Archive for the futurism Category
30
03
2008
Posted by: Luke in futurism, science, tags: animal models, bill watson, disappointments, human body parts, human fibroblasts, human limbs, mammals, national inquirer, regeneration, rinn, salamander, salamanders, sciam, science community, scientific american, stanford university, striking contrast, wound healing
One of the great disappointments of our generation is how slowly science seems to progress in certain areas. For example, we know for a fact that it is theoretically possible to re-grow human limbs. Our bodies are not all that dissimilar to salamanders on a biomolecular level. And yet, it still has not been done. Is this not the 21st century? Is this not the nanotech era?
From: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=regrowing-human-limbs
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23
03
2008
Posted by: Luke in futurism, tags: civilization, colony ship, consciousness, constraints, dna, glial cells, light travel, light years, lightspeed, milligrams, nutrients, one thing, period of time, reaching the stars, science fiction movies, scientists, storage medium, time dilation, utility fog, velocity
Moving through space at high enough velocity to reach the stars within a reasonable period of time may turn out to be rather difficult. Some scientists think faster than light travel is impossible, or at least highly impractical. So reaching the stars would tend to involve a lot of time dilation whenever it occurs.
The other problem is the huge amount of energy involved in transporting a human colony ship — way more than we ever want to spend. But nanotech provides a solution to both of these.
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I promised something more about nanotech and how it relates to space travel. Nano Space Technology is a cool page. Nanotech lets us create atomic machinery, such as Utility Foglets. It also lets us create really strong materials. The hull of your space ship could be a milimeter thick and still reliably protect against asteroids. But with a generous helping of Utility Fog, you could have a gentler bouncing effect, where the asteroid begins to slow down several meters away from the solid portion of the ship’s hull.
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09
03
2008
Posted by: Luke in futurism, science, tags: energy, foglets, future technology, green, innovation, nanotech, octet truss, solar, technology, utility fog
Today I am going to blog about utility fog. It’s the coolest nanotech idea I have ever heard of. And while it needs an assembler to begin with, it doesn’t have to be self-replicating, so we could use it without the risk of decomposing the world into grey goo.
The nanomachines used to make utility fog are called foglets. Their design is very simple conceptually. 12 little arms, each with telescoping action, side-to-side, and rotating capability, are connected to a central hub. When they grasp each other, they form an octet truss framework, which is very stable. (Think of the honeycomb structure, then picture it 3-dimensionally.)
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08
03
2008
Posted by: Luke in futurism, science, webcomics
The winner is… Schlock Mercenary!
Not only has this site updated on time every single day for 8 years, it delivers consistently funny hard-science-fiction action that makes all other webcomics pale by comparison.
- A time travel arc that features a galaxy-wide rewind and a realistic physics scenario for where all that energy came from.
- Realistic exploration of the consequences of nano-tech in many forms, yet not actually removing the human element from the equation.
- Lovable characters with their own flaws and obsessions. Positive aspects of greed, laziness, and excessive curiousity are shown along with their failings.
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