Pulse: Americans foresee high-tech world

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Pulse: Americans foresee high-tech world
A robot does your housework. You take vacations on the Mars colony. Your computer generates art that could have been painted by Pablo Picasso and novels that might have been written by Ernest Hemingway.

      In the next five decades, many Americans believe they will have the kind of technology once relegated to science fiction, according to U.S. Views of Technology and the Future, Science in the next 50 Years, a report by the Pew Research Center and Smithsonian Magazine. But how realistic are the survey’s predictions? Here is the rundown:
  • Custom organ transplants:  81 percent of those questioned believe that within the next 50 years “people needing an organ transplant will have new organs custom made for them in a lab,” the report said.   
      Verdict: Very possible.
      The Associated Press reported April 8 that scientists at an English hospital were attempting to make body parts -- ears, noses and blood vessels -- in a laboratory. Other laboratories are working toward the same goal.
  • The latest digital potboiler:  51 percent said that computers would soon produce not just paintings or drawings, but also novels, music and other works of art. It is interesting to note that 45 percent disagree.
      Verdict: Yeah, it will happen, but you don't have to buy it.
      We know that computers can produce replicas of paintings or drawings -- and original works, as well. It is not difficult to find computer-generated artwork online. 
      But can a computer write a novel?
      Yes, actually, it can. In 2008, a computer in St. Petersburg, Russia, wrote a book based on Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” but done in the style of Japanese author Haruki Murakami, according to The St.Petersburg Times.
      Whether anyone wants to read this stuff is another matter.
  • Beam me up, Scottie: 39 percent of respondents believe mankind will have teleportation, an idea popularized by the television show Star Trek. (But 56 percent say it won’t happen.)
      Verdict: A firm maybe.
      Teleportation isn’t out of the question. A 2009 article in the journal Science reported that researchers at the University of Maryland and University of Michigan had experimented with “teleportation of quantum information between atomic quantum memories separated by about 1 meter."
      So a qualified yes, but no one is going to say the line "Scottie, get us out of here!" anytime soon.
  • Turn down the heat: A few respondents –19 percent – believe that humans will be able to control the weather within the next 50 years.
      Verdict: Hmmm. This is an interesting question.
      Tampering with Mother Nature is controversial, but that hasn’t stopped researchers from trying. There have been ambitious attempts to control the weather. One obvious example is cloud seeding: firing silver iodide, salts and dry ice into the sky to prompt formation of raindrops.      
      One researcher believes hurricanes could be stopped by flying supersonic aircraft in concentric circles around a hurricane’s eye. The sonic boom generated would disrupt the upward flow of warm air that creates a hurricane, according to the magazine Popular Science. 
  • Space colonies:  Respondents had little confidence in space exploration. Only 33 percent believe humans will have long-term space colonies within the next 50 years.
       Verdict: It probably depends on funding.
       Space fanatics, students, professors and NASA officials met in Washington April 22 for the Humans 2 Mars Summit 2014. Separately, Mars One, a not-for-profit organization, has been planning its own privately funded Mars colony, and more than 100,000 people across the globe have applied to take part.
       To be sure, scientists caution that they are still learning about the impact of long-term space flight on the body. It is also true that scientific efforts can fall victim to budgetary shortfalls. But if businesses determine that they have an economic interest in space exploration, pack your bags for the red planet.

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