The Good Future Project

These smart farms are 100 times more productive than traditional agriculture

August 31, 2022

This article is available at https://www.fastcompany.com/90783102/these-smart-farms-are-100-times-more-productive-than-traditional-agriculture

Food security is a global challenge and it’s only getting more critical, says Irving Fain, founder and CEO of Bowery, the vertical farming company using hydroponics and digital agriculture to reimagine the future of produce. “The problem we’re solving at Bowery is a problem that’s not only relevant to the cities we’re in today or to cities in the U.S., but it’s relevant to cities around the world.”

On this week’s Most Innovative Companies Podcast, Fain explains how Bowery is seeking to reinvent and reimagine food and agriculture, reflecting on confirmation bias and his status as an “outsider” in agriculture, while also detailing how he’s been able to retain critical focus on the bigger problem at hand—and why now is the time to innovate.

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California to Become First State to Install Solar Panels Over Water Canals

August 31, 2022

This article is available at https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/339176-california-to-become-first-state-to-install-solar-panels-over-water-canals

When it comes to firsts, California’s on a roll. Last month the state became the first to budget in its own insulin manufacturing, and last week California legislators made a historic vote to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars after 2035. Though less flashy, the state recently claimed yet another first by planning to install solar panels over its canals.

California is home to about 4,000 miles of canals. For decades these complex networks have delivered more than 600 million gallons of water per day to agricultural areas and to residents throughout the state. At the same time, California’s water supply has dwindled. Rising temperatures, groundwater depletion, and decreased precipitation have resulted in an unprecedented, years-long drought, bringing the state’s reservoir levels down to the lowest they’ve been in a century. This has prompted legislators, researchers, and environmental activists to seek out ways to protect California’s water supply.

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Bio-based carbon-negative insulation made from grass

August 31, 2022

This article is available at https://www.springwise.com/innovation/property-construction/carbon-negative-insulation-made-from-grass

Gramitherm is an innovative new product that provides superior energy efficiency and environmental performance

Among the most notable recent breakthroughs in sustainable insulation materials is Swiss-made Gramitherm. The company behind the new material has developed a unique production process that transforms grass into highly effective insulation.

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Southern African countries can do better at infrastructure: what the choices might look like

August 31, 2022

This article is available at https://theconversation.com/southern-african-countries-can-do-better-at-infrastructure-what-the-choices-might-look-like-186516

Countries in southern Africa are under a crushing burden brought about by a confluence of factors. These include the unprecedented growth in the number of young people, the remarkable speed of urbanisation and the rise of informal settlements in urban centres.

The physical infrastructure needed to meet these challenges requires exceptional solutions. But these call for alternative approaches. These include deep collaboration between member states and the private sector. And the development of a robust relationship between economic and social infrastructure, on the one hand, and the underlying policy framework that drives decisions on the other.

Research by the South African Institute of International Affairs highlights scenario options for the future of infrastructure in the region. And issues guidance on how to avoid the undesired options.

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How companies draw on science fiction

August 24, 2022

This article is available at https://www.ft.com/content/f603e438-a4ba-11e7-9e4f-7f5e6a7c98a2

In 1964 Sir Arthur C Clark stood in front of a BBC camera and predicted that by the year 2000 people would be able to communicate instantly with their friends, even when they had no idea where they were.

The author of 2001: A Space Odyssey described a world where distance was no obstacle, and business could be conducted as easily from Haiti or Bali as from London. Yet the man who in effect foresaw Skype and the spread of the internet, also predicted that the “servant problem” afflicting households in the new millennium would be solved by biologically-engineered great apes, tamed and trained to do the chores we humans found distasteful.

The only drawback, he suggested, was that eventually these “super chimps” would form trade unions and “we will be right back to where we started”. Sir Arthur was not bothered about whether his predictions would turn out to be true and, in this respect, the science fiction writer was a true futurist. “No serious futurist deals in prediction,” wrote Alvin Toffler, futurist and author of the global best seller Future Shock. “These are left for television oracles and newspaper astrologers.”

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What’s wrong with the Fourth Industrial Revolution

August 16, 2022

This article is available at https://theconversation.com/whats-wrong-with-the-fourth-industrial-revolution-188255

In this episode of Pasha, Ruth Castel-Branco, manager of the Future of Work(ers) research project at the University of the Witwatersrand, joins Nanjala Nyabola, a storyteller and political analyst, in taking us through the seductive idea of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

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Charcoal-free incense made from waste flowers

August 15, 2022
Creating lab-grown diamonds in a solar-powered facility

August 15, 2022
Saiga antelopes have increased 10-fold after mass die-off in 2015

August 15, 2022

Saiga antelopes have rebounded after being hunted to the brink of extinction less than two decades ago and sustaining huge losses to disease in 2015. An estimated 1.3 million saiga now roam the vast steppe grasslands of Kazakhstan, a 30-fold increase from their population of less than 40,000 in 2005.

Millions of these antelopes (Saiga tatarica) once grazed alongside woolly mammoths and steppe bison throughout the Eurasian grasslands. But the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s led to widespread unchecked poaching of the goat-sized animals for meat and horns, and the population dwindled to tens of thousands.

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Quantum computer made of 6 super-sized atoms could imitate the brain

August 15, 2022

Simulations of a quantum computer made of six rubidium atoms suggest it could run a simple brain-inspired algorithm that can learn to remember and make simple decisions

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