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Category: futurism

A volcano in the far eastern end of Russia that was previously considered to be extinct has awakened, and scientists are now warning of a possible catastrophic eruption.

The Bolshaya Udina volcano — part of the Kamchatka Peninsula’s Udina volcanic complex — was believed to be extinct until 2017, when scientists detected increasing seismic activity beneath it, CNN reported.

Ivan Koulakov, a geophysicist from Russia’s A.A. Trofimuk Institute of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics who led a study into the volcano, told CNN he believes Bolshaya Udina should now be reclassified as active.

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Future spaceships could use black holes as powerful launch pads to explore the stars.

A new study envisions firing laser beams that would curve around a black hole and come back with added energy to help propel a spacecraft to near the speed of light. Astronomers could look for signs that alien civilizations are using such a “halo drive,” as the study dubs it, by seeing if pairs of black holes are merging more often than expected.

Study author David Kipping, an astrophysicist at Columbia University in New York, came up with the idea of the halo drive through what he calls “the gamer’s mindset.”

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“Do we have a chance of ever understanding brain function without brain simulations?” So asked the Human Brain Project (HBP), the brainchild of Henry Markram, in a new paper in the prestigious journal Neuron.

The key, the team argued, is to consider brain simulators in the vein of calculus for Newton’s laws—not as specific ideas of how the brain works, but rather as a programming language that can execute many candidate neural models, or programs, now and in the future. When viewed not as a vanity project, but rather as the way forward to understand—and eventually imitate—higher brain functions, the response to brain simulation is a resounding yes.

Because of the brain’s complexity and chaotic nature, the authors argue, rather than reining in simulation efforts, we need to ramp up and develop multiple “brain-simulation engines” with varying levels of detail.

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It’s been nearly two decades since the U.S. officially eliminated measles, but we may lose that status before we hit the 20-year mark.

This week, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that we’ve now topped 1,000 cases in 2019. Elimination isn’t about case numbers, though, it’s about time—and just last week, the Director of the CDC warned that we could be in danger of losing our status as a measles-eliminated country.

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A creative company in California called Reduce. Reuse. Grow has designed a coffee cup that is not only biodegradable, but even has seeds in its walls so that it can be planted and grown!

The cups, which are currently part of a Kickstarter campaign, will have seeds embedded in their walls based on their locations. Participating stores will encourage people to plant the cups themselves or to return them to be planted by the company.

Read on for designer Alex Henige’s answers to some of Bored Panda’s questions about his unique cup design!

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