TWS167.825: 2010 Redictions
CQ: What are your predictions for 2011 (or beyond!) based on TWS stories? Or what stories did I miss in 2010?
The year-end wrap-up show!
Bumper: The Zzipp & Co. Podcast
Promo: How to Grow Your Geek
Promo: Nutty Bites
Promo: Podiobooks
Promo: (sorta) The Wilhelm Scream
On the show this week (with my Redictions):
- LIMIT-PUSHERS
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- Two words: animal piercings. On a Monday.
- World’s largest chicken burger is created. Judges cry fowl!
- Scientists and historians discover the Holy Grail of science, which turns out to be the actual Holy Grail, an ancient alien artifact which humanity
mistook for a cup, but which is actually a sophisticated medical tool. - The hottest calendar at the end of the year will combine two trends, one
an new one and one an ancient one: the roadkill cooking calendar! It will be perfect if and when the world falls apart/has an apocalypse/goes to hell/economic collapse/extreme recycling binge! Get yours today!
- UNEXPECTED FRINGE OBSERVATIONS
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- A major volcanic eruption will cause the revelation of a secret and ancient base of knowledge spanning back millenia. Some of it will be evidence of alien contact, but some of it will show evidence that many great civilizations have come before on this planet. The toll of the volcano will result in the “nearly-the-big-one” California earthquake, and before all of the information in the new cache can be discovered, it sinks below the sea. Never fear, however, as this is the exact scenario that James Cameron has been getting ready for, for years.
- NICE LIFE, IF YOU CAN GET IT
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- An extract-and-return mission will find rough evidence of life on another planet, perhaps Mars or Encaeladus, but it will confuse us even more as the apparent hair strand found seems to show DNA similar to (but not exactly the same as) a human. However, since the mission crash-landed in the middle of a flooded forest, there is belief that it was corrupted by a creature that picked up the sample container and transported it, which explains why the container was found 100kms from the impact site.
- CLOTHESLING
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- We will see the creation of new biofeedback and info-sharing clothes in a competitive venture between Facebook and Google. We will create clothing that mimics our moods and can even map that to expressions, creating a sort of “wearable twitter”. Facebook’s clothing will be the more trendy lines, with full integration with your smart phone enabling you to re-style your clothing with photos from your wall, but Google’s will be open-sourced and feature a small but vigourous community support, allowing you to put together more outfits that seamlessly merge datastreams together. The clothing will also be made of “smart plastic water”, allowing it to form-fit and reshape itself based on program. As a spin-off of all this, the virtual interface projected in light from your clothing will become the newest way to control your smart phone, and as it catches on, it redefines the way that we interact with computers.
- By using lightstrip-clothing inspired by TRON and grown organically and
controlled by small circuit boards, we will build suits which change their strength based on how many friends we have on Facebook, and how many Like’s your Facebook fan page gets. TRON-inspired clothing becomes the biggest rage. The biggest nerd-rage, that is.. - Cardboard fighting league will discover the lightsaber lasers, and flaming cardboard tube fighting league will be born!
- Tattoos made up of small, blood-powered nanomachines and ad hoc networked to communicate to produce changeable luminescent patterns will allow people to literally wear their favourite books on their skin.. Kindle for your skin.
- THIS-INTEGRATION
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- Extreme body-hackers start to integrate new control mechanisms within
their bodies, creating both remote and close-up control over robot prostheses. The rise of the first group of cyber-enhanced soldiers comes out of military experiments, but the individual body-hackers will download the plans from the Internet and extend them in creative, clever — and sometimes scary ways that the military never dreamed of. The shape of the body as enhanced by cybernetics will also be questioned, and someone will figure out how to create a real-life Doc Oc.
- Extreme body-hackers start to integrate new control mechanisms within
Full list of articles after the jump!
- Limit-pushers:
- : AOL News – (O) DEVO’s New Album Is the Cat’s Meow
- : CBS13)/The CW31 – (O) Man Going For World Piercing Record: 2,000 Needles
- : AOL News – (O) Psychic Octopus Has 8 Arms and a 6th Sense for Betting
- : The UK Telegraph – (O) Shakespeare plays ‘helps boost cows’ milk production’
- : The UK Telegraph – (O) Mondays less miserable than Tuesdays, research finds
- (EXTRA) : New Scientist – (O) ‘Fractalist’ Benoît Mandelbrot dies
- (EXTRA) : The UK Daily Mail – (O) Tara was just seven when puberty struck – shockingly, cases like hers are becoming all too common – so what’s to blame?
