Future Evolution

The entirety of the human brain’s 4-billion-year story can be summarised as the culmination of five evolutionary breakthroughs, starting from the very first brains, all the way to the modern human brains. Each breakthrough emerged from new sets of brain modifications, and equipped animals with a new suite of intellectual faculties. These five breakthroughs are the organising map to this book, and they make up our itinerary for our adventure back in time. Each breakthrough also has fascinating corollaries to breakthroughs in AI.

Biggest Questions is truly unique. It covers a broad range of extraordinary scientific discoveries that have major unexpected implications. This will excite enquiring, inquisitive minds. It has an easy-to-read style without mathematics or complicated scientific terms. It overflows with extraordinary imagery, highly informative diagrams and numerous thought-provoking concepts. Fascinating additional information boxes relate to many subjects. The author recounts amusing personal anecdotes associated with various subjects. He poses questions of his own that few, if any, scientists have thought...

In this intriguing book, evolutionary biologist Scott Solomon draws on the explosion of discoveries in recent years to examine the future evolution of our species. Combining knowledge of our past with current trends, Solomon offers convincing evidence that evolutionary forces still affect us today. But how will modernization - including longer lifespans, changing diets, global travel, and widespread use of medicine and contraceptives - affect our evolutionary future?

Our species has amassed unprecedented knowledge of nature, which we have tried to use to seize control of life and bend the planet to our will. In A Natural History of the Future, biologist Rob Dunn argues that such efforts are futile. We may see ourselves as life’s overlords, but we are instead at its mercy. In the evolution of antibiotic resistance, the power of natural selection to create biodiversity, and even the surprising life of the London Underground, Dunn finds laws of life that no human activity can annul.

In How We Do It, primatologist Robert Martin draws on 40 years of research to locate the roots of everything from our sex cells to the way we care for newborns. He examines the procreative history of humans as well as that of our primate kin to reveal what's really natural when it comes to making and raising babies, and distinguish which behaviors we ought to continue - and which we should not. Although it's not realistic to raise our children like our ancestors did, Martin’s investigation reveals surprising consequences of - and suggests ways to improve upon - the way we do things now.

This book proposes that the work of Zecharia Sitchin and others is correct, by stating that "gods" visited us from elsewhere in the remote past. Using their own genes, they genetically altered an inferior version of humankind for their own purposes and improved our stock. Humankind, with half-Terran and half-alien genes, has been placed on an accelerated evolutionary path. We have begun to eagerly emerge from racial adolescence as a direct result of this tampering. Freer describes what's in store for us as this dawning genetic enlightenment reveals the new human and racial maturity of a new...

Just 45 years ago, the age of gene modification was born. Researchers could create glow-in-the-dark mice, farmyard animals producing drugs in their milk, and vitamin-enhanced rice that could prevent half a million people going blind every year. But now GM is rapidly being supplanted by a new system called CRISPR or "gene editing". Using this approach, scientists can manipulate the genes of almost any organism with a degree of precision, ease and speed that we could only dream of ten years ago.

Humans, it turns out, are intrinsically wired to seek short-term success at the expense of long-term prosperity. Kristian Rönn, an entrepreneur formerly affiliated with the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, calls these deeply rooted impulses “Darwinian demons.” These forces, a by-product of natural selection, can lead us to act in shortsighted ways that harm others—and even imperil our survival as a species. If this evolutionary glitch is left unchecked, the consequences will grow in magnitude as the power of technology accelerates.

We are now on the doorstep of a fourth change brought about by two technologies: AI and robotics. The Fourth Age provides extraordinary background information on how we got to this point, and how - rather than what - we should think about the topics we’ll soon all be facing: machine consciousness, automation, employment, creative computers, radical life extension, artificial life, AI ethics, the future of warfare, superintelligence, and the implications of extreme prosperity.

Could humans unknowingly be a part of a larger superorganism—one with its own motivations and goals, one that is alive, and conscious, and has the power to shape the future of our species? This is the fascinating theory from author and futurist Byron Reese, who calls this human superorganism “Agora.” In We Are Agora, Reese starts by asking the question, “What is life and how did it form?” From there, he looks at how multicellular life came about, how consciousness emerged, and how other superorganisms in nature have formed.

"Polyfunctional Robots 2030: The Future of Intelligent Automation and AI" offers a comprehensive exploration of the transformative potential of polyfunctional robots as we approach the year 2030. These advanced machines, no longer limited to singular functions, are poised to revolutionize diverse sectors, including manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, defense, personal assistance, and even space exploration. The book delves into how advancements in AI, machine learning, and adaptive intelligence are equipping these robots with multi-purpose capabilities, enabling them to seamlessly ...

Let’s be honest—nudity is one of those topics that gets people talking, blushing, and maybe even squirming a little bit in their seats. But for those of us who’ve embraced the liberating lifestyle of living nude, it’s something to celebrate, not shy away from. So here we are, ready to dive headfirst into the fascinating, sometimes controversial, but always intriguing world of nudity. Welcome to The Future of Nudity—where we’re going to explore what body freedom looks like in our modern world and how it’s evolving faster than you can say “clothing optional.” Now, if ...

