What's Emerging end of July 2024
A newsletter on interesting stuff that is emerging around the world so you can think about strategy.
Welcome to our end of July newsletter.
In the next few weeks Paul will continue to work on the strategy implementation consultation process with RSL Victoria. Paul is also working on a scenario and Foresight Forum project with the Professional Standards Authority on the future of the professions and implications for standards and regulation and will be presenting on foresight for practical strategy for The Funding Network and CEO Institute. He will also continue in his role of Chair with venture philanthropy organisation Social Venture Partners He will also fit in some skiing for a week.
If you are interested in talking to us about any of our strategy approaches, foresight approaches, workshops, or conference presentations, please Contact Us.
The Emergent Futures Team
In case you missed it. The most popular link from the last edition
Intermittent fasting plus protein pacing may boost weight loss, gut health
Both the caloric restriction and intermittent fasting and protein pacing diets led to significant changes, but the intermittent fasting and protein pacing group showed greater reductions in total body fat, visceral fat, weight, and desire to eat.
Paul: I commenced a modified version of this diet taking on the protein pacing principles and reduction in carb intake but avoiding some of the detailed ingredients. For example, replacing the commercial protein powder shake with a banana and whey protein shake. Intent was to lose some weight as a general health target and to reduce pressure on an Achilles tendon injury that has troubled me and improve gut health. It has worked really well, and I have lost 3.5Kg in the first four weeks and the great thing is I have hardly felt hungry except during the calorie restriction day/42 hours I have done but even that has been relatively easy. Am now changing to protein pacing every second day plus 42 hours of calorie restriction a week to eat more normally and look to lose a further 3.5 kg over 3 months. Diet details are in the supplementary documents in the Nature publication and please feel free to reach out for more detail on my regimen. Update: doing it every second day does not work as well so switching to week on and week off while increasing exercise levels..… Read more.
What are we Writing About?
Paul presented to the Agriculture Sustainability Summit in May hosted by Ag Minister Murray Watt and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen. He is writing a few posts to expand on the topics. This edition it is: Agriculture Platforms- What are we Really Building?
What’s Emerging
A clean alternative to one of the world’s most common ingredients
C16 Biosciences, founded by MIT alumni, has developed a microbial oil to replace palm oil, whose production reaps environmental devastation........…..Read More
Europe's wolves once again under threat as protections lift
Grey wolves became a "strictly protected" species under 1979's Bern Convention, by which time they were already extinct in France. They began returning in the 1990s. The grey wolf population in Europe had risen to 20,300 by 2023, with 24 countries in the European Union fostering breeding packs........….….Read more
Eligo Publishes a Landmark Study in Nature That Unlocks Genome Editing of Bacteria in the Gut
For the first time, a team of scientists at Eligo has demonstrated it was possible to genetically modify bacteria with nearly 100% efficiency directly in the gut of animals.
This work provides scientists with a novel strategy to better understand how genes from our microbiome drive disease, as well as creates new opportunities for the development of innovative therapies.......…..Read More
AI-powered weather and climate models are set to change the future of forecasting
In a paper published in Nature, a team of researchers from Google, MIT, Harvard and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts say their model offers enormous “computational savings” and can “enhance the large-scale physical simulations that are essential for understanding and predicting the Earth system”..........…..Read More
California eyes central procurement of 2GW of LDES to help scale novel technologies
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has proposed the procurement of over 10GW of new energy resources, including 1GW of multi-day long-duration energy storage (LDES) and another 1GW of 12-hour-plus LDES........……. Read More
Scientists make breakthrough that could protect vital crops against extreme heat and drought
The scientists discovered a genetic mechanism in wild pear trees that allows the plants to tolerate drought. Their findings were published in a study in the scientific journal Horticulture Research. "Our findings reveal a critical regulatory network that wild pears use to combat drought stress. Understanding this mechanism opens up new possibilities for engineering drought-resistant crops, which is vital in the face of increasing climate variability,"........……. Read More
Solar industry sees first projects put on ice as nuclear proposal sows doubt among investors
Political turbulence around the renewable energy debate is making some clean energy investors nervous. Despite reassurances from the federal government, the opposition's nuclear policy has sown some doubt over whether the renewable industry will continue to have Commonwealth policy support over the next several decades. Paul - political instability really increases risk. I worked with an investment bank pre COVID-19 and they said they had left hundreds of millions of dollars off the table in the energy sector in Australia because of the effect the climate wars had on their risk assessments.......…..Read more
Australia’s largest iron ore deposits are 1 billion years younger than we thought
A lawsuit filed in California by concert giant AXS has revealed a legal and technological battle between ticket scalpers and platforms like Ticketmaster and AXS, in which scalpers have figured out how to extract “untransferable” tickets from their accounts by generating entry barcodes on parallel infrastructure that the scalpers control and which can then be sold and transferred to customers. Paul: These things are always arms races and criminal activity is a good source of cutting-edge change.....…..Read more
UN: World’s population is projected to peak at 10.3 billion in the 2080s. Many countries have already peaked
According to the report, in 2024 population has already peaked in 63 countries and territories, including China, Germany, Japan, and Russia........….. Read more
Butter made from CO2, not cows, tastes like ‘the real thing’, claims startup
A California-based startup claims to have worked out a complex process that eliminates the need for the animals while making its dairy-free alternative taste just as good..……. Read more
Australian scientists genetically engineer common fly species to eat more of humanity’s waste
Black soldier flies (BSF; Hermetia illucens) are gaining traction for their ability to rapidly consume large quantities of organic wastes. However, these are primarily used to produce a small variety of products, such as animal feed ingredients and fertiliser. Using synthetic biology, BSF could be developed into a novel sustainable biomanufacturing platform to valorise a broader variety of organic waste feedstocks into enhanced animal feeds, a large variety of high-value biomolecules including industrial enzymes and lipids, and improved fertiliser..……. Read more
Monarch Tractor bags record $133m, eyes global expansion for its all-electric, autonomous machines
The round brings Monarch’s total funding to date to $220 million........….….Read more
Flying Abundance (And Safety) Has Increased Dramatically
Comparing flight prices from 1970 to today reveals a staggering 90.8 percent decrease in the time price of flying, with transcontinental flights now affordable for the average person. Additionally, advancements in aviation technology have made flying dramatically safer today than it was in 1970 and are likely to improve flying safety in the future........….…Read more.
As Sea Levels Rise, Insurance Retreats
When will insurance companies call it quits on New Zealand’s coastal communities?..……...… Read more.
Business and Other Tips
Elon Musk's X may be in breach of Australian privacy law over data harvesting for Grok AI
Read this article to find out how to deactivate them using your data..… Read more.
Google One ‘Dark web reports’ coming to all Google Account holders from late July
“Results about you” lets you find and request the removal of search results that contain your personal information or data while “Dark web report” monitors parts of the web that are ordinarily hard to access for leaks of your personal information including name, address, phone number, and email. Google says that this is a “combined solution” to “help users protect their online presence.”……….Read More
Logical fallacies: Seven ways to spot a bad argument
When people are trying to persuade you, they sometimes reach for underhand tricks like the 'appeal to ignorance' or 'whataboutism' to seem more convincing. Amanda Ruggeri explains how to identify these logical fallacies.……….Read More
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