Strange Future Roundup 1

Starting a new feature post today: Strange Future Roundup... I'll post several things I find interesting as opposed to the usual one topic.

First up: The Ratborg

My favorite cyborg engineer, Kevin Warwick is at it again. I've been very interested in his recent creations using brain cells to make 'artificially' intelligent robots. I say 'artificially' because they're not really artificial at all. They're natural rat brain cells they just live in a robotic body. This technology is very exciting because it means we could potentially host 'brains-in-a-jar' and give them bodies... or at the very least make really cool robotic robots.

Second up: Jet Drill

Apparently the goal of this is to bore down to where there is magma so we can create lots of geothermal hotspots for energy. This is in so many science fiction movies I can't even think of them all. Hopefully we won't break the planet apart or anything... since y'know... this is the only planet we have.

Third: The Prosthetic Limbs

One of my friends from college wants to get into this line of work. She once said she wants to create prosthetic limbs so good that "normal people will want to chop off their limbs to get one."
This video is actually very exciting. Just look at those freakin' robot arms! SEXY!
Of course I doubt those limbs are very strong... and of course without the ability to sense where your limb is or any sense of touch at all it's gotta feel a bit like you're controlling a puppet arm. But hell... this is an amazing step!

all found on Technovelgy

Anti-Matter Reactors

Apparently, a lab in California recently discovered a way to make massive amounts of antimatter. The antimatter is a significant enough amount that using the technique, they expect they will be able to finally begin making great strides in antimatter research.

Antimatter reactions release tons of energy, and just a tiny bit can release energy equivalent to giant nuclear weapons. So far I don't think we know how to tap that energy but now we can cheaply create enough to do some experiments on.

In the future, a single anti-matter reactor could power entire countries. And since antimatter destroys itself during the process and turns into regular matter, clean up is easy. We could have just stepped into the greatest clean-energy source in the universe.

Cool.

Anti-Matter Chernobyl

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