It is rare for life to change Earth, yet three organisms have profoundly transformed our planet over the long course of its history. Elemental reveals how microbes, plants, and people used the fundamental building blocks of life to alter the climate, and with it, the trajectory of life on Earth in the past, present, and future. Taking listeners from the deep geologic past to our current era of human dominance, Stephen Porder focuses on five of life’s essential elements—hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus.

Past and future collide in this riveting conclusion to the Rome's Revolution series. For the last two years, Rei and Rome have enjoyed a measure of peace in which to raise their son Aason on the little world of Deucado. One day, without warning, that peace is shattered by an intentional explosion, destroying their house and leaving Rei severely injured. Who planted the bomb and why? Their faithful starship MINIMCOM takes them on a dizzying quest for answers ending up at The Hand, the most spectacular geological formation ever seen on the worlds of Man. A confrontation with the would-be ...

Set in a world where AI, quantum computing, and space colonization reshape every aspect of life, this book explores how work, education, healthcare, and human connections will evolve in the coming decades. A future full of innovation and opportunity poses ethical questions and a thought-provoking look into the world of 2045

In its 4.5 billion–year history, life on Earth has been almost erased at least half a dozen times: shattered by asteroid impacts, entombed in ice, smothered by methane, and torn apart by unfathomably powerful megavolcanoes. And we know that another global disaster is eventually headed our way. Can we survive it? How?

As a species, Homo sapiens is at a crossroads. Study of our planet’s turbulent past suggests that we are overdue for a catastrophic disaster, whether caused by nature or by human interference.
It’s a frightening prospect, as each of the Earth’s past major disasters—from meteor strikes to bombardment by cosmic radiation—resulted in a mass extinction, where more than 75 percent of the planet’s species died out. But in Scatter, Adapt, and Remember, Annalee Newitz, science journalist and editor of the science Web site io9.com explains that although global disaster is all but inevitable, our chances of long-term species survival are better than ever. Life on Earth has come close to annihilation—humans have, more than once, narrowly avoided extinction just
during the last million years—but every single time a few creatures survived, evolving to adapt to the harshest of conditions.
This brilliantly speculative work of popular science focuses on humanity’s long history of dodging the bullet, as well as on new threats that we may face in years to come. Most important, it explores how scientific breakthroughs today will help us avoid disasters tomorrow. From simulating tsunamis to studying central Turkey’s ancient underground cities; from cultivating cyanobacteria for “living cities” to designing space elevators to make space colonies cost-effective; from using math to stop pandemics to studying the remarkable survival strategies of gray whales, scientists and researchers the world over are discovering the keys to long-term resilience and learning how humans can choose life over death.
Newitz’s remarkable and fascinating journey through the science of mass extinctions is a powerful argument about human ingenuity and our ability to change. In a world populated by doomsday preppers and media commentators obsessively forecasting our demise, Scatter, Adapt, and Remember is a compelling voice of hope. It leads us away from apocalyptic thinking into a future where we live to build a better world—on this planet and perhaps on others. Readers of this book will be equipped scientifically, intellectually, and emotionally to face whatever the future holds.

In The Genome Odyssey, Dr. Euan Ashley, Stanford professor of medicine and genetics, brings the breakthroughs of precision medicine to vivid life through the real diagnostic journeys of his patients and the tireless efforts of his fellow doctors and scientists as they hunt to prevent, predict, and beat disease.

Chronicles of Humanity: A Journey from 2030 to a Million Years Ahead is an awe-inspiring odyssey that invites readers to explore the vast expanse of time, tracing the remarkable evolution of humanity from the challenges of the near future to the boundless possibilities of a million years ahead. This thought-provoking narrative blends scientific foresight, spiritual insight, and philosophical depth to present a gripping and deeply personal exploration of our species' potential. A Visionary Journey Through Time Beginning in 2030, a pivotal era marked by climate crises, rapid technological ...

Leading archaeogeneticist Johannes Krause and journalist Thomas Trappe investigate what DNA can tell us about how we got where we are and what our future might be. They show how the first humans were defeated again and again and suffered fatal setbacks, and how Homo sapiens succeeded in conquering continents, overcoming natural borders, and bringing other species under its control. But the genetic blueprint that enabled us to get to the place where we are today had one flaw: it didn't factor in planetary boundaries.

The environmental crisis is advancing at an unprecedented pace and scale. It will outpace us if we don’t turn our attention to an even deeper concern regarding the future of humanity: We need to work together to create change. Our current approach to collaboration is outmoded. To transform our world, we must transform the way we lead. We collectively share the power and responsibility for a more just, inclusive, and sustainable future. Leaders who hope to shape that future must develop the ability to embrace relationships as our most impactful, influential tool.