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Five Interesting Things: Today’s Scan Hits

Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. Toyota, GM, and other auto manufacturers are once again developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, as technology improvements are reducing costs and calculations indicate that the cars will significantly out-perform internal combustion vehicles on emissions, even when emissions from the production of…

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Five Interesting Things: Today’s Scan Hits

Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. Wired’s Clive Thompson calls for supplementing the Maker movement with a Fixer movement that would promote the skills needed to fix “broken” goods and pressure manufacturers to improve the repairability of their products. Bank analysts are warning that China may be reaching a “Minsky…

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Five Interesting Things: Today’s Scan Hits

Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. Using “big data” to evaluate the productivity of individual scientists may have unintended consequences. A recent editorial in Science argues that any automated scoring of an individual’s publication output discourages “risky and potentially groundbreaking work” and tends to steer scientists towards highly populated fields…

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Five Interesting Things: Today’s Scan Hits

Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. US researchers have developed an automated vaccine production facility that uses hydroponic irrigation to grow genetically modified tobacco plants for producing targeted biochemicals. This approach to biochemical production can cut the lead time for culturing new vaccines to approximately 6 weeks, increasing…

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