Jim Baen's Universe

What's New in The Future And You

Columns

October 2009

Written by Stephen Euin Cobb

NASA, NIH, USDA and South Korean insiders each answer questions about the trends they see going on around them and what kind of future this will bring to us all. Queries are also put to a leading transhumanist, two geneticists, an agronomist, a professional educator and a former astronaut trainer.

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Recent Guests

Dr. Ben Bova is an award-winning author of more than 115 books of fiction and nonfiction. Former editor of Analog Science Fiction magazine and Omni Magazine, he is President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of SFWA. He has been on CBS Morning News, Good Morning America and The Today Show. He has worked with Woody Allen, George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry.

Timothy C. Mack is President of the World Future Society. He has held research positions at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the US National Academy of Sciences. He has also served on the Budget Policy Task Force at the US General Accounting Office and on the Board of the MIT Enterprise Forum. He assisted the US General Services Agency and the US Department of Defense.

Dr. Diane Mucci, formerly with the National Institute of Health (NIH), is currently a full time professor of biotechnology and has a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry, and Microbiology.

Dr. Young-sook Park (박영숙) is a South Korean diplomat, author, and futurist. President of the Korean Foster Care Association, she is also Chair of the Korean Chapter of the World Future Society; Chair of the United Nation's Millennium Project in Korea; Senior Advisor for the Australian Embassy in Seoul; and a member of the World Transhumanist Association. She has been a teacher, a lecturer, a freelance journalist, and is the author of more than 22 books.

José Cordeiro is a former director of the World Transhumanist Association, and of the Extropy Institute, and of the Venezuela Chapter of the Club of Rome. He is founder and president of the Venezuela Chapter of the World Future Society, co-founder of the Venezuelan Transhumanist Association, chair of the Venezuelan Node of the Millennium Project of the American Council of the United Nations University (UNU) and advisor to the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology.

Stephanie Osborn is a former NASA payload flight controller who has worked on numerous Space Shuttle flights and the International Space Station. As part of her work she trained astronauts. One of those astronauts was Kalpana Chawla. (Kalpana Chawla was one of the seven astronauts who died in 2003 when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during reentry from earth orbit.)

Nathan P. Butler is a professional educator with eight years of classroom teaching experience who holds a “Masters in Education with a Specialization in Integrating Technology in the Classroom.” He is also a groundbreaking podcaster, a mover and shaker in Star Wars Fandom through his work with ChronoRadio and StarWarsFanworks, and for having written an exhaustive thousand-page-long chronology of the Star Wars universe entitled Star Wars Timeline Gold.

Cathy Smith is an insect molecular geneticist with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Gary Shelton is an agronomist with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

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Recent Topics

Why insects have no blood.

The massive chaos the South Korean government is preparing for when Kim Jong-Il (North Korea's dictator) finally dies.

Genetically modified crops we eat today, and the future of our food supply.

The notorious push to use ethanol made from corn to supplement gasoline in automobiles which caused the price of corn around the world to double, producing widespread hunger among people who rely on corn-based foods, such as tortillas.

What happened to cause seven astronauts to die in the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster.

Shooting new DNA into living things using a “gene gun.” (I’m not kidding.)

Why organic farming methods cannot be scaled up to industrial levels sufficient to feed the world.

Famous authors Ben Bova discovered in the slush pile while they were yet unpublished such as Orson Scott Card and Spider Robinson.

Good and bad trends in pest control; genetic and other methods used to increase crop production and the trade offs involved in each.

Why so many South Korean young people are attending college in the U.S. and Europe and, after graduation, are not returning to the land of their birth.

Singularity University's plans for future expansion.

The future of nutraceuticals.

Ongoing research in the genetic control of insects and specifically how genetic methods are used to control insect pests.

Why lasers are the ultimate weapon of defense against incoming missiles, and why the U.S. won't be defended by them until after the Obama Administration is out of office.

Transgenic plants, and safety measures used in genetics labs.

Ben Bova's work advising Woody Allen for the movie Sleeper; anecdotes about his friends Arthur C. Clarke, Harlan Ellison, and Gene Roddenberry; and his work with George Lucas; and the time he was on Good Morning America with Jim Henson, Kermit the frog and (first baseman for the Dodgers) Steve Garvey.

Astronaut training and what it is that a payload flight controller does.

How South Korea's prosperity is threatened by its ongoing population decline, which is greater than that of any other nation.

Space Camp, and how the real thing differs from the movie of the same name.

Joseph Stalin's insistence on building the world's first big rockets (big enough to carry the early nuclear weapons to the other side of the world) and how this prompted John F. Kennedy to proclaim the famous Missile Gap.

Expectations of robots in war and in peace.

How solar power satellites can solve humanity's energy needs.

The struggle schools all around the world are having trying to keep up with the ongoing information revolution, and the success Finland's school system is seeing with a version of Life Long Learning.

High-powered gas dynamic lasers as defensive weapons against incoming nuclear missiles.

Space Shuttle flights and the International Space Station.

The Vanguard Rocket program just before and just after the Russians shocked the United States out of complacency by putting humanity's first satellite into earth orbit.

Anecdotes from behind the scenes at Omni and Analog Magazines.

Extreme human longevity, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and other revolutionary technologies we will likely see.

Why and how the 1973 TV show The Starlost failed from within.

How the internet has changed schools and teaching and students and teachers and homework—even changed what is taught and how it is taught.

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You can learn more about Stephen Euin Cobb here, or here.

And more about his podcast: The Future And You here, or here, or even here.