- : ABC Australia/AFP – (O) Census records 157-year-old woman
- : AOL News – (O) Netherlands Town Claims Tallest Lego Tower
- : Metro – (O) Burger the size of a cow a world record?
- : The UK Independent – (O) After keeping us waiting for a century, Mark Twain will finally reveal all
- (EXTRA) : Orange/Quirky China News – (O) Man pulls plane with his eyelids
- (EXTRA) : BBC – (O) Baby son outgrowing smallest mother
- : Metro – (O) Facebook ‘Boobquake’ group to ‘prove boobs don’t cause earthquakes’
- : Fox News – (O) 7,500 Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls
- : The Wall Street Journal – (O) In California, the Banana Museum Has Lost Its Appeal
- : Orange – (O) Roadkill calendar a surprise hit
- (EXTRA) : Ananova – (O) World’s fattest man reveals diet tips
- (EXTRA) : BBC – (O) Extreme DIY: Building a homemade nuclear reactor in NYC
- (EXTRA) : New Scientist – (O) ET equation estimates number of potential girlfriends
- (EXTRA) : The UK Telegraph – (O) Britain’s first vacuum cleaner museum opens
- : The Guardian – (O) Plato’s stave: academic cracks philosopher’s musical code
- : ScienceDaily – (O) Science Historian Cracks the ‘Plato Code’
- : CNN – (O) Michelangelo hid brain image in chapel, scientists say
- : The UK Telegraph – (O) Men more likely to grant loved one’s wishes at 6pm
- (EXTRA) : The UK Daily Mail – (O) Stonehenge builders ‘used ball bearings to move giant slabs of stone into position’
- Unexpected Fringe Observations:
- (EXTRA) : Discovery News – (O) Fog of War Demystified by Financial ‘Power Law’
- (EXTRA) : The UK Telegraph – (O) Libya’s Col Gaddafi saves Italian village
- : The UK Daily Mail – (O) Remember that ash cloud? It didn’t exist, says new evidence
- : Discovery Online/AFP – (O) Turkish and Chinese explorers claim to have found Noah’s Ark
- : The UK Daily Mail – (O) Ring of fire in the sky: Storm clouds form an astonishing circle at sunset in Hungary
- : LiveScience – (O) No, Really: Earth Is Flat In Most Peoples’ Minds
- : New Scientist/CultureLab – (O) Did Saddam Hussein model himself on Darth Vader?
- : BBC – (O) Mystery of how cats lap is revealed
- : Yahoo!/AP – (O) Mystery visitor to Poe’s grave is a no-show
- : The UK Telegraph – (O) First Americans ‘reached Europe five centuries before Columbus voyages’
- : BBC – (O) Could a rusty coin re-write Chinese-African history?
- : AOL News – (O) Denver Voters Will Decide on Proposed E.T. Affairs Office
- : 9News/NBC – (O) UFO commission will not be created in Denver
- : AP – (O) UN official denies she has role representing Earth
- (EXTRA) : Stuff/The Press – (O) UFO papers to be made public
- (EXTRA) : The UK Guardian – (O) UFOs: the (boring) truth is out there
- (EXTRA) : The UK Sun – (O) 30-year Brit UFO tapes released
- : The UK Telegraph – (O) Almost half of all Britons believe in aliens
- : The UK Telegraph – (O) UFO studies should be ‘legitimate university subject’, claims American professor
- : AOL News – (O) UFO Believers (Perhaps Around the Galaxy) Celebrate Interplanetary Conclave of Light
- : Yahoo!/Reuters – (O) They walk among us: 1 in 5 believe in aliens: survey
- : AOL News – (O) Astronomers Worldwide Forge New Rules for ET Engagement
- : The Big Study blog – (O) Are “They” Friendly?: Hawking says Watch Out!
- : Examiner – (O) Is it wise to contact advanced civilizations?
- : BBC – (O) California ‘protects’ Apollo 11 landing site on Moon
- : CBS News – (O) Mystery Missile Launch Seen off Calif. Coast
- : The UK Telegraph – (O) California missile: is it a bird? No. Is it a plane? Yes. Obviously
- : Irish Times – (O) Ugandan leader wants flight to the moon
- : Science Daily – (O) Our Universe at Home Within a Larger Universe? So Suggests Physicist’s Wormhole Research
- (EXTRA) : Phenomenica – (O) Tunnels on Moon can habitate humans
- : BBC – (O) ‘Much more water’ found in lunar rocks
- (EXTRA) : Space Daily – (O) Experts Discover Heavenly Solar Music
- (EXTRA) : Science Daily – (O) Do Pressures to Publish Increase Scientists’ Bias?
