The future is now. There are so many advances happening on the daily, it’s impossible to keep up.
Science seems to be moving at warp speed. Everything we thought would be possible is now more than possible.
Soon, we’ll all be in space.
Well, those of us with billions of dollars of course.
Redditor emeister26 wanted to discuss all the fascinating facts about life and science that are already upon us by asking:
“What is something that sounds futuristic but is happening now?”
It’s all about the T…
“CAR T cell therapy.”
“They take the T cells out of a cancer patient. They train the cells to kill the specific type of cancer that the patient has and then they put them back in.”
“This therapy doesn’t work 100 % of the time, but when it does it does miracles.”
“(It’s also expensive as sh*t for now)”. ~ strange_socks_
“I currently work in this field, and am currently commercializing my second CAR-T product in my life (my first was Kymriah).”
“It doesn’t always work 100% of the time, but the next generation of CAR-T’s have shown 100% remission rates.”
“Example of 100% remission.”
“CAR-T is roughly the same price as a monoclonal antibody, Amgens Blintocyte is $300k roughly, and Kymriah and Yescart are about $220-350k depending on where you are in the world.”
“So it’s pretty competitive.” ~ arabidopsis
How many types are there?
“I’ve been a type 1 diabetic since 1982.”
“Back when I was first diagnosed, I had to pee on a stick and match the color up to colors on the vial to see approximately what my blood sugar was a couple hours ago.”
“Now I have an anamatronic fish that tells me what my sugar levels are and I don’t even have to prick my finger! We truly are truly living in the future.” ~ rhett342
A.I. is upon us…
“Robotic prosthetic limbs. I know a guy who lost his arm from a construction accident.”
“He now has an arm that has a fully articulated hand, and is good enough that he can even write with it, though not very well.”
“He said it’s worth about half a million dollars, and also it has done wonders for his ability to hook up with women.”
“I guess a lot of people are curious and that starts off the conversation.” ~ Youpunyhumans
“There are actually some amazing innovations in the robotic prosthetic scientific field that have JUST been published!”
“Scientists have been able to make a prosthetic arm with a sense of touch! This is very important, as it allows for better gripping of objects.”
“The test subject was able to pour a glass of water in half the time it took him with a non-feeling prosthetic.”
“It also allows people to enjoy the sensation of feeling, which is pretty awesome!”
“Also, piggybacking because it’s somewhat related, scientists have also recently discovered a way to allow a paralyzed man to type and control computers with only their thoughts!”
“The outside of the brain is the part that deals with bodily motion, so they surgically implanted electrodes and asked him to imagine hand-writing letters.”
“Then, a little bit of machine learning magic, and boom! He was able to write on a computer!”
“He was able to write 90 characters a minute! Kinda the ultimate “look ma, no hands!”
“Links to articles:”
“https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/medical-advances/553323-in-amazing-first-paralyzed-man-is-able-to-type” ~ cancer_dragon
Photos and texts of the future.
“A program that is able to generate almost any (!!!) photo using short text input.”
“A San Francisco street? Done. Avocado chair? Yes, why not. A photo of buildings of Poland? YES, it can do that.”
“It can generate almost any stock photo you can imagine, like any any, you can add parameters, lighting, ask to specific picture in the room.”
“It uses 12 billion of pictures and descriptions to do this. There are two downsides of course: the first one is lots of lots of computational power.”
“The second is that the program is losing the track after few parameters.”
“Also it can do only 100×100 pixels at the time but it will change fast.”
“It’s called DALL-E and was premiered this year. It’s an AI made by OpenAI. Terrific and amazing at the same time.” ~ umotex12
Know the Survey
“I’m fourth generation of an excavating company and some of our surveying techniques now are unbelievable.”
“When we started in the 60’s you used a contraption called a theodolite and prism (a fancy level used to measure the distance and elevation change of the prism).”
“One of the fondest memories I’ll ever hold happened two months ago shortly before my Grandpa (the founder) passed away.”
“I showed him how to survey a 30 acre site with a drone in about 45 minutes (all automated), something that would have taken a crew well over a week in his time.”
“I then took the data, had it processed, and showed him the prints of the site right on site with my laptop. He cried.” ~ cmde44
Visualize it and See it!
“I work in the construction industry.”
“Technology has really made projects easier to plan out and do. Like back in the day, paper blueprints were how you visualized a job.”
“Big huge paper rolls that were a pain in the a** to carry around and store, and the prints were easy to damage because well… they’re paper.”
“If there was ever a change to the prints, you’d have to wait for the drafters to draw them, print them, and send them to your job.”
“Nowadays the foreman or project manager carry an iPad with all of the blueprints, both in 2D and 3D CAD drawing and can look up every detail of the drawings in seconds.”
“And if the drafters have to make changes, they can email or message the site foreman and give them new prints in a matter of minutes.”
“This isn’t your dad’s construction site anymore.” ~ Mercurydriver
Just think reeeeal hard!
“Being able to control objects with your brain. I know it’s still in its infancy but the fact that we can even attempt do stuff like that is crazy.” ~ Cruise_alt_40000
Year One
“A blood test to diagnose Alzheimer’s.” ~ Geekla
“It was on Jeopardy tonight, actually, yes! I’ve been reading about it.”
“It’s less than a year old, just getting started and I’m guessing just the first version of more to come, but it’s real and it made my whole day to hear it.” ~ Geekla
Body Parts
“3d printed organs.” ~ turn_your_compote
“I really hope that one day they can just scrape a few of your stem cells, and 3 weeks later they’ve grown you a new heart, liver, kidneys, etc.” ~ Diligent_Slide
The lifespan of light…
“Something I just noticed the other day.”
“CFL light bulbs became popular and all but got replaced by LED bulbs all within the lifespan of a single bulb.”
“I was replacing a bulb the other day that was a CFL and I remember the last time I replaced it, the previous bulb was an incandescent.” ~ Restil
The Good Landing
“Rockets landing upright… to me it looks like bad special effects, because it was never in any good movies.” ~ redmaybe
Technology and science, two things I’ll never understand. But two things I can’t avoid.
We are close to living in The Jetsons.
I can feel it. Can you?