Not long ago, I'm sure you remember gamers used the game "Foldit" to solve the puzzle of the AIDS virus in 10 days, a scientific inquiry that had stumped the brightest of minds for 15 years (http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/09/21/gamers-solve-aids-puzzle/). The entire world was shocked. How did this happen? What other seemingly impossible tasks can be accomplished by looking at old problems in new ways?
Well good sirs and gentle ladies, today I present to you: Science Fiction Alive in the 21st Century!!!!!
No. Really. While I admit that a lot of my information comes to me via my Yahoo and FaceBook Newsfeeds, what is published and shared about scientific progression is usually accurate (and just to make sure that it is, I check it via some lightning-fast Google searches.)
My Top 5 List of Science Fiction IRL (for those who aren't internet literate, that means "in real life")
1) NASA is building warp-drive.
-I am a die-hard trekkie, even though The Original Series was before my time (but it's still the best. Kirk before Piccard!!!) Space engineers are revisiting a paper that was written decades earlier and are finding ways to fix the technicalities that caused the issue to be discarded as nonsense. Insert something intelligent about redesigning the Alcubierre drive to increase the thickness of the negative vacuum energy ring here, but however you put it, we are one-step closer from evolving from a pre-warp civilization into a new age of explorers and relationships. (http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2012/11/27/nasa-is-building-a-real-warp-drive/)
2) Ancient microbes are found, still living, deep within an Antarctic lake.
-What? What is this??? How is this even possible? Nothing can survive for long in those temperatures! Wrong again, apparently. Scientists have discovered microbial organisms (that means really really REALLY small cells) living in water so salty that it couldn't freeze in anaerobic conditions (which means without air). Now, we already knew that plenty of organisms could live without air or sunlight, like the organisms living around the thermal vents on the ocean floor. But to live in water so cold for so long with no apparent source of nutrients is strange, alien even. As scientists continue to study these organisms, it may prepare us for what life on other planets could be like, once we visit them in our warp-drive spaceships! (http://news.yahoo.com/ancient-microbes-found-buried-antarctic-lake-200620910.html)
3) The CEO of SpaceX wants a Mars colony.
-We knew this was coming. As any reader of science fiction will tell you, as Earth reaches its critical population, our civilization is going to have to find somewhere else to live. Resources are limited, any reliable form of media will tell you that. Well now Elon Musk has found a way (doesn't that just sound like a science-fictiony name? An author could do miracles with a name like that). For a mere sum of $500,000 American dollars, you could be one of the first 80,000 people to fly to Mars and begin a new life for people there. While this might not be in the super near future due to ships still being made to be reusable it is definitely something to look out for. (http://news.yahoo.com/huge-mars-colony-eyed-spacex-founder-elon-musk-120626263.html)
4) The Large Hadron Collider has created a new kind of matter.
-Woah. Just woah. Apparently, if you increase the speed at which protons and lead ions race around underneath Switzerland and France, they'll collide into each other and certain particles, termed gluons, will explode of the collision point in correlated directions. This article says that the scientists were not expecting this kind of result from the collisions. No, duh. I'll bet they were just doing what I do on a typical lab day. "Huh," said French scientist Pierre to his Swiss friend and colleague, Arlette, "I wonder what would happen if I did this." "I don't know," Arlette replied as she pushed the buttons, "but it might look cool." (http://news.yahoo.com/atom-smasher-creates-kind-matter-201132904.html)
5) Evacuated Tube Transport (ETT) could theoretically take you from New York to Beijing in 2 hours.
-This one hasn't actually happened yet, but there are advocates who claim that the ETT system is faster, quieter, and cheaper than our current trains, planes, cars, and boats. I will be the first to say that the age-long family car trips taught me a lot about patience and getting along with people even when you're really tired. But ETT has the potential to send medical supplies or important information across the globe in the amount of time it takes to roast a small turkey. That would be cool, wouldn't it? Sending a small roast turkey half way around the world? (http://elitedaily.com/elite/2012/high-speed-travel-tubes-ny-beijing-2-hours/)
Anyway, these are just some of the coolest ones I've come across. If you have any others you'd like to share, leave a link or a description in the comment section below.
Who knows? We may have just entered into a new age of exploration.
Cheers!
http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/2008/08/captain-kirk-and-leadership.html
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