Civilization has come a long way, and our understanding of the world and the advancements we have achieved deserve admiration. After nearly four billion years of Darwinian evolution, we have created a separate and independent evolutionary logic. Whereas what lived and died used to depend only on natural selection and random mutation, now at least half of what lives and dies is due to human selection. One of the benefits of our evolution is intelligence. In its varied forms powers every opportunity we pursue and every problem we seek to solve. Intelligence is what allows us to create forms of…

The human being presents a paradox. Yes, fragile and vulnerable on one side but capable of development and evolution on the other. We are not entirely at the mercy of our fate but we are also capable of shaping our fate both individually and collectively. This potential for freedom and initiative lives in all of us regardless of our status, socially, racially, cognitively. The human race is amazing. We have created the technology to process zettabytes of information and print in three dimensions. Paraplegics can walk again with the aid of robotic suits, and deaf toddlers can hear for the…

Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) is likely to accelerate global warming, which may smash the agreed Paris target of 1.5°C by as early as 2026. And, the amount of dissolved oxygen contained in the water has been declining for more than 20 years. The break through the 1.5°C barrier negotiated at the Paris conference as early as 2026 if a slow-moving, natural climate driver known as the IPO has, as suspected, moved into a positive phase. The phase of the IPO regulates the rate at which mean temperature approaches the 1.5°C level. A transition to the positive phase would lead to…

Past week: beach, walking, talking, thinking together. Pure bliss. Evening reading/study: a  further dive in to quantum biology. Quantum mind, life on the edge, Alexander Wendt, Feynman, Penrose and Hameroff, McFadden….and the pioneers of quantum physics such as Planck, Bohr, Schrödinger, Pauli (and others). Some physicists suspect that, whether or not consciousness influences quantum mechanics, it might in fact arise because of it. Quantum theory might be needed to fully understand how the brain works. Rethinking from mainstream physics and toward the controversial and notoriously messy interface of biology, chemistry, neuroscience and quantum physics. Taking the quantum revolution in physics seriously….

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is being driven by a staggering range of new technologies that are blurring the boundaries between people, the internet and the physical world. It’s a convergence of the digital, physical and biological spheres. Some call it the fourth industrial revolution, or industry 4.0, but whatever you call it, it represents the combination of technological convergence, cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things, and the Internet of Systems. It’s a transformation in the way we live, work and relate to one another in the coming years, affecting entire industries and economies, and even challenging our notion of what…

Exponential technology growth is transforming the world in ways never seen before, opening up new entrepreneurial opportunities while also causing wrenching socio-economic change. An economy with never seen opportunities, trends and success factors in sectors focusing on the future of the life sciences, artificial intelligence, robotics, big data and cyber security, and the codification of money, markets, and trust. Improvements and convergence in machine learning and neurosciences combined with the availability of massive datasets and the ubiquity of high-performance scalable computing are propelling us into a new age of Artificial Intelligence (AI).  The promise these developments hold is immense. Computing…

Over the course of time I read many books, studied many hours on quantum physics, the quantum potential of waves, the bi-location of particles, the energetic fabric of the universe, and the subjective quality of time and space, …. the biological (spatio-temporal) information-processing ability to weave information together into a coherent experience. The more I learn, the more I’m curious, eager to understand reality. The beauty of Physics is mainly represented by its remarkable capability to understand many fascinating natural phenomena, from the origin of rainbows to the formation of a star, from the blue color of the sea to…

In recognizing the Anthropocene as a new epoch of geologic time, we are confronted with the reality that our societies now directly shape Earth’s functioning. For better and for worse, our planet now changes with us, not apart from us. While for most people times may never have been better, the opposite is true for most other species. There are also strong indications that anthropogenic global changes in climate and biodiversity might derail future prospects for societal development. For example, the costs of climate change adaptation and the loss of wild pollinators might be unbearable burdens for some societies. We…

Entering into a new economic model might take decades, yet signs of resource depletion indicate that we haven’t got years before changing our consumption patterns while protecting our standards of living. The concept of Circular Economy in itself is mind-blowing as it imitates natural cycles through feedback loops at several levels of our current extraction, production and consumption chains. The main objective of a circular framework is the decoupling of our resource intakes versus our thirst for constant economic growth – as returns always need to be higher than the original investment -. Contrary to the linear corporate strategy, where…

Whenever we create new materials that push the limits of what’s possible, we send the world down an entirely new path. We are on the verge of a revolution in materials science: super materials that will eclipse what we once believed were physical limits, create previously unimaginable opportunities, and expand the capabilities of what we already think of as exponential technologies in ways limited only by our imaginations. The materials of the future are already being made in the present. Biomaterials will allow us to build robotic structures out of engineered materials that mimic organic ones. Soft materials that can be activated…