What's Emerging mid-July 2024
A newsletter on interesting stuff that is emerging around the world so you can think about strategy.
Welcome to our first newsletter of the new financial year (in Australia anyway)
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. He will also continue in his role of Chair with venture philanthropy organisation Social Venture Partners Melbourne that is conducting a wide-ranging strategy review in March (just completed - stand by for news from that). He is also setting up the business plan proposal for a new social enterprise business (we could tell you what it is, but we would have to kill you). 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
(with 9% of people opening it despite it being in the newslettert three times in a row)
The NSA advises you to turn your phone off and back on once a week
There are several ways to protect yourself, the NSA suggests. Paul: I follow most of these, especially using a vpn and not using public wifi. I also give out Porta Power USB blockers as prizes at conferences - they prevent data theft if you are charging through a USB cable, even on a power point. (you can be hacked this way - it is called Juice Jacking)...… 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: The Scenario They Didn't Want
What’s Emerging
110 new languages are coming to Google Translate
From Cantonese to Qʼeqchiʼ, these new languages represent more than 614 million speakers, opening up translations for around 8% of the world’s population. Some are major world languages with over 100 million speakers. Others are spoken by small communities of Indigenous people, and a few have almost no native speakers but active revitalization efforts. About a quarter of the new languages come from Africa, representing our largest expansion of African languages to date, including Fon, Kikongo, Luo, Ga, Swati, Venda and Wolof.........…..Read More
Woolly mammoth genome rebuilt in 3D from freeze-dried skin
Samples taken from a 52,000-year-old mammoth have found its genome frozen in time. It’s believed this occurred after the animal was rapidly freeze-dried by the Arctic air, causing its chromosomes to enter a glass-like state that stopped the DNA from splintering. This made it easier for the researchers to reassemble the structure of its genome, something Dr Olga Dudchenko, the co-first author of the study, describes as ‘game-changing’ for scientists researching extinct animals.........….….Read more
Hybrid sales are outstripping EVs, sounding alarm for emissions reductions
Sales of hybrids are rapidly outstripping those of electric vehicles (EVs), with experts concerned the developing consumer trend will slow the national reduction in transport emissions. Paul: We have a Plug in Hybrid EV (PHEV) which works pretty well for our use. It has a nominal use of 60km range and approximately 90% of our total mileage is done in trips that are either shorter than that or have an option for us to charge at our destination (funnily enough I don’t mind plugging the car in when I visit my dad but it is almost the same as asking him for petrol money). It gets charged from excess solar and a special EV night rate from AGL of 8c/kwh so it is still using some fossil fuels to charge. Our next car will be a fully electric one.......…..Read More
'Brain-in-a-jar' biocomputers can now learn to control robots
Living brain cells wired into organoid-on-a-chip biocomputers can now learn to drive robots, thanks to an open-source intelligent interaction system called MetaBOC. This remarkable project aims to re-home human brain cells in artificial bodies..........…..Read More
Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
UK confirms multiple ships to get laser guns
“The MOD has committed to accelerating DragonFire Laser Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) into operational capability by equipping multiple Royal Navy vessels with DragonFire systems from 2027 and all systems planned to be operational by 2030........……. Read More
Bananas that don’t turn brown? Philippines approves CRISPR-edited fruit, fighting battle to reduce food waste
The reduced browning bananas (TRB011001 and TRB011002) were developed by Tropic Biosciences using the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system. These bananas have the potential to reduce food waste and CO2 emissions equivalent to removing 2 million cars from the road per year.......…..Read more
Scalpers Work With Hackers to Liberate Ticketmaster's ‘Non-Transferable’ Tickets
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
In a first, a solar microgrid will directly power an industrial plant
Titanium Metals Corporation, or Timet, recently began construction on a facility that will melt titanium to be shaped into parts for airplanes and other uses. Just next door, BHE Renewables is preparing to install arrays of solar panels and large battery systems, which will form a solar microgrid that connects to the titanium facility. Both companies are part of Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate run by Warren Buffett......….. Read more
Programmable RNA-guided enzymes for next-generation genome editing
A long-standing aspiration for biologists has been to develop programmable methods to rearrange long DNA sequences in genomes. This capability would allow kilobase-scale DNA sequences to be inserted, inverted, deleted or moved to user-specified genome locations in cells in a single step.……. Read more
New Tembo Tusker electric ute announced for Australia
The cheapest electric ute to date has been announced for Australia, from Dutch off-road specialist Tembo. .……. Read more
Japanese government erases floppy disks from systems as part of tech modernisation campaign
Japan's government has finally eliminated the use of floppy disks in all its systems, two decades after the technology's heyday. Digital Minister Taro Kono announced the long-awaited milestone in his campaign to modernise the country's bureaucracy.Paul: your dialy reminder of how long technologies can persist..........….….Read more
Longitudinal analysis of the lung proteome reveals persistent repair months after mild to moderate COVID-19
At 9 months, quantified radiographic abnormalities resolve in the majority of patients, and yet compared to healthy persons, all showed ongoing activation of cellular repair processes and depression of the renin-kallikrein-kinin, coagulation, and complement systems. This dissociation of prolonged reparative processes from symptom and radiographic resolution suggests that occult ongoing disruption of the lung proteome is underrecognized and may be relevant to recovery from other serious viral pneumonias. Paul: your daily reminder this is not just a cold.......….…Read more.
Life expectancy has dropped in Australia for the first time in decades, a new government report says
For the first time since the mid-90s, Australia's life expectancy has fallen. Australia's population is ageing, and requiring more primary care than ever with more people living with a chronic disease, and spending more time in ill health. A child born in 2020–2022 can expect to live 81.2 years, for men, and 85.3 years for women. A reduction of 0.1 years in both cases...……...… Read more.
Business and Other Tips
Cold weather prompts warning to service gas heaters to avoid house fires, carbon monoxide poisoning
According to statistics from Fire and Rescue New South Wales, 334 fires between 2019 and 2024 were linked to heating systems..… Read more.
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. ..… Read more.
Folio: Days, Weeks, Months
Paul: A detailed post from my friend Stowe Boyd on his note taking system
The ultrastructure of Folio is based on what I call frame rate and frameworks.
By frame rate I am referring to the time dimension of notetaking. For example, Folio relies quite heavily on flows like daily, weekly, and monthly notes to manage projects of various durations. These notes are managed in specific folders organized my timestamps. (Today’s daily note is titled `2024-05-17`, and is found in the folder `/00 journal/2024 daily notes`. The creation of daily notes is handled by the Periodical Notes plugin, but could be located elsewhere and managed through other means.).… Read More
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