The World Transformed

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Technology
**The World Transformed**

A convergence of emerging technologies and emerging possibilities is at the heart of this, the greatest period of transformation in human history. Our world is changing in ways that are hard to predict…sometimes even hard to imagine. The World Transformed is your guide to an astounding future that lies ahead — and that will be here sooner than you think!

Latest Episodes:

The Power of Openness, Best of TWT Jun 08, 2017

Show notes

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D discuss how openness improves any system that tries it.

The Cell Atlas (and Other Breakthrough Technologies) Jun 07, 2017

Show notes

Phil and Stephen review the final three of MIT Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2017. The Cell Atlas Biology’s next mega-project will find out what we’re really made of. Botnets of Things The relentless push to add connectivity to home gadgets is creating dangerous side effects that figure to get even worse. Reinforcement Learning By experimenting, computers are figuring out how to do things that no programmer could teach them. WT 310-619

Solving the World's Problems -- Part 2, Best of TWT Jun 06, 2017

Show notes

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D set out to solve the world's most challenging problems in the second of two podcasts. This time out they take on: Ending disease Ending war Making the environment pristine [This show originally aired August 24, 2008.]

360° Selfies, Hot Solar Power, and Gene Therapy 2.0 Jun 05, 2017

Show notes

Phil and Stephen review the next three of MIT Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2017 The 360-Degree Selfie Inexpensive cameras that make spherical images are opening a new era in photography and changing the way people share stories. Hot Solar Cells By converting heat to focused beams of light, a new solar device could create cheap and continuous power. Gene Therapy 2.0 Scientists have solved fundamental problems that were holding back cures for rare hereditary disorders. Next we’ll see if the same approach can take on cancer, heart disease, and other common illnesses. WT 309-618

Paying with Your Face, Spinal Repair, Self-Driving Trucks, Quantum Computing May 31, 2017

Show notes

Phil and Stephen review the first three of MIT Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2017. Reversing Paralysis Scientists are making remarkable progress at using brain implants to restore the freedom of movement that spinal cord injuries take away. Self-Driving Trucks Tractor-trailers without a human at the wheel will soon barrel onto highways near you. What will this mean for the nation’s 1.7 million truck drivers? Paying with Your Face Face-detecting systems in China now authorize payments, provide access to facilities, and track down criminals. Will other countries follow? Practical Quantum Computers Advances at Google, Intel, and several research groups indicate that computers with previously unimaginable power are finally within reach. Which of these will impact the largest number of people? Which of these will have the longest-lasting impact? Which is scariest? Which is most exciting? Tune in and explore! WT 308-617

Unlocking the Goddess Code May 26, 2017

Show notes

Visions for a World Transformed co-author Radhaa Nilia joins Phil and Stephen to discuss global happiness, fMRI-generated mental super-powers, and how getting in touch with the goddess within might just be what each of us (and the world) really needs. Radhaa tells about her work with the Goddess Code Academy and her new Quan Yin certification program, Plus: ‘I knew they were sugar pills but I felt fantastic’ – the rise of open-label placebos The Most Promising Route to Mental Superpowers Results of the Latest Happiness and Life Satisfaction Survey And of course... OTHER GEEK Phil and Stephen debate latest happenings / next steps in the Bobiverse. WT 307-616

Solving the World's Problems -- Part 1, Best of TWT May 25, 2017

Show notes

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D set out to solve the world's most challenging problems in back-to-back podcasts. First on the agenda: Eliminate crime Abolish hunger and poverty End terrorism

Hidden Mysteries: Dark Matter Worlds, Life in Crystals, Lost Civilizations May 24, 2017

Show notes

Phil and Stephen explore hidden mysteries that may change our understanding of the history and our place in the universe. Nasa revives 'weird life forms' trapped inside crystals for 60,000 years, raising hopes of finding alien organisms in space Lifeforms which have been living inside crystals for up to 60,000 years have been revived by NASA, raising hopes that alien organisms could be found in extreme environments on other planets. Magicians of the Gods The evidence revealed in this book shows beyond reasonable doubt that an advanced civilization that flourished during the Ice Age was destroyed in the global cataclysms between 12,800 and 11,600 years ago. Scientists are building a DMT machine that will help them 'talk to aliens' See, when DMT is smoked — often in high school basements, college dorms and estates in Silicon Valley — it makes you "see" weird dancing characters: animals, cartoons, aliens and elves. Does Dark Matter Harbor Life? When first studying partially interacting dark matter, I was astonished to find that practically no one had considered the potential fallacy—and hubris—of assuming that only ordinary matter exhibits a diversity of particle types and interactions. A few physicists had tried to analyze models, such as “mirror dark matter,” which features dark matter that mimics everything about ordinary matter. But exemplars such as this one were rather specific and exotic. Their implications were difficult to reconcile with everything we know. WT 306-615

Isolating the Electron, Best of TWT May 23, 2017

Show notes

Phil, Stephen, and Michael D discuss controlling quantum states of electrons for computing and other breakthroughs. Researchers have controlled the position of a single electron in a silicon circuit. An international team of researchers has shown that it can control the quantum state of a single electron in a silicon transistor--even putting the electron in two places at once. Their discovery could help pave the way toward a practical quantum computer. The Washington Post interview with President and CEO of TVPredictions.com Phillip Swan about the HD/DVD war. Part of what they got into was the fact that standard DVD's can be made to look better with the right equipment. The hybrid bridge to all-electric vehicles The chairman of Tesla Motor Company, Elon Musk, argues that hybrids are not the future - all-electric is where we're going. Your hosts agreed that electric car problems of range, refuel time, and infrastructure will be solved during the transitional hybrid era. They also agreed that this could be a relatively short bridge - a decade or so - to an all-electric transport era. Plus a review of the Dark Knight! [This show first aired July 21, 2008.]

The Non-Zero Probability May 22, 2017

Show notes

Phil and Stephen discuss how vastly improbable events become reality, and what this tells us about the future. The Odds Of Your Unlikely Existence Were Not Infinitely Small But there's a fun, important, and underappreciated consequence of Bayes' theorem that can tell us something vital about any of these steps: the odds of any one of them happening, no matter how small, could not have been infinitesimal. If you want to create our Universe with our laws of physics, our local group, our Sun, our Earth, and every one of us, given all the conditions that existed before the Big Bang, that probability may be very, very small, but it can't be infinitely small. If it were, our model for the conditions that existed before the Big Bang could be ruled out immediately, with no need to gather data or make measurements. Related How Likely Is Your Life? Okay, so we’re trying to imagine a one followed by 2.685 million zeroes. The probability of you existing is one out of that huge number. Now that’s a long shot, folks. Binazir can be way, way, way off and we’re still talking about an unimaginably huge number. Think about it like this: if you were to sit down and write out your predictions for the winning PowerBall numbers week by week for the next fifty years, and dutifully play the assigned numbers every week, and actually win the jackpot every single time…that’s probably more likely than you ever having been born in the first place. Also related Lines Through Time What are some unlikely outcomes we should be working to achieve? Tune in and explore! WT 305-614

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