The Aussie’s breakthrough will be the first of many, bringing quantum computing into the realm of practical affordability and everyday use. It may be a decade or more before you have one on your desk, but they’re on the way. Quantum computers will become essential in drug discovery, cybersecurity, astrophysics, and other work in which complex pattern detection is key....
Carbon dump continues
While U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the Dept. of Energy to “prepare immediate steps” to stop the closing of dirty and unprofitable coal plants, the global trend continues to move away from fossil fuels. At the end of May, the 300-year-old Royal Bank of Scotland announced new funding policies that cut off loans for new coal mines, coal-fired power...
Trendpost
Coal is kaput as a major fuel source. Developing countries will still rely on it to a degree, but even their internal populations will be increasingly restive about using a dirty, expensive source for power. The move to the exits for oil and gas investors is speeding up. The bigger the funder, the more concern they have about being left...
Major step forward in slowing Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s has two main indicators. In one, amyloid proteins form clots that muddle communication between brain cells. In the other, proteins called tau, which normally carry nutrients to brain cells, start to tangle in dying cells and block the flow of nutrients, speeding up cells’ death spiral. Researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University have, for...
Trendpost
Human clinical trials are years away. But this opens a new pathway of research that shows promise in slowing, and perhaps even halting Alzheimer’s, once symptoms have shown themselves.
The digital doctor will see you now
Artificial intelligence has passed China’s medical board exams. Now it’s time for AI to start working with patients. The need is urgent: there are only 1.5 doctors per thousand people in China, compared to 2.5 in the US. That makes Chinese physicians less concerned about AI stealing their jobs, and more concerned about just getting help with their caseloads. From...
Trendpost
AI is becoming capable of not only making routine medical analyses and decisions, but also of making difficult diagnoses that require subtle interpretations of evidence. Because AI’s memory can instantly access thousands, or even tens of thousands of cases and their outcomes, it has an increasingly fine sense of what evidence is available in order to make determinations. Over time,...
Clean water shortage
Confirming one of Gerald Celente’s major long-term predictions, NASA says that finding enough fresh water will be humanity’s major challenge of the 21st century. The conclusion was drawn from data gathered by tracking global freshwater trends from 2002 through 2016, though NASA’s Gravity Research and Climate Experiment. The study also found that freshwater losses are now greatest in the mid-latitudes;...
Trendpost
Water infrastructure will be one of the most urgent and lucrative areas of investment, but it remains fraught. Especially in low-income communities, people have been sensitized to being abused by for-profit water companies. The most trouble-free investment opportunities will be found in the developing world, in modest-scale projects having local input.
Harvesting water from thin air
In the wake of NASA’s new report warning that potable water scarcity is the next human crisis, people will be looking to collect water from places previously thought useless to look, like deserts. No stranger to water shortages, researchers at the University of California have developed a way to coax water from Arizona’s arid air using a metal-oxide framework, or...