Future tech: 8 amazing scientific and technological advances on the horizon--made by mixing hefty parts of human ingenuity with the freedom to employ it.

Every age has its pessimists. The '60s had Rachel Carson and her overblown manifesto Silent Spring, which foretold of the poisoning of the planet by man. The '70s were influenced by the radical ideas of Paul Ehrlich, whose 1968 book The Population Bomb envisioned "hundreds of millions of people" starving to death in the next decade. Neither author's vision of disaster came true. Despite their spectacular failures, both Carson and Ehrlich remain heroes of many environmental doomsayers. Perhaps more stunning still is the fact that the enduring mythos of impending doom that they and others like them created retains its potency in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The myth of doom is a triumph of perception over reality.

That perception has run rampant in the 21st century, and not without reason. The expected disaster at the turn of the century, Y2K as it was known, failed to materialize, but the horrible attacks of 9/11 confirmed for many that the new century would be one of disaster and tragedy. To some extent, this view can be said to have been vindicated, with the war on terrorism and its attendant attacks on long-cherished freedoms, the disastrous hurricane season, the great Asian tsunami, and economic turmoil repeatedly grabbing headlines and attention. There is even a new "Ehrlich" on the scene. In The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, author James Howard Kunstler argues that the world is going to run out of oil and, as a result, society is going to crumble. "There will be a substantial interval of trouble like nothing we have ever seen before in the United States," Kunstler said in an interview, summing up his bleak outlook on the future.

Is such pessimism really justified? The disasters that have occurred so far have been on the local or regional level. They have been horribly damaging to lives and properties in the regions in which they occurred, but they have not been the paradigm-shifting harbingers of doom that the pessimists, like Kunstler, continually warn about. In fact, so far the pessimists have been 100 percent wrong 100 percent of the time.

The fact is that since the close of World War II the world has been experiencing an age of progress that is nearly unequaled in human history. More people have more food, more shelter, more access to medical care, more access to transportation, to education, and to technology than ever before. Of course, problems remain to be solved and progress is yet to be made in a number of areas. But advances since World War II--leading to such marvels as the Internet, personal computing, and synthetic materials, to name but a few--have allowed millions to live in greater comfort and dignity than ever before. The lesson of the last 50 years is that the future is brighter than the naysayers will have people believe as technology allows people the chance to enjoy and pursue other endeavors, including what is truly important. Looking forward, then, here are eight major areas in which rapid technological advance will improve the way people live.

1 Life Expectancy 

The current life expectancy in the United States is 77.6 years. This is a remarkable number. Even as recently as 100 years ago, life spans in the United States were remarkably lower than they are now. According to economists Stephen Moore and Julian Simon, "In 1900 the average life expectancy in the United States was just under 50 years." This figure is, of course, based in part on statistics stemming from the formerly high rates of infant mortality experienced even in the United States. Nevertheless, it also reflects deficiencies in diet, sanitation, work conditions, and healthcare that have been improved over time.

So, have we reached the limits of life expectancy? In 2002, researchers Jim Oeppen and James W. Vaupel argued in the pages of Science magazine that the answer is no. They pointed out that "experts have repeatedly asserted that life expectancy is approaching a ceiling: these experts have repeatedly been proven wrong."

In the near future, gains in life expectancy will come through an improved understanding of biology. Scientists are now studying intriguing genetic possibilities. In one study, Cynthia Kenyon, at the University of California in San Francisco, found that by altering the function of one gene, the life span of a species of roundworm could be increased from the usual two weeks to a month.

Another study with roundworms found that certain anticonvulsant drugs had a substantial impact on life expectancy. The drugs lengthened the life of the worms by up to 50 percent. The research has fueled speculation that there soon may be drugs available that could have related life-extending effects in humans. "What's very encouraging is that these drugs were developed to treat humans, and they are well understood," said Kerry Kornfeld, a geneticist.

