Original source : http://www.smashinglists.com
Posted : February 2013
Author : the admin
Just as we can sit and discuss the nature of the future that
may await us and our planet, it’s very likely that generations previous to us
have done the same. Whilst many of these predictions have likely come and gone,
many may be yet to arrive whereas some may never be realised at all. Here are
some events that happened in 2012 which you could imagine have been pondered
upon in the past.
10. Space Cargo Delivery
Whilst the thought of human venture into space was most
likely considered impossible until the advent of the 20th century, the
prediction that we’d be relaying cargo deliveries back and forward out into the
great unknown must have arisen at some point since the moon landings in 1966.
We’ve been carting stuff around our own planet for the best part of a
millennium in the name of international trade, and so I suppose it’d make sense
that when we get to space we’d inevitably have to do the same. As of last year,
NASA have been running missions to various space stations with the sole
intention of restocking supplies and equipment.
9. Artificial Retinas
Thought to be one of the more incurable of human ailments,
blindness has been noted as completely irreversible (in most cases) throughout
history. The idea of implanting an artificial retina into the skull of someone
who is completely blind sounds like something from a James Cameron movie,
right? Had it been suggested a half century ago I highly doubt that the
technology would have been forecast to take much of its shape by 2012. Though
still in its very early stages, this transplant treatment was carried out on
two blind British men last year- and helped them to regain a fair amount of their
vision.
8. Self Driving Cars
Despite being one of the most un-imaginative ideas amongst
what I like to call the ‘classic’ future predictions (hover-boards and robot
butlers comprising the rest of the list), 2012 saw the human race take one
stride closer to attaining this as a reality. Three US states made the autonomous
vehicles legal last year, leading to the anticipation of more following in the
near future. Now legal in Florida, California and Nevada-
self-driving cars are expected to greatly reduce the amount of road traffic
accidents occurring on our nation’s roads and highways as a result of their
GPS, radar and sonar capabilities.
7. Robot Attends School
With the advent of skype, facetime and other various video
calling technologies, professionals have been able to hold conference with
each-other from opposite corners of the planet. 2012 noted the application of
this idea to the field of education when a six-year-old boy from New York State began sending a robot to school in
his stead as a result of his dangerously potent allergies. Of course there were
those who were sceptical to begin with - yet the ‘experiment’ continues to prove
effective.
6. Cyborg Athletes
2012 was of course an Olympic year, with the ancient games
landing in London, England during the summer. As if
there wasn’t enough to celebrate over the course of the games, last year’s
event boasted its own little piece of history when South African sprinter Oscar
Pistorius became the first amputee to race alongside able bodied competition.
He was able to do so as a result of his advanced prosthetic ‘cheetah’ legs
which remarkably allowed him to compete alongside some of the world’s fastest
men.
5. Enhanced Primates
The concept of apes becoming highly intelligent and taking
over the entire planet, which I believe was covered in a movie or two at some
point, is at first hilarious yes- but then terrifying, very terrifying. Last
September we took a step closer to crafting our own chimpy doom however as we
developed a way to improve the cognitive ability and decision making skills of
primates- by way of implanting an ‘electrode array’ into their ‘cerebral
cortex’- whatever that means.
4. Robot Limbs for the Paralyzed
Building upon the previous successes of the ‘Braingate’
project, researchers last year made their biggest advancement to date when they
managed to assist Cathy Hutchison, a woman who has paralyzed for 15 years, to
control robotic limbs using just the power of her mind. The neural implant
technology has been tested on other quadriplegic patients who have suffered
severe brain injuries to the extent of paralysis and is thus far showing
positive capability.
3. Communication With Coma Victims
Whilst on the subject of neuroscience, let’s talk about that
group of specialists in Canada
who managed to effectively communicate with a man in a coma. Through the use of
fMRI scanning technology, the researchers were able to build upon a 2010
breakthrough which sparked hope of one day holding a dialogue with the thoughts
of someone locked in a vegetative state. Once again, there’s a lot of jargon
involved and I’m not totally sure on the science behind it- but my guess is it
something to do with the monitoring and analysis of brain waves and the like.
2. Superstorms
For the past few decades, this whole ‘global warming’ theory
that I’m sure we’ve all heard so much about has been used in many a manner to
predict various catastrophic effects due to occur across our planet. One of
these predictions was made in 1999 by American scholars Art Bell and Whitley
Strieber in their book ‘The Coming Global Superstorm’- and, unsurprisingly,
made the claim that global warming and its effects would lead to a series of
hugely destructive ‘superstorms’. Low and behold, last year the Atlantic was treated to Hurricane Sandy - which sizing in
at almost 2 million square miles was the first storm of its kind on record.
Uh-oh.
1. Warp Drive
Yet another prediction a sci-fi movie director could lay
claim to with ease, 2012 marked the announcement of the development of
faster-than-light warp drive by Harold White and his team at NASA. Entirely
possible with regards to Einstein’s law of relatively, Warp Drive could mark a huge advancement
in our abilities to explore outer-space should it come into fruition. When
finished, Whites proposed design could see the development of an engine capable
of transporting a craft and its crew to nearby stars in just weeks.
~Blog Admin~
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