Blogs

Universities are smartly banking on the fact that nanotechnology will be both an economic driver and a topic of interest for future students, and are therefore devoting funds to building new facilities and conducting research in the field.

Recently, tech and business luminary Peter Thiel publicly lamented the lack of innovation in Silicon Valley:

As the world enters the next stages of technological revolution, what we are beginning to unravel about the universe is rapidly propelling us to the frontiers of the unknown. Now, and in the years to come, all of our bodies of understanding will be profoundly changed. What we did, what we made, what we believed and what we valued are all undergoing fundamental transformation.

David Spielman, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) resident fellow, spoke to me and THE FUTURIST following a six-year stay in Ethiopia, where he researched agricultural development and farming-related science and technology topics.

The second step toward your personal future involves exploring multiple alternative futures. This is the scenario method, in my opinion the heart of futuring.

Recent reports that China is barreling ahead in its development of supercomputers should give the U.S. considerable cause for concern.

What follows is a sneak preview of Global Foresight Books (GFB). The GFB project was initiated in late 2009 by Michael Marien, founder and editor of Future Survey .

It’s almost time for my big professional meeting—the American Anthropological Association Conference—this year to be held in New Orleans. It’s like any other professional group, really, if perhaps a little scarier (doesn’t the thought of 6000 anthropologists gathered in one place kind of sound scary?). But my problems go beyond this.

Islands are romantic - ideal for lovers, pirates, and vacationers. Surrounded by lapping waves, they've extracted themselves from the sprawling tedium of mainland geography. 18,000 islands currently exist on the planet, but the future will deliver thousands more, in ideal locales. Will volcanic lava and coral growth provide us with this dreamy real estate? No.

Last Thursday, Washington Post children’s sports columnist Fred Bowen joined the many adults who are calling for allowing our children more free play in his article “More Play, less Play Station” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/15/AR201009...).