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Blogging the future

In an interview on the Italian television program, Che Tempo Che Fa, Italian neurologist and Nobel Prize winner Rita Levi-Montalcini talks about the brain and the importance of helping others. What do these two topics have to do with one another? According to Rita Levi-Montalcini, we can control our actions and emotions by using a different part of our brain.

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Italian neurologist, Rita Levi-Montalcini, in an interview with Italian journalist and television anchor Fabio Fazio, states that “progress and research must continue; you cannot lock up the brain”. What would lead this prestigious representative of the international scientific community to talk about the brain and the need for altruism?

Rita Levi-Montalcini was born in 1909 in Turin, Italy. Although her father believed that women should not pursue careers, Rita graduated summa cum laude from the University of Turin Medical School in 1936, and then completed a degree for specialization in neurology and psychiatry in 1940. She received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery with colleague Stanley Cohen of Nerve growth factor (NGF). Since 2001, she has also served in the Italian Senate as a Senator for Life.

Her intellectual curiosity is not limited to the study of scientific theory; she has also always been interested in changes in human society. Her research is not conducted simply out of scientific interest. She also has a strong belief and message for our future: it is fundamental for people, from a scientific point of view, to have an objective that includes helping out those who do not have the privilege of belonging to the scientifically and technologically elite.

Rita discovered that man is born gregarious, because he is guided by the part of the brain that is dominated by the limbic lobe, which is characterized by emotion. But what are the implications of this observation? Our actions, which come from the emotional part of our brain, can result in harmful consequences. Therefore, behaviors derive from primitive impulses. Her conclusion is that we can use our neocortex to offset these behaviors. In other words, our future can be changed. We must strive for the control and usage of the neocortex instead of the limbic system, in order to control our actions and behaviors.

Our future can be found in our brain.

More Info:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_QB_5MQCCk&NR=1

According to economist Alex Tabarrok, new ideas will feed the world through globalization. At a TED event, Tabarrok explains how a global market can increase the incentive to produce new ideas, which in turn will drive growth and prosperity.

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“One idea, one world, one market.”

Free trade and globalization are definitely not new discussion topics. They are, however, ways in which we can turn the world into a prosperous community. At a TED event, economist Alex Tabarrok assures the audience that the “best is yet to come” through idea-sharing and globalization. Tabarrok is the co-author of the hit economic blog, MarginalRevolution.com, as well as the Director of Research for the Independent Institute. Tabarrok’s interest in economics, law, and public policy, has helped him brainstorm ways in which we can feed the world with new ideas.

The equation is relatively straightforward: new ideas drive growth. While an apple can feed one person, an idea can feed millions. In order to produce new ideas, people need to increase the incentive to create these designs. Tabarrok asks, how do we maximize the incentives? The answer is globalization; larger markets generate larger profits.

Tabarrok believes that ideas are meant to be shared. As more countries became wealthier due to globalization, it would allow for more idea creators, such as scientists and engineers. For far too long the United States has been the leader of ideas; if more people worldwide had the ability to generate new ideas, we could increase the number of idea creators and ideas could be shared by everyone.

The world must become more globalized in order to generate and share ideas. Through free trade and a global market, the world could become healthier and more prosperous than anyone could have imagined.

More Info:

• http://www.ted.com/talks/alex_tabarrok_foresees_economic_growth.html
• http://www.marginalrevolution.com

Anti-assault spray or self-defence methods are common ways of defending oneself from physical attack. Now, however, there is another way of keeping safe: the No-Contact Jacket, a jacket that sends electric shocks to avoid any type of physical assault. While the wearer won’t feel anything because of the rubber lining on the inside, the assailant will feel a shock such as one that would come from an electrical socket. The No-Contact Jacket, designed by MIT researcher Yolita Nugent and her boyfriend Adam Whiton can help people everywhere.

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More Info:

• http://www.no-contact.com
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOE71e8e5pE

Dennis Odin Johnson has been designing, manufacturing and building environmentally green homes and dome homes since 1971. His company, Natural Spaces Domes, is one of the leading manufacturers of geodesic dome homes in the world. During his nearly 40 years of building domes, one of his major focuses has been educating and promoting the green aspect and environmental sustainability of dome homes as well as all home designs in general.

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What exactly is a Dome Home? In an interview with Planet Green TV, architect and designer, Dennis Odin Johnson, reshapes our idea of a home. Located in North Branch, Minnesota, Bear Creek Dome is “energy efficient and gives you the most amount of space for the least amount of material”. For more than 30 years, Natural Spaces Domes has been building “green” dome homes that provide both the comfort of a normal home, as well as the satisfaction of helping keep the earth clean.

Bear Creek Dome, beyond having a unique shape, is more functional than a normal box home. Based on the geodesic dome, made popular in the 1950′s, Bear Creek Dome is 49-feet in diameter, and the spherical design of the home provides enough strength to withstand earthquakes and 200 mph winds. The Dome Homes are cleaner and healthier for the environment and humans alike. The dome shape uses 60% less structural material than a box home. Homes made by Natural Spaces are energy efficient, and all of the building materials used are as natural as possible. Dome homes are also healthier for families, as the panels are toxin and draft-free.

