Episode description

Topics: Stephen Hawking and the Russian billionaire, Yuri Milner, want to send hundreds of tiny space probes to solar systems around other stars (exactly as Dr. Philip Lubin described to me a few months ago in the December 16, 2015 episode.) The project is called Breakthrough Starshot.

Also: a Genetically Modified Mushroom will bypass GMO food rules through a regulatory loophole; IBM's Watson will advise and consult with cancer patients as well as with doctors; a British hospital live-streamed a surgery in virtual reality; insulin-making cells can be efficiently generated according to researchers at the Salk Institute; Blue CareOnDemand (from Blue Cross, Blue Shield) allows smartphone users access to a personal medical consultation with a doctor or nurse 24 hours a day any day of the year, for a price; Windows XP still powers 181 million computers around the world, which means it is more popular than all Apple computers combined. (Wake up, people. XP hasn't been supported for over two years. You are vulnerable to hackers. Upgrade to something.); and a listener email from Joseph.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the April 20, 2016 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 30 minutes]

Stephen Euin Cobb has interviewed over 350 people for his work as an author, futurist, magazine writer, ghostwriter, and award-winning podcaster. A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine; he has also been a regular contributor for Robot, H+, Grim Couture and Port Iris magazines; and he spent three years as a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. For the last ten years he has produced a weekly podcast, The Future And You, which explores (through interviews, panel discussions and commentary) all the ways the future will be different from today. He is an artist, essayist, game designer, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Stephen is the author of an ebook about the future entitled: Indistinguishable from Magic: Predictions of Revolutionary Future Science.