These discoveries come on the tail of research from 2001 pointing to genes located on the fourth chromosome in humans that play a role in extending life. But for researchers studying aging, there is still much left to learn. "Somehow ... neural activity seems to regulate the aging of all of the body ... the skin, musculature, and reproductive tract," Komfeld told National Geographic. "Somehow the nervous system coordinates the progress of all these tissues, evidently, through the life stages. But we don't know how it does that." Nevertheless, as science begins to uncover the hidden control mechanisms behind aging, it is likely that rapid advances in life expectancy will be the norm.

2 Regenerative Medicine

According to the American Heart Association, there are almost 500,000 deaths from heart attacks each year in the United States alone. Some estimates indicate that as many as 6.5 million Americans suffer from angina or chest pain stemming from heart disease. Currently, heart disease is treated by drugs or, in more serious cases, with bypass surgeries and angioplasties. In the worst cases, heart transplants may extend life. These treatments may soon be supplemented with or supplanted by a new, innovative technology.

Tissue engineers are now growing and testing heart "patches" that someday soon could be used to repair damaged heart tissue, essentially returning the heart to pre-heart attack functionality. According to HealthDay reporter E.J. Mundell, the patches are grown in a "cardiac environment inside a special tissue-growing chamber called a bioreactor." Of course, much work remains on techniques to implant such patches within the heart, but some trials in animals on aspects of the problem are already underway. Perhaps in the next decade, say scientists, damaged tissues will be replaced by custom-grown replacements.

The most exciting part of the research into regenerative therapies is the prospect that future regenerative treatments could focus on causing damaged tissues to repair themselves in the body. "Conventional, chemically-based drugs serve mostly as temporary supports for the body's failing chemistry," says William A. Haseltine, chairman and CEO of Human Genome Sciences, Inc. "They usually do not repair what is wrong. Ira patient with a tendency to depression stops taking medication, for example, the depression returns. Nor do chemically based drugs regenerate injured or worn tissues. Regenerative medicine, by contrast, has the potential to cure disease, because it can bring about long-lasting changes in the body."

3 Energy

It may seem counterintuitive to list energy among a list of reasons to be optimistic for the future. The conventional wisdom is that energy supplies are dwindling while demand is rising, creating a condition in which a serious social and economic dislocation is unavoidable, if not actually imminent. Nevertheless, as The New American has pointed out in the recent past, there is plenty of oil to go around (see "Our Energy Future" in our April 4, 2005 issue). Estimates of oil in the world's proved reserves range from 1.025 trillion barrels (2002 U.S. estimate) to 1.15 trillion barrels (2003 British Petroleum estimate). This is enough oil to last as much as 40 years. And it does not include oil resources that are not now classified as "proved reserves," but could become available for development due to technological development and changing economics.

It is not just oil that is in abundance. Coal abounds in the United States and can be burned much more cleanly now than in the past, making it, once again, a very viable resource for the generation of electricity. U.S. coal reserves are large enough to meet current demand for coal for the next 200 years.

Despite their abundance, there is increasing demand for these traditional fuel resources, stemming from increased demand for energy. This demand-rich environment is stimulating development of other energy technologies. Interest in nuclear energy abroad has remained strong, but with higher prices for traditional fuels, interest is again growing in the United States.

Other energy technologies are close to reality. Innovation in gasoline-fueled power systems has brought the first hybrid gas-electric cars to market. As fuel prices increase, demand for these efficient vehicles will rise, spurring further investment in developing advances to the technology. Fuel cells too, though still needing further development, will eventually come to play a larger role in both industrial and consumer use. General Motors, for instance, has moved aggressively to bring fuel-cell technology to market, not only in its cars, but also in energy generation systems for industry. As the technology matures--and it is still in its infancy for commercial applications--it will likely have a broad impact on several economic sectors.

4 Personal Fabrication 

One of the emblematic scenes from Star Trek is of crew members nonchalantly requesting food or drink from the "replicator." In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Picard, for instance, is frequently asking for "tea, Earl Grey, hot," which then miraculously appears in a white china cup atop a matching saucer. This exact type of personal fabrication is still very much in the realm of fiction, but something bearing a certain likeness to this is already having an impact in industry and, according to some, will eventually come to be commonplace even in the home.

