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Tech NewsMeanwhile in the Future: Everybody Is Reviewed in a Reputation Database
Recently, an app called Peeple got a whole lot of attention for trying to be the Yelp for Humans. But it’s just one in a really long line of apps that try to apply consumer reviews to people. The app LuLu lets women leave reviews for the men they’ve dated. The app SketchFactor invited people … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
Tech NewsPrivacy & SecurityMeanwhile in the Future: One Agency Controls All Border Crossings
Every time you go from one country to the next, you cross a border. And that usually means dealing with some kind of border agency that enforces each country’s idiosyncratic rules and regulations. But what if the whole process were standardized and run by a single organization? To figure out what this future might be … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
Tech NewsMeanwhile in the Future: Nobody Cares About Your Gender
Nerf balls are for boys. Dolls are for girls. Romance movies are for women, and action flicks for men. Nearly everything in our world is gendered in some way. But what if we lived in a world where gender was more like hair color — something you could change at will, and that had little … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
Tech NewsRush Limbaugh Thinks Gizmodo Really Wants to Genetically Engineer Humans
Gizmodo has confused Rush Limbaugh. Yesterday’s episode of Meanwhile in the Future was a little different from a lot of the other episodes we’ve done. Instead of exploring what a future might look like, we tackled whether a future was plausible. That future involved genetically engineering humans to reduce their carbon footprint. You can listen … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
Tech NewsMeanwhile in the Future: To Stop Climate Change, We Must Genetically Engineer Humans
A lot of researchers are thinking about how to genetically engineer crops and food animals to help them withstand post-climate change heat and parched conditions. But what about genetically engineering humans to slow our constant carbon contributions? In 2012 a philosopher named Matthew Liao co-authored a paper that proposed altering human biology to combat climate … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
SciencePhysics & ChemistryMeanwhile in the Future: Now You Can Buy an Invisibility Cloak
Scientists now have a way to cloak something very small, making it effectively invisible. But what if scientists and engineers created a much larger version? What if we all had access to invisibility cloaks? A few days ago, a team at Berkeley published a paper called “An ultrathin invisibility skin cloak for visible light” in … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
Tech NewsMeanwhile in the Future: We Just Made Alien Contact
Humans spend a lot of time and energy wondering if there’s anybody else out there. But what if we got unequivocal evidence that there was? In this week’s future, a probe that is extremely similar to the Voyager probes that we sent out in the 1970’s shows up in our solar system. In case you’re … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
Tech NewsMeanwhile in the Future: We’ve Invented an Empathy Machine
When you were a kid and stole your friends’ toys, your parent probably asked you this angry hypothetical: “How do you think that made them feel?” But what if you actually could feel what another person is feeling? This week, we travel to a future where humans have invented an empathy machine. Before we dive … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
ScienceBiologyMeanwhile in the Future: Endangered Animals Live in Armored Zoos
Many scientists believe that the Earth is approaching another mass extinction event. Between deforestation, pollution, hunting, and general human encroachment, all sorts of species are at risk of going extinct. In this week’s future, humans give up on saving species where they live and instead put them in armored zoos. Let’s start with logistics. Right … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
Tech NewsMeanwhile in the Future: Everybody Has a Personal Drone Now
There are a million ways people might use drones in the future, from deliveries and police work to journalism. But in this episode, we’re going to talk about consumer drones — something that you or I might use for ourselves. What does the world look like when everybody with a smart phone also has a … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
Tech News
Meanwhile in the Future: You Can Live for 300 Years, But You’ll Be in Prison
What if “life in prison” could mean 100 or 200 or 400 years? Does that change the way that sentences are doled out? What happens when a person gets out of prison? For all of you who’ve written in asking me to do an episode about longevity, this episode is for you. But instead of … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
SciencePhysics & ChemistryMeanwhile in the Future: The Earth Is Falling Into the Sun
The Earth, right now, is revolving around the sun at about 62,000 miles per hour. But what would happen if we slowed to a stop? At that point, the planet would have exactly 64 1/2 days before it crashed into the sun. In this week’s episode, we find out what would happen during those 64 … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
Tech NewsMeanwhile in the Future: Cross the Border Using Only Your Face as ID
This week, we go to a world where facial recognition is so good that any company can grab an image of your face while you’re walking down the street, and link it to everything from your social media profiles, to your credit score, to your workplace. This world really isn’t that far away. In this … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
Tech NewsMeanwhile in the Future: We Have Changed the Climate with Wind Turbines
According to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, about 2.3 percent of America’s power is generated by wind. But wind power is becoming wildly popular all over the world. What would happen if a company put up so many wind turbines that they actually changed the climate on Earth? That’s the subject of this … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
EartherClimate Change
Meanwhile in the Future: What Happens When All Airplanes Are Grounded
Need to get from New York to Paris? Or San Diego? Chances are, you’re hopping on a plane. But commercial flights aren’t just annoying and expensive — they also input a ton of carbon into the environment, contributing to climate change. So what if we stopped flights to save the planet? What would happen next? … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
Tech NewsMeanwhile in the Future: Extreme Body Modification
We all want to be our best selves. But what if you could add almost anything to your body and mind? A camera here, an exoskeleton there. This is the world that some biohackers imagine—one in which humans can extend their abilities beyond the limits biology has set for us. But what does that world … Continued
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ScienceSpace & SpaceflightMeanwhile in the Future: Death By Supernova
We often think of stars as twinkling, harmless little points of light that fill our night sky with majesty. But stars can be dangerous too. When they come to the end of their lifespan, some stars explode fantastically as supernovae. So what would happen if one of those giant explosions happened nearby? This week’s scenario … Continued
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Tech NewsMeanwhile in the Future: Here’s Why We Banned the Internet
If you’re reading this, you have access to the Internet. But what would happen if the Internet suddenly went away? And what would it take to make that happen? This week’s episode peers into the dark fantasy of many of us who work for the Internet: a world without it. This week’s episode is a … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
Tech NewsMeanwhile in the Future: Never Sleep Again, Using This Drug
If there was a drug that meant you never had to sleep again, would you take it? Would those who didn’t need to sleep have special advantages over those who did? All that and a side of zombies, in this week’s episode of Meanwhile in the Future. This week, I talked to James Hughes and … Continued
By Rose Eveleth -
Tech NewsMeanwhile in the Future: When Antibiotics Stop Working
This week’s episode of Meanwhile in the Future gets very scary, very quickly. And we’re not going all that far into the future, either. We’re already starting to see the beginnings of an age without antibiotics. So what does a world without these drugs look like? Listen to find out. Over the past 85 years, … Continued
By Rose Eveleth
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