The ocean is not just filling up, it’s swelling up. Half of sea-level rise comes just from the warming of the water. No matter what humans do next, we are now doomed to deal with drastically higher flooding of the world’s coasts every year for decades, possibly centuries. Nearly half of humanity lives near coasts. […]
Jeff Goodell – The Water Will Come Read More »
Transmissions from the ambient frontier Continue reading on The Long Now Foundation »
These Artists Make Avant-Garde Music out of the Sun, Antarctica, and a Justin Bieber Pop Read More »
Throughout human history, mapping has been the key to the opening of new frontiers. Mapping of previously uncharted regions has enabled economic expansion and the development of new markets, science, and defense. For similar reasons, mapping the locations and trajectories of the millions of uncharted asteroids in our solar system is the key to opening
Charting the High Frontier of Space – Ed Lu Read More »
What can fifty-somethings bring of value to companies that are mostly twenty-somethings, and vice versa? A needed blending of depth with currency. Chip Conley, a long-time hotelier (Joie de Vivre Hospitality) and author “(Peak; The Rebel Rules; Emotional Equations)”, was hired at 52 by the drastically youthful, disruptive startup Airbnb to be its Head of
Chip Conley – The Modern Elder and the Intergenerational Workplace Read More »
John Brockman’s newly released book “Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI” : https://smile.amazon.com/Possible-Minds-Twenty-Five-Ways-Looking-ebook/dp/B07D6C1X3X/ref=sr_1_1 is the springboard for this Seminar on Artificial Intelligence. Brockman will interview several of the contributors to the book, Rodney Brooks: https://www.edge.org/memberbio/rodney_a_brooks, Alison Gopnik: https://www.edge.org/memberbio/alison_gopnik and Stuart Russell: https://www.edge.org/memberbio/stuart_russell on stage. Following the interviews, Kevin Kelly: https://www.edge.org/memberbio/kevin_kelly will host the
John Brockman – Possible Minds Read More »
Human civilization is used to being saved by technology. The 20th century was defined by humanity’s ability to invent a pill, vaccine, or device to overcome our biggest challenges. Today, many of the most serious threats to human health well-being require large-scale changes in individual behavior. The problem is people are really bad at prioritizing
The Evolving Science of Behavior Change – Christopher Bryan Read More »
A new paper by archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo addresses one of the longstanding mysteries of the monuments of Easter Island: their location. Four hundred of the statues, known as muai, are located miles away from where they were originally quarried, and sit on megalithic platforms, or ahu. An analysis of the locations of
Glass vials containing dried B. subtilis spores (R. Möller and C. S. Cockell) Last week, The Atlantic‘s Sarah Zhang profiled a University of Edinburgh science experiment that began in 02014 and — if everything goes according to plan — will conclude in 02514. The experiment is studying the longevity of bacteria, which can remain viable well past the lifespan of humans. Physically,
How to Run a 500-Year Long Science Experiment Read More »
The warming planet is increasingly the subject of all kinds of fiction. Beyond entertainment or distraction could climate fiction (“Cli-Fi”) actually help us in solving the climate dilemma? Biological anthropologist and environmental scientist James Holland Jones: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0_6ULyIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao explains the neuroscience of narrative: storytelling fits the human brain. Stories might be useful in bringing popular attention
The Science of Climate Fiction: Can Stories Lead to Social Action? – Jamie Jones Read More »
In August of 02018, Long Now founder Stewart Brand, renowned geneticist George Church, and a delegation of observers and scientists traveled to one of Earth’s most remote places to witness the ongoing restoration of a part of Siberia back to its Pleistocene-era ecosystem. The team brought back DNA samples to evaluate for mammoth de-extinction, and