Best of all, Johnson points out that people don’t have to give up any comforts or luxuries that come with living in a normal home. Bear Creek Dome is actually quite spacious despite its appearance. The Dome has enough room for multiple bedrooms, a large kitchen, living room, dining room, office, and an entertainment area.

Nowadays, people are readily choosing to drive environmentally friendly vehicles, and wear “green” clothing, so it’s seem natural for eco-friendly homes to be the next step. We would be giving up little, if anything, if all new homes were built in this fashion, plus we would be ensuring that something is being done to preserve our environment for future generations to come. Dennis’ philosophy is rather revolutionary: if we invest in a greener existence today, we will live better tomorrow.

More Info:

• http://www.naturalspacesdomes.com/
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dZVIBhKqWc

At a TED conference, Jamais Cascio, the co-founder of WorldChanging.com discusses how we can solve the world’s problems with effective tools and ideas. Cascio believes that as long as we can see and understand the impact of our actions, we can work towards a better future.

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Jamais Cascio is helping us find ways to solve our world’s problems. At a TED conference in Monterey, California, Jamais Cascio, discusses his website, WorldChanging.com, the award-winning website dedicated to finding and calling attention to models, tools, and ideas for building a better future. As the co-founder of this website, he explains how problems such as the planet’s environment, global development, and international conflicts can be solved using tools and ideas that are outlined on his site.

The website has over 4,000 tools and ideas, such as energy efficient homes and vehicles, which we could easily put into practice today. According to Cascio, we can build a better world because we have all of the necessary things: tools, knowledge, and motive. We have the means and the capability to solve global problems, as well as good reason to do so.

While successful responses are possible, Cascio believes that one of the most important steps is to make the invisible visible. If people are able to see and understand the impact of their actions, it will lead to change. If we can easily see what impacts (whether positive or negative) we are making on the world, maybe it will be easier for us to solve our current environmental problems.

More Info:

• http://www.openthefuture.com
• http://www.worldchanging.com
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPhuj-W8kyE

“Thirty years later, the Gaia theory is almost universally accepted, and it forms much of the basis of our current understanding of global warming.” At the annual conference for the Direct Marketing Association, Richard Branson discusses the challenges that an innovative idea must face before being accepted.

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Richard Branson was only 22 years old when he founded Virgin Records. Today, he is one of richest men in the world. His ideas are always original and innovative, and although many of them have been criticized by the general public, they have led to huge successes. It seems that his determination and his ability to sense a good business idea are two qualities that Branson was born with. These talents were even noticed by his teachers; his dean even told his parents one day: “Richard’s has two possibilities in life; he will either end up in jail, or become a millionaire.”

As it turns out, Branson did not end up in jail. But his best ideas, before they were understood and accepted in world market, had to face long and arduous roads, as well as face the skepticism of the masses.

At the annual conference for the Direct Marketing Association, Richard Branson talks about the history of a great idea, a theory that waited three decades to be taken seriously.

Branson introduces the audience to the Gaia Theory, a theory formulated in 1979 by the young scientist James Lovelock. The theory was about global warming, and today could be seen as a prophecy. According to Lovelock, the planet is a living and unique organism, a biological cell that reacts to all of the external stimuli. The Earth’s wellbeing is contrasted by the harmful elements that are introduced. According to the Gaia Theory, the Earth’s overheating, caused by the harmful gasses that are produced by mankind, would lead to Earth’s inevitable reaction to these changes. The reaction would occur in the form of global cooling, and possibly lead to another ice age.

Thirty years later, scientists all around the world are finding Lovelock’s hypothesis to be plausible, if not scientifically sound. Only now are they taking his findings seriously. During the years in which Lovelock was introducing the world to his hypothesis, Richard Branson was occupied with his own ideas. Branson himself fought hard to prove to the world that a nonconforming young man, who hated the formal jacket-and-tie lifestyle, would someday become one of the most brilliant minds in the United Kingdom.

What does Branson’s empire have to do with Lovelock’s theory? In reality, not much. However, one of the most important aspects of both ideas lies in the fact that not all innovative ideas are accepted immediately. In fact, it may take years for society to accept an idea. The important message is to never stop dreaming and creating.

More Info:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDk8QmoaS_s

At an EG (Entertainment Gathering) conference, Kevin Kelly shares a fun statistic: The World Wide Web, as we know it, is only 5,000 days old. Now, Kelly asks, how can we predict what’s coming in the next 5,000 days?

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“The Internet is only 5,000 days old…”

Did you know that there are 2 million emails sent per second? How about the fact that there are 100 billion clicks on the internet per day? Today, people are all, for the most part, always connected to the web, whether through a computer or a cell phone. However, for the most part very few of us spend much time thinking about the never-ending supply of information and opportunity that the web actually represents.