In industry, rapid prototyping technology is changing the way in which businesses create models of future products and produce items with intricate geometrical designs. Formerly the preserve of Computerized Numerically Controlled (CNC) machining, rapid prototyping is now a real alternative. In this process, a product is built from layer after layer of bonded material. In a sense, it is a bit like having an ink jet printer print layer after layer of the same design over the same space. Eventually the layers build up into an object.

In fact, a smaller, sometimes desktop version of rapid prototyping known as 3-D printing has become available, offering "printed" three-dimensional output in color. The next step is to make consumer goods using such technology.

Scientist and engineer Neil Gershenfeld is the director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms. In his 2005 book entitled Fab, he notes that 3-D printing and rapid prototyping have tremendous potential. "The final frontier in rapid prototyping is to introduce functional as well as structural materials, in order to print complete working systems," Gershenfeld writes. "Powders and plastics that conduct electricity can be used to print wires, there are printable semiconductors that can be used to deposit logic circuits, motors can be made with magnetic materials, combinations of chemicals can store energy.... Printable inks containing each of these types of materials have been developed and demonstrated in the laboratory. Integrating all of them into a printer is the most promising route toward making one machine that can make anything."

It may seem far-fetched, but impressive real-world applications using this technology are right around the corner. Engineer Behrokh Koshnevis at the University of Southern California, for instance, has developed a giant "printer" that can print houses and other buildings using concrete. "It's much like printing on paper," Koshnevis told Popular Science last year. "But unlike an inkjet print head that just moves sideways, our nozzle can move in all directions." We may still be some distance from hot, replicated Earl Grey tea, but custom-printed shoes and even houses and office buildings may be just around the digital corner.

5 Civilian Space Exploration

Government has had a virtual chokehold on space ever since the Soviets launched Sputnik. There have been two fascinating developments that seem to indicate that this government monopoly may be challenged in the 21st century.

The first of these developments was the capture of the $10 million X Prize in 2004 by SpaceShipOne, the privately funded and built rocket ship produced by Burt Rutan's company, Scaled Composites. With astronaut Brian Binnie at the controls, SpaceShipOne, nominally an airplane, reached a record high altitude of 367,442 feet. The previous record was 354,300 feet, set by U.S. Air Force pilot Joseph Walker during experimental flights with the X-15 rocket plane in 1963.

Though SpaceShipOne is not a space shuttle, it does seem to be the machine that will inaugurate the beginning of serious civilian space flight. On July 27, 2005, Scaled Composites President Burt Rutan and Virgin Group founder Richard Branson announced the formation of a new business venture to build and fly civilian space vehicles. A press release from Scaled Composites indicated that the new Spaceship Company "will manufacture the new launch aircraft, spaceships and support equipment and market them to spaceline operators, including the launch customer, Virgin Galactic."

Branson is serious about space, and Virgin Galactic is a serious business. Last December the company signed a deal with the state of New Mexico to build a spaceport in the state. The venture is going to cost New Mexico $100 million (one wonders why taxpayers should foot any part of this bill), but Virgin Galactic, as part of the deal, has agreed to lease the spaceport for 20 years. It is also planning on locating its world headquarters there. The company will initially operate five space planes designed by Rutan and built by the Spaceship Company.

Not only may it be possible to get into space soon, but there may actually be somewhere to go once you've reached space. Robert Bigelow, owner of Budget Suites of America hotels, has invested $500 million in developing a commercial space station. The project is quietly underway at the millionaire's other firm, Bigelow Aerospace, in North Las Vegas, Nevada.

The project has drawn the attention of NASA. The space agency has cooperated with Bigelow Aerospace on the private company's efforts with an eye toward utilizing some of the company's technology. And this technology is nearly mature. The firm has planned for a launch of prototype technology this year.

