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Soonish : ten emerging technologies that'll improve and/or ruin everything / Kelly and Zach Weinersmith.

by Weinersmith, Kelly.

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Penguin Press, 2017.

Technological forecasting.

Technological forecasting -- Humor.

Visit the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal webcomic website.

9780399563829 (hc.)

Alternate title:

Emerging technologies that'll improve and/or ruin everything.

358 pages : illustrations; 23 cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Soonish: emphasis on the ish -- Section 1: The universe, soonish -- Cheap access to space: the final frontier is too damn expensive -- Asteroid mining: rummaging through the solar system's junkyard -- Section 2: Stuff, soonish -- Fusion power: it powers the Sun, and that's nice, but can it run my toaster? -- Programmable matter: what is all of your stuff could be any of your stuff? -- Robotic construction: build me a rumpus room, metal servant! -- Augmented reality: an alternative to fixing reality -- Synthetic biology: kind of like Frankenstein, except the monster spends the whole book dutifully making medicine and industrial inputs -- Section 3: You, soonish -- Precision medicine: everything that's wrong with you, in particular--a statistical approach -- Bioprinting: why stop at seven margaritas when you can just print a new liver? -- Brain-computer interfaces: because after four billion years of evolution you still can't remember where you put your car keys -- Conclusion: less soonisher, or The graveyard of lost chapters.

A scientist and the creator of the web comic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal team up to present a hilariously illustrated investigation into future technologies, from how to fling a ship into deep space on the cheap to 3D organ printing. What will the world of tomorrow be like? Why do we not have a lunar colony already? Cartoonist Zach Weinersmith and researcher Dr. Kelly Weinersmith give us a snapshot of what's coming next - from robot swarms to nuclear fusion powered-toasters. By weaving their own research, interviews with the scientists who are making these advances happen, and Zach's trademark comics, the Weinersmiths investigate why these technologies are needed, how they would work, and what is standing in their way. New technologies are almost never the work of isolated geniuses with a neat idea. A given future technology may need any number of intermediate technologies to develop first, and many of these critical advances may appear to be irrelevant when they are first discovered. The journey to progress is full of strange detours and blind alleys that tell us so much about the human mind and the march of civilization. An investigation of ten different emerging fields, from programmable matter to augmented reality, from space elevators to robotic construction, to show us the amazing world we will have, you know, soonish. Cartoonist Zach Weinersmith's has been featured in The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. Dr. Kelly Weinersmith is adjunct faculty in the BioSciences Department at Rice University.

Weinersmith, Zach, 1982-

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