Humankind just hit a big milestone this week: a world population of eight billion people. A hundred years ago, there were less than two billion, and now we’ve more than quadrupled that. But after decades of quick population growth, what will the next few decades hold?
Sophie Bushwick, technology editor at Scientific American, explains this to Ira live from the studio. They also talk about other science news this week, like a new initiative from COP 27 to help transition poor countries away from fossil fuels, an ambitious plan to put solar panels in space, how mental health apps aren’t protecting user data, what the discovery of the earliest cooked meal in history tells us about human evolution, and the very first lab-grown meat to gain FDA approval.
Groundwater Contamination In Springfield, Missouri Kept Secret From Residents
Early in 2019, Ed Galbraith faced a crowd of some 200 unhappy Springfield, Missouri residents. He wanted to make amends. Galbraith, then director of Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ environmental quality division, acknowledged that the state agency in charge of protecting the environment should have announced sooner that contaminated water had spread from an old industrial site near the Springfield-Branson National Airport. Residents had recently found out that a harmful chemical known to cause cancer had been detected in the groundwater. The contamination came from the site of the now-shuttered Litton Systems, a former defense contractor that had employed thousands of people in Springfield to make circuit boards for the Navy and telecommunications industry.
Read the rest at sciencefriday.com.
Can A New Surge Of Tech Interest Make The Metaverse A Thing?
Late last year, Mark Zuckerberg took the company then known as Facebook in a new direction. He renamed it Meta, short for “metaverse.” And he promised the company would go all in on building a virtual reality world like the first famous metaverse—the fictional topic of Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel “Snow Crash.”
While many companies have tried to make metaverses in the 30 years since “Snow Crash” came out, including the popular virtual world called Second Life, we seem to be entering a new era of metaverse hype: besides Zuckerberg, Apple seems to be investing in a VR world. And even Nike wants to make a metaverse.
So what are users actually getting if these companies succeed at their goals? And are there other, perhaps better, ways to go about bringing people together virtually? Ira talks to science fiction writer and tech journalist Annalee Newitz, and Avi Bar-Zeev, a pioneer of extended-reality technologies for companies like Disney, Apple, and others.
787: Right-To-Repair Laws Gain Steam In State Legislatures
786: Starliner Crewed Test Flight Rescheduled | Slugs And Snails Like Cities
783: Your ‘Biological Age’ Could Be Different Than How Old You Are
782: High-Speed Rail Gets A Boost In The U.S.
781: Using A Lab On Wheels To Study Weed From Dispensaries
780: Jelly Creatures That Swim In Corkscrews | Keeping Wind Turbines Safe For Birds
779: Zapping Nerves Into Regrowth | Celebrating the Maya Calendar In Guatemala’s Highlands
778: Fine-Tuning Grapes For Iowa’s Wine Industry
777: How To Recycle Rare Earth Elements
776: New Evidence Questions Dark Energy’s ‘Constant’ Nature
775: New Guidelines Recommend Earlier Breast Cancer Screening
773: New Rule Sets Stage For Electric Grid Update | Harnessing Nanoparticles For Vaccines
772: How Climate Change Is Changing Sports
771: Why Is Tinnitus So Hard To Understand And Treat?
770: Finding Purpose In A ‘Wild Life’
769: Archeopteryx Specimen Unveiled | Trees And Shrubs Burying Great Plains' Prairies
768: JWST Detects An Atmosphere Around A Rocky Exoplanet | Boeing Plans To Fly Humans To The ISS Next Week
767: Challenging The Gender Gap In Sports Science
766: What Martian Geology Can Teach Us About Earth
765: How Louisiana Is Coping With Flooding In Cemeteries
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