The path to legal recreational and medical marijuana, as the Trends Research Institute forecast last year, continues to build momentum despite a newly anointed attorney general who erroneously thinks pot is almost as deadly as heroin. If he could, he’d enforce federal laws to criminalize it. Speaking to law enforcement officers in March, Jeff Sessions said: “I reject the idea...
TRENDPOST
Here’s where the greatest growth potential exists: Natural healing: Cannabis products soon will find a home on the shelves of health-food and well-being outlets in states where they’re legal. The natural-healing and naturopathic community already is aware of, and open to, the healing qualities of cannabis. But new methods of digesting or using these products will enhance the appeal. Lotions,...
At last, an anti-plastic trend
In the 1967 film “The Graduate,” Mr. McGuire offers sage business advice to young Ben: “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word: Plastics.” That one word, uttered during the turbulence of the late 1960s, symbolized the emerging trend of a society looking for better, cheaper and more versatile. Plastics became far more than a handy...
Trend Forecast
The anti-plastic movement is evolving from recycling. Its goal is to support an emerging industry and corresponding lifestyle shift that will grow strong in the next decade. There are movements under way that indicate the public is beginning to consider the collective plastic footprint as well as our carbon footprint. Some areas where growth will be prominent: Zero Waste is...
Looming shortage of key minerals
An international team of scientists from five continents is warning of a looming shortage in key minerals used to make electronic and green energy technologies. The team studied supply-and-demand forecasts and lead times in finding and developing new sources of supply for minerals such as copper and iron ore, as well as for rare earth and exotic elements such as...
Trendpost
Many of these materials, both base and exotic, can’t be replaced by substitutes in the devices in which they’re used. A shortage of these minerals could cause the price of electronic devices to rise and could curtail the manufacture of solar cells and other green energy systems. Investors able to play a long game can profit by finding mineral companies...
Controlling robots with your mind
A human-robot mind-meld has been created by engineers at Boston University at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The researchers used a simple robot with arms, and programmed it to learn on the fly. Then they ran wires from the robot’s controls to electrodes attached to a person’s head. The electrodes picked up electrical signals generated by the person’s brain activity....
Trendpost
Enabling people to control robots by intuitive thought opens new worlds for people who are paralyzed or unable to speak. It also brings us closer to a science-fiction future in which robots do our bidding by reading our minds.
Pulling water out of thin air
MIT scientists have devised a way to distill water out of air, even air without much humidity in it, using no energy other than the sun’s. The team uses a box filled with a powdery material that absorbs air into its microscopic pores. When the box is heated – by sitting in sunlight, for example – water molecules in the...
Trendpost
An estimated one-third of the world’s people live in regions with low humidity. As droughts become more frequent and widespread, and groundwater becomes more scarce, air-to-water technologies will become a crucial part of the global water harvest.