"We are taking a robust, step-by-step development approach," Mike Gold of Bigelow Aerospace said in an interview with Space.com. "The purpose of this mission is to demonstrate and validate the core technology, such as the inflation process, as well as the durability and longevity of the vehicle when actually exposed to the on-orbit environment for a period of years." With Virgin Galactic, Burt Rutan, and Bigelow Aerospace involved, the civilian conquest of space is on.

6 Nanotechnology

Imagine being able to build a structure one molecule, or even one atom, at a time. As with other entries on this list, this concept seems straight out of science fiction. Until recently, the only experience humankind has had with this technology is with items "built by nature." In the human body, for instance, proteins are assembled by cellular "machinery" one molecule at a time. This nanoscale assembly has been beyond the grasp of human-made technology. Until now, that is.

According to Edward Samulski, a physicist from the University of North Carolina who is an adviser on nanotechnology to the State Department, "We now have tools to manipulate atoms and build nanoscale structures." However, Samulski acknowledged that there are "risks," though he said we are getting better at predicting them. He also pointed out that "we must improve our ability to manage the side effects of all newly discovered phenomena ultimately for the betterment of the human race."

Nanotechnology has been at the forefront of technological fears in recent years because people are afraid we will develop a dangerous organism that we cannot control--what nanotech pioneer Eric Drexler called "grey goo." Frankly, "grey goo" is a very long way off. It is one thing to be able to manufacture machines at the molecular level. It is an entirely new ball game to be able to program machines like this to replicate themselves. We are beginning to understand how biological entities replicate themselves, but we are truly far from being able to teach our own machines this remarkable feat.

But the positive aspects of nanotechnology are beginning to appear in everyday life. These range from exotic, high-tech medical applications to everyday items that will soon be available on retail shelves.

In the realm of "high tech," for instance, researchers at the University of Illinois have found that certain assemblies of so-called carbon "nanotubules" could be implanted in people suffering from diabetes to provide real-time monitoring of blood sugar. The same technology may be able to sense other harmful substances from within cells. "This is the first nanotube-based sensor that can detect analytes at the subcellular level," said Michael Strano, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois.

One of nanotechnology's more mundane applications, a type of self-cleaning glass, has been introduced by PPG Industries. According to PPG, the new glass uses UV radiation to "slowly break down and loosen organic dirt." Researchers in Australia are hoping to use similar technology to make self-cleaning bathrooms. "If you've got this on tiles or shower screens you don't need so many chemical agents," Professor Rose Amal, one of the Australian researchers, told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Nanotechnology is new, and these innovations are just the tip of the future iceberg. In years to come, the products around us, the medical treatments we receive, and the work that we do will be heavily influenced by nanotech.

7 The Next Computing Revolution

When it comes to computing, Moore's Law famously specifies that the number of transistors on a chip will double every two years. Pessimists have pointed out that such an exponential trend can't possibly continue. Gordon Moore himself was considered bullish on the subject in 2003 when he said the trend could continue for at least one more decade. "Another decade is probably straightforward," Moore said at the International Solid-States Circuits Conference. "There is certainly no end to creativity."

In fact, if Sun Microsystems co-founder and chief scientist is right, Moore's Law will continue in operation far beyond 2010. In a now famous Wired magazine article that discussed the dangers represented by several technologies, Bill Joy indicated that computers would continue to grow in power. "Until last year I believed that the rate of advances predicted by Moore's law might continue only until roughly 2010, when some physical limits would begin to be reached," Joy wrote. "It was not obvious to me that a new technology would arrive in time to keep performance advancing smoothly. But because of the recent rapid and radical progress in molecular electronics--where individual atoms and molecules replace lithographically drawn transistors--and related nanoscale technologies, we should be able to meet or exceed the Moore's law rate of progress for another 30 years. By 2030, we are likely to be able to build machines, in quantity, a million times as powerful as the personal computers of today."

The first generations of this new computer technology are nearing implementation. Whereas traditional chips shuffle electrical impulses, in the next phase of computer development it will be photons, particles of light, that are shuffled around.

