Science of the Future
Below is the complete archive of related articles sorted by date.
Viewpoint: Bringing back extinct animals — Can breakthroughs in gene editing technology offset humanity’s dicey environmental stewardship track record?
Today, the only surviving members of the white rhino species are two females at a conservancy in Kenya, Najin and ...
As climate dislocations accelerate, here’s how genetically modified mosquitoes could offer lifeline to controlling dengue, Zika and other mosquito-vectored diseases
With insecticide resistance increasing and climate change priming the environment for longer breeding seasons and a wider geographic range, the ...
‘Canary in the coal mine for agriculture’: Simple soil temperature test can predict and prevent spread of corn-ravaging worms without pesticides
Soil temperature can effectively monitor and predict the spread of the corn earworm, a pest that ravages corn, cotton, soybeans, ...
‘3 parent’ embryo study: Chinese researchers show diseased mitochondria can be successfully replaced to prevent inherited disease
When the first baby to be conceived using a technique that mixes genetic material from three people was born, in 2016, ...
These 4 new techniques are spearheading future of fertility treatments
Here are four of the new reproductive treatments that scientists say could be just a few years away from the ...
Could artificial intelligence (AI) lead to accidental demise of humans?
It seems only a matter of time before computers become smarter than people. This is one prediction we can be ...
Martian space travel is moving from science fiction to fact. How will humans adjust when they set foot on the red planet?
In the coming decade, in 2033, NASA and China intend to send astronauts to Mars for the first time in ...
NY Times’ Tom Friedman: US and its Western allies need to stop living in a green fantasy world that says we can go from dirty fossil fuels to clean renewable energy by ‘just flipping a switch’
Putin thinks he’s found a cold war that he can win. He’s going to try to literally freeze the European ...
‘Electronic skin’ wirelessly transmits data about a person’s blood pressure, heart rate, and activity levels
Most wireless sensors today communicate via embedded Bluetooth chips that are themselves powered by small batteries. But these conventional chips ...
What could go wrong? Analyzing the merits and consequences of gene drives
ISAAA Inc., in partnership with the Outreach Network for Gene Drive Research, launched a policy brief that tackles the importance ...
Podcast: Is there a future in the US for gene editing in animals? Kevin Folta talks with Alison van Eenennaam about her latest breakthrough research and regulatory hurdles she faces
Amazing innovations in animal gene editing have the promise to streamline agriculture, with benefits for agricultural producers, consumers and the ...
What future dangers might Artificial Intelligence introduce? Experts clash
There are teams of researchers in academia and at major AI labs these days working on the problem of AI ...
Promising way to reduce spread of mosquito-borne dengue without gene drives or genetic modification
In 2009, the World Mosquito Program, or WMP’s research team discovered that a bacteria called Wolbachia could prevent the transmission ...
Extracting urine from wastewater and using it as fertilizer could be sustainability boon
Removing urine from wastewater and using it as fertilizer has the potential to decrease nutrient loading in water bodies and ...
A plastic straw could take a thousand years to break down. This biodegradable plastic disappears within 60 days
A time-lapse video shows a baby blue straw sitting in a tank of water and rocks. Not much happens at ...
New biotech weapon fighting global hunger: Nanoparticles that can carry CRISPR gene-editing into plant cells
The CRISPR-mediated editing of plants is already paying off. In 2021, the first CRISPR-edited food was introduced to the market, ...
Viewpoint: Will crop biotechnology breakthroughs usher in a new ‘Green Revolution’?
A recent spate of crop biotech breakthroughs presage a New Green Revolution that will boost crop production, shrink agriculture's environmental ...
Conclusions drawn by many artificial intelligence studies cannot be replicated. Here’s why this is a concern
Princeton professor Arvind Narayanan and his PhD student Sayash Kapoor got suspicious last year when they discovered a strand of ...
Could the universe be an elaborate game constructed by bored aliens?
Elon Musk thinks you don’t exist. But it’s nothing personal: he thinks he doesn’t exist either. At least, not in ...
How might biotechnology revolutionize America’s national defense?
The Biotechnology Community of Interest released a study on the future of biotechnology in April, titled “Bio-Futures 2050: Defense Impacts ...
‘It has to happen’: Tech titans pour billions into anti-aging research — yet overlook promising metformin trial
Beating back the diseases of aging has become something of a pet project for many of Silicon Valley’s tech titans ...
A ‘cotton candy machine’ that prints cardiac fibers brings us one step closer to easily repairing heart injuries
Researchers at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) believe they have taken a step towards ...
Synthetic embryos: What are they, and how are they challenging ethical constraints?
Scientists at the Weizmann Institute in Israel found that stem cells from mice could be made to self-assemble into early ...
Back from the dead? Pig organs revived after cell life stopped, raising hopes for transplant breakthroughs
Researchers have restored circulation and cellular activity in the vital organs of pigs, such as the heart and brain, one ...
Are robot bees a viable solution to pollination problems?
Every so often a headline will shout about the coming of the robo-bees, with the vision of a dystopian future ...
Two more HIV patients beat the virus — helping scientists researching a permanent cure
A 66-year-old man in Southern California and a woman in her 70s in Spain are the latest in a small ...
‘Smell cyborgs’ are replacing dogs that sniff out cancer or explosives
We live in a world of odors—chemical signals that contain valuable data about our health, the environment and even personal ...
