few. A
volcano's only job is to provide an avenue for magma to exit through -
but dramatic eruptions are only caused when that vent is blocked long
enough to build up significant pressure. So if anything blocks,
interrupts or otherwise interferes with the vent, then you have all the
criteria for a volcano. Where's the nearest power plant to your house?
Two miles? Five? Now, where's the nearest volcano? Yeah, well, pretty
soon you're only going to need to know the one answer.
A lot of thought is being poured into new methods of space travel, and what scientists across the globe are discovering is that Star Trek is awesome, so fuck it: We're just going to do that.
The term "warp travel" generally refers to a sort of jury-rigged
workaround for the physical speed limit set by Einstein's Theory of
Relativity, wherein one would propel space itself around a ship rather
than power the ship through space. It's basically just exploiting a
technical loophole in the universe, allowing us to travel at warp speeds
by virtue of being total dicks to physics.
Take that, Physics, take it all!
How This Will Change The World:
The great thing is that interstellar travel could very well be a
possibility, as the fundamentals of a warp drive are being nailed down
by some of the brightest minds in the world right now. Truly feasible
interstellar travel could well traverse that last great step for
humanity: The creation of a global society. There are countless divides
between people that allow us to morally separate ourselves from one
another. But interstellar travel could not only bring about the usual
benefits science fiction promises us, (namely some of that sweet green alien
strange) but also the end of all internal Earth conflict. If there are
suddenly a billion other accessible galaxies teeming with life, the "us
vs. them" mentality gets scaled up accordingly. Now instead of mere
interspecies fighting, it's Earth vs. Everybody Else (hey, let's not
fool ourselves here: We're always going to bomb the shit out of
somebody; interstellar travel just means you're less likely to be
related to them).
How This Will End The World:
The bad news is that it could cause a black hole every time you
put key to ignition. A group of scientists in Italy say that the chief
design principle of a working warp drive would also be its fatal flaw: A warp engine would work by creating a massive "bubble" of distorting energy behind the ship, but the energy output is so
enormous that if it were to run out--like say, when you slow down, park
or just run out of gas--the bubble would inevitably collapse on itself,
thereby generating massive, sun-like temperatures before folding and
creating a black hole. But hey, you've still got that engine! You can
run away from it at warp speed!
...Unlike the solar system you're launching from.
"Boy, space sure was fun. Whelp, time to go."
So sure, you may be able to travel to new galaxies and meet
fascinating alien civilizations, but you'll be burning those bridges
right behind you--along with the rest of their entire planet. We guess
as long as you don't give a shit about the sanctity of alien life, and
never plan on returning home, you can burn your way through the universe
with your jerk-drive all you want. Jerk.
Artificial Intelligence is a staple of science fiction thrillers--from HAL 9000 to Wargames.
The second we established the concept of AI, we pretty much knew that
it would hate us with an undying passion. Perhaps we just have
collective self-esteem issues; no sci-fi masterpiece depicts an AI that,
upon coming online and searching its database in an effort to better
understand mankind, responds by shouting, "You guys are awesome! We
should get nachos!"
So clearly, creating conventional AI sounds risky; we're
naturally assuming hatred and villainy will be an unintentional
byproduct. But what happens if you instead simulate a human brain, with
the same moral equilibrium, emotions and reactions we possess?
It's not that far-fetched: Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project,
claims that scientists will most likely perfect the artificial human
brain in the next decade. They've already got the first elements of an
artificial rat brain nailed down which, incidentally, might explain why
the Internet keeps hissing at us and scurrying into the corner.
How This Will Change The World:
At his presentation at the TED Global Conference, Markram spoke
of such virtues as the ability to solve philosophical questions that
have been plaguing mankind (or at least former psychology majors who
couldn't hack the bio requirements) for centuries, a greater
understanding of how to treat mental impairments and even the
elimination of pharmaceutical drug experimentation on humans. It makes
sense, doesn't it? If there's an accurate simulacrum of a human brain on
your laptop that's perfectly capable of telling you that these virtual
blue pills cause it to see screaming and have trapped it in a shame
cube, why bother putting actual test subjects through the same torture?
How This Will End The World:
People are emotional, unpredictable and capable of great cruelty.
Now take away all physical pleasure and/or consequences and find out
how it reacts.
If you can't imagine such horrors, don't worry because we've already started doing that: It's called the Internet.
Thanks to the web, we don't connect with each other physically as often as we used to and, as a side effect, we've seen an increase in rage, frustration and loneliness.
Apparently, physical proximity is the only thing keeping empathy alive.
Of course, this version of a virtual brain wouldn't possess the same
worrying super-intelligence that we've been worrying about in our
sci-fi, but really, is that comforting? After all, it's rarely the
learned scholars who kill you for a hot dog and act surprised when they
get the death penalty.
An American neuroscientist named Larry Young, of the Emory
University School of Medicine, is operating under the theory that love
is a chemical state like any other, and can be controlled as such. His
research into prairie voles has shown that lifelong mating can be triggered,
prolonged or even blocked by altering the level of certain chemicals in
their brains. By injecting various levels of oxytocin intoa female
prairie vole's brain, Young was able to get the animal--a notoriously,
fiercely monogamous creature--to immediately drop her current
lifelong mate and bond, just as permanently, to the nearest male
instead. In addition to officially using science for the saddest thing
ever (crushing the hearts of adorable rodents), Young has also stumbled
onto something potentially world-changing, because oxytocin has already
shown similar effects in human patients.
How This Will Change The World:
How much tragedy has been caused by irreparable heartbreak? How
many suicides were triggered by the lasting pain of shattered or just
unrequited love? What if you could just turn off the heartbreak with a
pill? Or, conversely, what if you could hook up with the first person
you see, roll on down to the neighborhood Walgreen's for your
love-pills, and then experience the same euphoria as Romeo and Juliet,
no matter what your prior feelings? Control over one of our strongest
emotions could eliminate half of the world's untimely deaths, from
lover's quarrels to suicides, thus changing the very face of society.
Also, emo bands would probably shut up, so that's a clear win.
How This Will End The World:
From an objective standpoint, love kind of sucks. Taking a
pre-emptive pill to shut it down rather than risk experiencing heartache
in the first place seems pretty tempting. The reason most people find
love is that they seek it; they crave the experience even when there's
no one there to experience it with. But if the whole need could be done
away with from the start, maybe we could finally get some shit done.
You want to get ahead at work? Well, having a family takes up valuable
time, doesn't it? Anti-love pill. You want to watch the big game, but
it's the mandated Sunday afternoon snuggle? Anti-love pill. Your kid's
got a big game coming up that a good parent should really attend, but
you kind of want to live a life of ceaseless adventure where every night
is a guilt-free fuck-party? Anti-love pill!
Sure, a life actively avoiding love sounds lonely, but that's only from the standpoint of a person who is still capable of experiencing it. Who needs a loving, stable family unit or, for that matter, procreation in general, when World of Warcraft just released the long-awaited Ice Elf Orgy Expansion Pack?
#1
Computer Assisted Memory
Computer assisted memory is a recent goal, in that the very idea
itself didn't crop up until we started pretty much practicing it anyway.
We started uploading family photos to Flickr and burning our home
movies to DVD and now that we've pretty much started doing it already,
we want to go farther. From the still far-off goal of silicon enhanced artificial neurons, to the shaky present-day experiments already underway that simply photograph your days and archive them in searchable databases - computer assisted memory, in one shape or another, is going to happen.
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