Already Intel is experimenting with such photonic technology. In 2005, the company announced that it had created a silicon-based laser on a chip. The laser could emit a stream of photons--light--that could be modulated to represent data. "This is a scientific breakthrough, and a psychological breakthrough, because no one thought you could do it," said physicist Mario Paniccia, director of Intel's photonics technology lab.

The use of photonics in computer chips would allow chip makers to sidestep the physical limitations of existing computer technology. "At data rates approaching 10 billion bits per second, microscopic imperfections in the copper or irregularities in a printed-circuit board begin to weaken and distort the signals," Paniccia and co-author Sean Koehl wrote in Spectrum, the magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. This will result in much faster computer technologies. "The performance gains will be significant," Paniccia and Koehl noted. "Integrated onto a silicon chip, an optical transceiver could send and receive data at 10 billion or even 100 billion bits per second." This is orders of magnitude faster than Gigabit Ethernet, the fastest networking technology presently and commonly available.

How soon will fully photonic, or holographic, computers become available? In 2002, Purdue University physics professor David D. Nolte, in his book Mind At Light Speed, predicted that this technology would be commercially available by 2020. With Intel's discovery, this could happen even sooner.

8 Fusion

In 1989, scientists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Utah announced that they had initiated a room temperature fusion reaction. The announcement was met, initially, with wild applause and congratulations. But soon attempts elsewhere to replicate the Pons-Fleischmann results proved inconsistent, and the Utah scientists and cold fusion became a laughingstock.

Cold fusion, though, may be back with a vengeance. The promise of the technology, if it can be achieved, is no less than revolutionary. Inexpensive, it promises to deliver virtually unlimited power for electricity generation, transportation, space flight, and home heating. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Inexpensive cold fusion may also lead to important advances in other areas. It is significant, therefore, that since the Pons-Fleischmann debacle, many highly credentialed scientists have quietly continued work on the subject, and several have achieved results that cannot easily be explained away.

In a 1998 recap of cold fusion work to date, Wired magazine reported that in 1994 the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a reputable research organization, had announced results that seemed to confirm the existence of a desktop fusion reaction in experiments. According to Wired, "EPRI concluded: 'Small but definite evidence of nuclear reactions have been detected at levels some 40 orders of magnitude greater than predicted by conventional nuclear theory.'" Two years later a NASA technical memo suggested similar results had been obtained by the space agency. Wired notes that, according to NASA Technical Memorandum 107167, "Replication of experiments claiming to demonstrate excess heat production in light water-Ni-[K.sub.2]C[O.sub.3] electrolytic cells was found to produce an apparent excess heat of 11 W maximum, for 60 W electrical power into the cell."

Since 1996 other experiments have continued, with intriguing results. The extent of development has become apparent in recent days. On February 13, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute announced that it had "developed a tabletop accelerator that produces nuclear fusion at room temperature, providing confirmation of an earlier experiment conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), while offering substantial improvements over the original design." The device used can only be considered a first step, if the desired goal is a technology that can produce usable output for power generation. But in addition to demonstrating that tabletop cold fusion is a reality, it may prove to have many practical applications. "Our study shows that 'crystal fusion' is a mature technology with considerable commercial potential," says Yaron Danon, associate professor of mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering at Rensselaer. "This new device is simpler and less expensive than the previous version, and it has the potential to produce even more neutrons."

The Rensselaer device uses pyroelectric crystals that produce a strong electric field when heated or cooled to initiate the fusion reaction. In addition to this technology, other methods of initiating a fusion reaction are being explored. These include techniques for "sonofusion" in which sound waves bombard a substrate causing bubbles to form and violently collapse as well as the palladium technique explored by Pons and Fleischmann years ago.

In addition to the exciting advances being made with so-called cold or desktop fusion, the scientific establishment is moving ahead with hot fusion research. Current hot fusion efforts include the high profile International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) to be built in France and another, similar reactor to be built in China. These will not produce any commercially available power, but the highly trained engineers and scientists working on these projects will be able to apply the knowledge they gain toward other improvements and developments.

