Signals from the Future
🦾 Bionic muscles for those with mobility challenges
Researchers at ETH Zurich have devised a human-machine collaboration called a "wearable textile exomuscle" that boosts upper body strength and endurance for people with limited mobility. It consists of a vest embedded with sensors, motors, and cables that act as an extra layer of muscles.
🍑 Georgia peaches threatened by climate collapse
Georgia peach trees require a certain number of cold hours each year. But those are becoming harder to find: the state’s warmest consecutive five-year interval was between 2016 and 2020 with 2016, 2017 and 2019 being the warmest years on record. Rethinking our food systems is no longer optional.
🌱 Artificial photosynthesis produces food without using sunlight
Here’s hope, though. Using a two-step electrocatalytic process that converts CO2, H2O, and electricity into acetate, scientists have found a way to bypass the need for biological photosynthesis and create food independent of sunlight. Welcome to the new fossil fuel century.
🤐 Online LGBTQ+ communities stuck in a “digital closet”
The consequences of computational propaganda: in his new book, researcher/professor Alexander Monea shows how social media platforms are censoring, silencing or demonetizing LGBTQ+ social media content creators by removing their posts.
💡 Corporate climate action becoming an employee perk
Early this year, Bank of America employees who had worked at the bank for at least three years and made less than $250,000 were offered $4,000 to help buy a new electric car. The idea isn’t new—cap and trade had a stormy start—but it’s becoming more common, especially in tight labor markets.
Find hundreds of categorized Signals from the Future at Future Factors, IFTF Vantage's proprietary, easy-to-use platform for sharing and synthesizing signals from today that are likely to affect tomorrow's transformations.
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