Kevin Kelly, the executive editor at WIRED magazine, points out that most people have accepted the Internet into their lives without any doubt or hesitation. The web is an example of how people come to accept the seemingly impossible. Continuing with this idea, he believes that what is even more interesting is what is to come in the next 5,000 days. If we have been able to come this far in such little time, what marvels will evolve in the years to come? Kelly points out that if anything, the web has taught us that we need to get better in believing the impossible. Fifteen years ago, no one would have believed what we are now able to accomplish with the click of a button. In merely 5,000 days, we have constructed a single global machine through the web. All of the devices that we use (computers, cellular phones, etc.), are simply access points through which we enter into this enormous global net.

This theory, in which the Internet is seen as a super computer and a super brain, is becoming more common: Kelly looks beyond this theory in anticipation for the future. The presence of this super brain is evident everywhere; we are constantly connected.  And it can only be assumed that the web will continue to evolve and improve. In the future, the Internet will not be solely an enormous database. Instead, Kelly sees a symbiotic relationship forming between man and the web. All of us will become an extension of this mega brain.

What could be the implications of such a phenomenon?

The next 5,000 days of the Internet will not simply be better, but different. For example, perhaps the Internet will no longer passively supply information, but also give it a value or significance. I would like to propose an alternative ending to Kelly’s argument: although in the future machines will be able to solve all of our problems, the critical capacity still comes from man. The Internet can continue to exist for the next 5,000 days, but without man, it stands for nothing.

More info:

• http://www.kk.org/
• http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html

The key to our future and to the development of future generations is the energy revolution. We have to reconstruct the present so that our children will be able to see their future. These are important words, from the President of the United States himself, about our future. Although the video is fake (made by Greenpeace for the launch of their Energy Revolution campaign), it is moving nonetheless.

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In the video that I have chosen for you today, a young President of the United States speaks in front of an attentive audience. He wishes for a different future, and declares his wish to make his country the leader of this evolution. He speaks about the environment. Is it President Barack Obama? No. It is President John F. Kennedy, who, more than 50 years ago, outlined the central theme of today’s global politics: the defense of the environment, and the vision of an energy revolution. Or at least it seems that way.

The altered video was created by Greenpeace for the launch of their Energy [R]evolution campaign. But Greenpeace’s words, which they attribute to President Kennedy, are moving. I leave this message with you: these words deserve some reflection for the time that we have wasted, and for the time that we cannot waste. We need responsible Heads of States with a vision. Today, now, soon.

More Info:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPfM5_g8BIo

In an interview at the Symposium on Technologies for Social Action in Malaga, Spain, Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter, talks about how his technology inspires people to act, and how it will improve communication in the future.

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In an interview conducted at the Symposium on Technologies for Social Action, Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter, explains how this technology helps engage people like never before: “I’m excited about technologies like this can do for getting more citizens into the conversation.” Twitter, which was created about three years ago, already has 18 million users, and is projected to have over 25 million users by the end of 2010. Where did this simple, yet innovative idea come from?

Jack Dorsey, deemed one of technology’s “best and brightest” by BusinessWeek, got the idea for Twitter from his interest in dispatch routing. After years of working as a dispatch programmer, Dorsey used the concept of instant messaging to create a new and instantaneous way for people to connect with one another. Now the chairman of Twitter (he was the CEO until October 2008), Dorsey believes that Twitter is as successful as it is because the sharing aspect engages people and inspires people to act.

Twitter, as Dorsey puts it, is only the sum of the people that use it, and that its social movement has been organically created by the users themselves. Not only does the technology allow a large number of people to interact, it changes the structure of the culture by allowing people to speak their mind and engage in public action. In today’s cosmopolitan society, it is that much more important to stay connected, and through Twitter’s simplistic style, Jack Dorsey has brought people closer together.

More Info:

• http://www.twitter.com
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w9RYpAmnOc

During his campaign for presidency, President Barack Obama talks to YouTube News Editor Steve Grove about his technology and innovation platform. According to President Obama, technology should be integrated into American government in order to enhance democracy.

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In a YouTube interview, conducted by YouTube News Editor Steve Grove on November 14, 2007, back when President Barack Obama was still the Senator of Illinois, explains how important technology is for the American government. According to President Obama, “technology really gives us the opportunity to make progress that we haven’t seen in a very long time.” During his campaign for presidency, President Obama utilized technology to enhance his campaign and gain notoriety through his own YouTube channel, MySpace profile, and personal website. As the Senator of Illinois, President Obama stressed the importance of connecting directly with the people; in fact, he had over 15,000 policy ideas submitted to his website from average voters.

Why is technology so important to a campaign or to a government? President Obama doesn’t see technology as something separate from other issues. Instead, he sees technology as a tool to help solve other problems such as health care and education. Furthermore, technology allows the government to be more transparent, and more accessible to the average American. One of President Obama’s best attributes is his ability to use modern trends and technologies to his advantage. If the goal of a campaign is to reach the most people possible, why not use all that technology has to offer?

In the interview President Obama talks about his future plans for the American government, such as implementing a Chief Technology Officer, and conducting online chats directly with the American people. Although some of these ideas have not yet become a reality, President Obama raises many significant points about technology. His willingness to use technology in order to achieve other goals illustrates how science and technology actually play important roles in public policy.

More Info:

• http://www.barackobama.com
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziSsCXx7JeM