The promise of fusion is obvious: nearly unlimited power that is generated cheaply without large quantities of waste byproducts as a result. With advances in cold fusion, combined with the work being done with advanced hot fusion designs, it is likely that further advances will begin to appear in coming years, ushering in the age of clean, cheap, abundant power. The attainment of reliable fusion power generation, when it happens, will cause a social and economic paradigm shift comparable to, or even exceeding, that caused by the industrial revolution.

Our God-given Abilities

Of all the natural resources available, by far the most important are man's own God-given abilities. For thousands of years, mankind has worked tirelessly to improve his lot. In the dimmest prehistory, humans learned to domesticate certain plants and animals leading to an agricultural revolution. Further innovation resulted in the creation of ever more sophisticated tools that allowed for the building of ever more sophisticated buildings, cities, and societies. These efforts have continued to the present day and will continue far into the future, resulting in amazing advances that can hardly be imagined.

These efforts, which always lead to improvements in the way people live, sometimes result in rapid increases in knowledge. But sometimes, these efforts are stymied by oppressive governmental structures. In fact, historically, oppressive governmental structures have been the norm, and these have done much to retard advancements. Only when freedom prevails can man's own God-given ingenuity be released effectively.

The history of the last 200 years proves the point. Since 1800, the world has experienced an astounding degree of economic and material advancements unsurpassed and unequaled by any previous age. The peculiar difference between this age of modernity and all ages past is the emphasis on freedom. The Occidental world, and especially the English-speaking portion of that world, and most notably the United States, has experienced the greatest degree of freedom and, consequently, the greatest expansion of prosperity. This fact is worth considering as our nation now slowly erects legal structures meant to confine and restrict mankind's natural and God-given rights.

Looking forward, then, the United States and the world must make a choice. Will freedom continue to be valued and protected, or will it disappear under the iron heels of the many would-be totalitarians of the world? This is the fundamental question of the age. If generations to come are to benefit from the many wonders listed here and the many others yet undreamt, then the value of freedom must be recognized. Freedom is not only essential to a life of dignity, it is the engine of progress.

RELATED ARTICLE: Technology's double-edged sword.

Programmer Bill Joy is famous in computer circles. A cofounder of Sun Microsystems, he has been the architect of much of the hidden technology that makes our modern digital world possible. As a result, when Bill Joy talks tech, people listen. And in 2000, Joy was talking tech, warning people of what he saw as an impending disaster. In a seminal article in Wired magazine, Joy argued that we were on the verge of creating technologies that would lead to apocalypse.

According to Joy, genetic, nanotech, and robotics technologies will soon replace nuclear, biological, and chemical technologies as the new weapons of mass destruction. "Thus," Joy writes, "we have the possibility not just of weapons of mass destruction but of knowledge-enabled mass destruction (KMD), this destructiveness hugely amplified by the power of self replication." In other words, according to Joy, the new technologies will be more powerful because they will be self-perpetuating and more dangerous because they cannot be controlled by nations. "I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil," Joy chillingly warned, "an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals."

Joy's frightening, dystopian view of the future is not unlike similar warnings from the past. Technology gone wrong provided a great deal of fodder for H.G. Wells' Socialist science fiction. When the atomic bomb was developed; some leading scientists warned that exploding such a device would ignite the atmosphere. According to the Department of Energy, before the first test, "[Enrico] Fermi began offering anyone listening a wager on 'whether or not the bomb would ignite the atmosphere, and if so, whether it would merely destroy New Mexico or destroy the world.'" More recently, tech fears ignited a firestorm of worry over the so-called Y2K Bug that many otherwise sober and intelligent people were convinced would throw the world into chaos as the year changed from 1999 to 2000.

Do false predictions of doom in the past mean that Joy's warnings should be ignored today? Of course not. Technology is always a double-edged sword. The ability to harness the power of fire, for instance, has kept man warm and cooked his food. It has also destroyed cities and taken many lives.

--DENNIS BEHREANDT