Episode description

Stephen Euin Cobb (author, futurist, magazine writer--and your host) is today's featured guest.

Topics: Progressive Auto Insurance Company now offers lower rates--if they can place a device in your car to spy on you; a new robotic seagull developed for aerial spying; a new system which can test 10,000 chemicals for toxicity in a single move; the rapidly growing number of universities in the US which offer degrees in robotics; an artificial pancreas for controlling blood sugar for type 1 diabetics has completed its first successful tests in human patients (great news for The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, chaired by Mary Tyler Moore, which has been pushing this project for years); and a new treatment for high blood pressure requires only a one-time dose of radio waves delivered by catheter, for some patients it can completely eliminate prescription medicines.

Also: why investing in diamonds is catastrophically threatened by our ability to manufacture ever larger, ever cheaper, and ever more flawless artificial diamonds; why De Beers and the entire natural diamond industry is so scared of this that it is pouring huge quantities of money into the invention of detectors which can identify the synthetic from the natural stones; and research that these synthetic diamond detectors don't actually work. 

Note: Diamonds made in the earth and diamonds made by humans are both exactly the same chemical substance; just as water made in the lab and water that falls from clouds is the same chemical substance. Only the origin is different. (Granted, natural diamonds often have pretty colors due to impurities from nature which is a naturally impure system, but if desired we can always add a little dirt in the lab, instead of trying to make them as perfect as possible.)

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 4, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 28 minutes]. 

Stephen Euin Cobb is an author, futurist and host of the award-winning podcast The Future and You. He was a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine for three years; and has written for Robot Magazine, H+ Magazine, Grim Couture Magazine, and Space and Time Magazine. He is also a game designer, artist, essayist, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation.