News of the week selected by Impactscool – August 5th
5 August 2019 | Written by La redazione
The most important news about future and technology selected by Impactscool team
Overshoot day: we have exhausted this year’s resources
The amount of resources on our planet are not infinite, of course, some regenerate over time, but the speed with which we consume them has long since surpassed that in which they are renewed. The day this happens, every year, is called Overshoot Day. In 2016 it took place on 8 August, last year the first of the same month, this year with another two days in advance. With the current consumption of resources, we would need 1.75 Earth planets a year to avoid going into debt. The calculations to determine when the Overshoot Day falls include resources such as the amount of water, land and forests we use, the amount of fish caught, as well as the amount of CO2 we are pumping into the atmosphere, basically, it is a measure of our ecological footprint. In this context, Italy is not among the most virtuous countries, on the contrary: to satisfy the needs of its citizens it would take 4.7 Italy.
It’s called Airbusinesscard and it’s an all-Italian startup that has created a device, a bracelet, that is able to send virtual business cards between two people when they shake hands. Virtual business cards exchanged through bracelets flow into a database that can be consulted via email or via an app. The bracelet will be provided in the first phase of testing, with the temporary rental formula, as a service to organizations that host or organize fairs, conferences or networking events.
Japan, research on human-animal hybrids has been approved, but that’s not what you think
When we talk about chimeras we think of mythological monsters, a fusion of different animals, but in the search chimeras are something different, less disturbing and that could save lives. Japan has approved a research line that will allow human stem cells to be implanted in animal embryos, for now, laboratory mice that are unable to develop a pancreas, in order to grow them with a human pancreas. The goal is to be able to develop a way to grow human organs inside animals like pigs. In this way, we would meet the ever-increasing need for organs to be transplanted. “I don’t think it would be morally worse than the way we raise pigs for meat,” said Carolyn Neuhaus, an ethics expert at the Hastings Center. The issue is delicate and obviously open to debate, considering also the voice of people who actually need transplants, what is certain is that we will not find ourselves in front of pigs or other animals with a human aspect.
Planetary Society’s LightSail is a success
Often space exploration is compared to the exploration of the seas, space is seen as a new great ocean and it seems appropriate that a way to navigate it is thanks to the use of sails. Solar sails in this case. The wind, in fact, constantly emits a stream of charged particles (including photons) that can be used to push a spaceship. And this is exactly what the Planetary Society has shown: its LightSail2, a small probe equipped with a very large and very light sail capable of collecting this wind and exploiting it to get thrust. The solar sail has in fact raised its orbit by almost 2 km in a week without any propulsion system onboard. A prototype that has shown that the solar wind can be exploited to move in space.
