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What the Future Looks Like: Scientists Predict the Next Great Discoveries - and Reveal How Today's Breakthroughs Are Already Shaping Our World - Paperback | Diverse Reads

What the Future Looks Like: Scientists Predict the Next Great Discoveries - and Reveal How Today's Breakthroughs Are Already Shaping Our World

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Science fact, not science fiction, on the cutting–edge developments that are already changing the course of our future

Every day, scientists conduct pioneering experiments with the potential to transform how we live. Yet it isn’t every day you hear from the scientists themselves! Now, award–winning author Jim Al–Khalili and his team of top-notch experts explain how today’s earthshaking discoveries will shape our world tomorrow—and beyond.

Pull back the curtain on:
  • genomics
  • robotics
  • AI
  • the “Internet of Things”
  • synthetic biology
  • transhumanism
  • interstellar travel
  • colonization of the solar system
  • teleportation
  • and much more

And find insight into big–picture questions such as:

Will we find a cure to all diseases? The answer to climate change? And will bionics one day turn us into superheroes?

The scientists in these pages are interested only in the truth—reality–based and speculation–free. The future they conjure is by turns tantalizing and sobering: There’s plenty to look forward to, but also plenty to dread. And undoubtedly the best way to for us to face tomorrow’s greatest challenges is to learn what the future looks like—today.

ISBN-13: 9781615194704

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: The Experiment - LLC

Publication Date: 04-17-2018

Pages: 240

Product Dimensions: 5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.70(d)

Theoretical physicist, author, and broadcaster Jim Al–Khalili’s numerous other books include Quantum and Paradox. In 2016 he received the inaugural Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication.

Table of Contents

Introduction Jim Al-Khalili 7

The Future Of Our Planet: Demographics, conservation, and climate change

1 Demographics Philip Ball 12

2 The biosphere Gaia Vince 25

3 Climate change Julia Slingo 37

The Future Of Us: Medicine, genetics, and transhumanism

4 The future of medicine Adam Kucharski 52

5 Genomics and genetic engineering Aarathi Prasad 63

6 Synthetic biology Adam Rutherford 75

7 Transhumanism Mark Walker 85

The Future Online: AI, quantum computing, and the internet

8 The Cloud and "Internet of Things" Naomi Climer 100

9 Cybersecurity Alan Woodward 111

10 Artificial intelligence Margaret A. Boden 122

11 Quantum computing Winfried K. Hensinger 133

Making The Future: Engineering, transportation, and energy

12 Smart materials Anna Ploszajski 146

13 Energy Jeff Hardy 156

14 Transportation John Miles 168

15 Robotics Noel Sharkey 178

The Far Future: Time travel, the apocalypse, and living in space

16 Interstellar travel and colonizing the solar system Louisa Preston 190

17 Apocalypse Lewis Dartnell 203

18 Teleportation and time travel Jim Al-Khalili 215

Further reading 225

About the authors 228

Index 235