2016 wasn’t so bad: five ways this year will form the future
When we look back, two thousand sixteen could be the year we commenced to live longer, better and beyond Earth.
Sci-Tech
A flight over farmlands could be part of a future Uber rail.
It’s been hard to miss all the ink and pixels proclaiming two thousand sixteen the year of humanity’s discontent. That judgment’s harsh to deny in the field of geopolitics, given awful conflicts in places like Syria, acts of terror worldwide and contentious elections in the UK and US.
But the world went on, and so did significant work in science and innovation. If you sweep the ugly parts of two thousand sixteen under the rug and then check the place out, it’s not too shabby. What indeed makes 2016, however, is the view. The future, in many ways, is much brighter and more titillating than it appeared twelve months ago.
Here are five areas in which the events of two thousand sixteen will likely have a lasting positive influence five, ten and even one hundred years into the future.
80 is the fresh 60
Crispr/Cas9, a means of editing genes so relatively elementary you can do it at home with a $150 kit, was much celebrated in 2016.
Former Apple CEO John Sculley is now an investor and adviser to forward-looking startups.
John Sculley, former Apple CEO turned health tech investor and entrepreneur, told me the combination of developments like Crispr, machine learning and precision medicine spell the end for maladies like cancer, Alzheimer’s and dementia in the coming decades.
“Cancer will most likely be solved in the next ten to fifteen years,” Sculley told me in October. Once cancer falls, he sees research and development resources liberated up to go after things like dementia. “I think there’s a high probability we solve that by midcentury.”
Sculley says it’s not crazy to think today’s schoolchildren could live to see the year two thousand one hundred twenty five or later.
“The possibility of regenerating organs, finding ways blind people can see, deaf people can hear — all of those types of problems will be increasingly solvable,” he said.
In November, not long after that conversation, researchers at the Salk Institute announced they had used gene-editing mechanisms to restore vision in blind animals.
Starlet Trek all of a sudden seems a little less far out
Nobody is signing up for Starfleet yet, but our understanding of the universe continued to expand this year. We spotted the largest fresh planet discovery in decades: Proxima b, our closest possible exoplanet neighbor, orbiting the starlet Proxima Centauri, could be habitable. Numerous efforts aim to examine and even send a little spacecraft to Proxima b as soon as possible. But that’s not even close to the most ambitious space exploration plan announced in 2016. In September, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk unveiled his grand vision to build a colony, one million humans strong, on Mars by the end of the century.
“History suggests there will be some doomsday event, and I would hope you would agree that becoming a multiplanetary species would be the right way to go,” Musk said in his pitch.
Sounds crazy, but two thousand sixteen eyed even greater space-faring outlandishness. NASA’s physics-defying electromagnetic drive, which could lay the foundation for something like the warp technology from “Starlet Trek,” resumes to be an actual thing, evidently. We very first heard about EmDrive in two thousand fifteen when it seemed like the kind of fake news story that also became more mainstream this year. But two thousand sixteen witnessed the technically unlikely engine pass peer review and stir toward actual testing in space.
2016 wasn t so bad: five ways this year will form the future
2016 wasn’t so bad: five ways this year will form the future
When we look back, two thousand sixteen could be the year we began to live longer, better and beyond Earth.
A flight over farmlands could be part of a future Uber rail.
It’s been hard to miss all the ink and pixels announcing two thousand sixteen the year of humanity’s discontent. That judgment’s harsh to deny in the field of geopolitics, given awful conflicts in places like Syria, acts of terror worldwide and contentious elections in the UK and US.
But the world went on, and so did significant work in science and innovation. If you sweep the ugly parts of two thousand sixteen under the rug and then check the place out, it’s not too shabby. What indeed makes 2016, however, is the view. The future, in many ways, is much brighter and more arousing than it appeared twelve months ago.
Here are five areas in which the events of two thousand sixteen will likely have a lasting positive influence five, ten and even one hundred years into the future.
80 is the fresh 60
Crispr/Cas9, a means of editing genes so relatively ordinary you can do it at home with a $150 kit, was much celebrated in 2016.
Former Apple CEO John Sculley is now an investor and adviser to forward-looking startups.
John Sculley, former Apple CEO turned health tech investor and entrepreneur, told me the combination of developments like Crispr, machine learning and precision medicine spell the end for maladies like cancer, Alzheimer’s and dementia in the coming decades.
“Cancer will most likely be solved in the next ten to fifteen years,” Sculley told me in October. Once cancer falls, he sees research and development resources liberated up to go after things like dementia. “I think there’s a high probability we solve that by midcentury.”
Sculley says it’s not crazy to think today’s schoolchildren could live to see the year two thousand one hundred twenty five or later.
“The possibility of regenerating organs, finding ways blind people can see, deaf people can hear — all of those types of problems will be increasingly solvable,” he said.
In November, not long after that conversation, researchers at the Salk Institute announced they had used gene-editing technics to restore vision in blind animals.
Starlet Trek abruptly seems a little less far out
Nobody is signing up for Starfleet yet, but our understanding of the universe continued to expand this year. We spotted the fattest fresh planet discovery in decades: Proxima b, our closest possible exoplanet neighbor, orbiting the starlet Proxima Centauri, could be habitable. Numerous efforts aim to explore and even send a lil’ spacecraft to Proxima b as soon as possible. But that’s not even close to the most ambitious space exploration plan announced in 2016. In September, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk unveiled his grand vision to build a colony, one million humans strong, on Mars by the end of the century.
“History suggests there will be some doomsday event, and I would hope you would agree that becoming a multiplanetary species would be the right way to go,” Musk said in his pitch.
Sounds crazy, but two thousand sixteen spotted even greater space-faring outlandishness. NASA’s physics-defying electromagnetic drive, which could lay the foundation for something like the warp technology from “Starlet Trek,” proceeds to be an actual thing, evidently. We very first heard about EmDrive in two thousand fifteen when it seemed like the kind of fake news story that also became more mainstream this year. But two thousand sixteen eyed the technically unlikely engine pass peer review and stir toward actual testing in space.