In part two of Science Fact we’ll look at Health and Agriculture
Two big areas that affect us all an how they are changing/wii change in the near future (for the better)
Heath:
In a previous mail we looked at how bioscience will increase life expectancy to 110 or 120 years within 2 decades (And how that will affect us in the pocket)
In 2017 The Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE was awarded. This contest challenged companies to design and build a “Tricorder” (inspired by Star Trek - remember Dr McCoy’s gadget for health scanning?)
The brief was for a cheap device which works with your phone (as all businesses have to now) It takes a retina scan, a blood sample and analyses your breath)
It then uses this data to analyse 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease
In just a few years everyone on earth will have access to world class medicine at close to zero cost.
IBM’s Watson computer already helps diagnose cancer 4 times more accurately than human nurses
Agriculture:
In the future farmers in the 3rd world will manage their fields using robots costing 100 bucks instead of labouring in them all day long for all their days
Plants will be (are being) grown in air or mist rather than soil requiring far less water
Artificially produced veal is already available and is much cheaper - never mind more humane - than veal from cows
That will free up the 30% of all agricultural space currently used for cows - which also produces a lot of greenhouse gas
Cringy though it may be, insect protein is coming to the market soon. It contains more protein than meat
All this stuff is Exponential - It’s happening faster than anyone could have predicted because thats how computers, Artificial intelligence and automation is driving progress.
It makes a lot of the science fiction I read as a kid seem really old world now!
Next time - Accountants, Lawyers, Doctors beware….
Cheers!
Dave