- (EXTRA) : The UK Telegraph – (O) Three-second fish memory ‘a myth’
- (EXTRA) : NPR – (O) Booze-Friendly Hospitals Aim To Ease Patient Woes
- (EXTRA) : JSUR – (O) Journal of Serendipitous and Unexpected Results opens
- (EXTRA) : New Scientist – (O) Top scientists show us their wish lists
- (EXTRA) : STV/Reuters – (O) Scientists hide gold with 3D “invisibility cloak”
- : LiveScience – (O) Running Shoes Changed How Humans Run
- (EXTRA) : Yahoo!/7 News/AAP – (O) Deadly storm creates giant sinkhole
- (EXTRA) : The UK Telegraph – (O) Graham Taylor appointed manager of Monty Python philosophers’ football team
- Nice Life, If You Can Get It:
- : The UK Telegraph – (O) Enceladus: Nasa discovers new evidence that Saturn moon ‘may contain life’
- : BBC – (O) Professor’s alien life ‘seed’ theory claimed
- : New Scientist – (O) If there’s life on Mars, it could be right-handed
- : Space.com – (O) NASA: Claims of Life on Mars ‘Positively False’
- : Discovery News – (O) Template for Life on Mars Found
- : AOL News – (O) Will Proof of Extraterrestrial Life Be Revealed at a Ramada Inn?
- : NASA – (O) Discovery of “Arsenic-bug” Expands Definition of Life
- : NASA – (O) NASA to Hold News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery
- : The New York Times – (O) The Mystery of the Red Bees of Red Hook
- (EXTRA) : BBC – (O) Oriental hornets powered by ‘solar energy’
- (EXTRA) : ScienceDaily – (O) Are Bees Addicted to Caffeine and Nicotine?
- : BBC – (O) Cane toads are evolving into super-invaders
- : The Western Star – (O) Another ‘sea creature’: Mysterious headless marine animal washes ashore
- : STV – (O) Is the Loch Ness Monster dead?
- : STV – (O) New Nessie visitor centre plans revealed
- : Cryptomundo – (O) Breaking News: New Photo of Loch Ness Monster
- : STV – (O) Loch Ness monster: new pictures and sighting of Nessie
- : Cryptomundo – (O) Bald Beast of KI: It’s A Mink
- : Cryptomundo – (O) The Bald Beast of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug
- (EXTRA) : Field and Stream – (O) Please Put Bigfoot on the Endangered Species List
- : ABC News – (O) Bigfoot discovered? Virginia Man Says He’s on Verge of Bigfoot Discovery
- Clothesling:
- : AOL News – (O) Literary Tattoo Lovers Wear Books on Their Sleeves
- : LiveScience – (O) ‘Imaginary’ Interface Could Replace Screens and Keyboards
- : LiveScience – (O) ‘Smart’ Clothing Responds to Wearer’s Emotions
- : The Local Sweden/AFP – (O) Swede plays music from his stomach – ‘sound was bad’
- : Tom’s Guide – (O) Japanese Scientists Create Elastic Water
- : BBC – (O) Wiltshire vicar revives ancient archery law
- : AOL News – (O) Cardboard Fighting League Not Just for Cut-Ups
- : Yahoo!/SKY News – (O) Deadly ‘Star Wars’ Lightsabre Sells On Web
- This-Integration:
- : Ananova – (O) Robot to take over Groundhog Day?
- : AOL News – (O) Man Returns iPad Because He Missed Being Bored
- : New Scientist – (O) Robotic elephant trunk could hang with humans
- : New Scientist – (O) Tongue clicks to control wheelchairs
- : Gizmodo – (O) Is A Prosthetic Tentacle Better Than A Prosthetic Arm?
- : The Times of India – (O) Optical radar gives ‘vision’ to the blind
- : IEEE/Automaton – (O) Monkey Controls Advanced Robot Using Its Mind
- : The UK Telegraph – (O) Japanese scientists develop thought-controlled machines
- : io9 – (O) Man infects himself with a computer virus
- : New Scientist – (O) Lighting up chips gives computers a brain boost
- : BBC – (O) Electric current to the brain ‘boosts maths ability’
- : Orange – (O) Man to fly around the world in his bedroom
- : io9 – (O) Computer program deciphers a dead language that mystified linguists
- : News.com.au – (O) Punchy robot tests Isaac Asimov’s First Law on six men in a laboratory
- : Cosmos Magazine – (O) Robot gets opening night jitters
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