JUST ONE WORD FOR THE FUTURE: PLASTICS

One of the most alarming aspects of the increasingly negative impact of humans on our overburdened Earth is the weight of indestructible plastic in our landfills and, worse, in our oceans. Only about 20-30 percent of even the most recyclable of our plastic waste can be refashioned into usable form. The rest must go to the landfill (where it remains forever or leaches out into the environment) or be incinerated.

We’ve seen the horrible results of plastics that find their way to our oceans: floating garbage islands many meters across drifting with the currents; whales and other sea creatures dying with their bellies full of micro-bits of plastic that contaminate the plankton and krill the creatures use as food.

Lost in a sea of plastic garbage.

In the U.S., where plastics based on petrochemicals are ubiquitous, calling for reducing use of the material is a hard sell. Individuals can cut back on their own use of plastic at home, but the problem is bigger than that. Even municipal recycling programs are having a difficult time finding a market for their plastic now that China has stopped accepting it.

Technology, though, may provide part of the answer.  According to a post in Science Daily News, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a new type of plastic that can be recycled by taking it apart at the molecular level, and putting it back together again in any shape, texture, and color. The process can be repeated again and again without loss of performance or quality. Discovery of the new material, called poly(diketoenamine), or PDK, was reported in the journal Nature Chemistry.

The PDK process strips plastic polymers down to their constituent monomers by dunking the material in an acid bath. This also allows for the removal of any additives that might have given the old material its color, flexibility, toughness or other special characteristics. The new material is like a basic building block that can be recombined in all sorts of new ways. PDK can be torn down and built back up multiple times, making it reusable in a circular process, not just a one-time linear process as is true of conventional plastics.

Peter Christensen, a postdoctoral researcher at Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry, was lead author of the study that announced the discovery. He admits, “Most plastics were never made to be recycled.” But that was before the team he was part of looked at recycling from “a molecular prospective.”

Christensen’s multidisciplinary team was led by Brett Helms, a staff scientist in Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry. The DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reports the other co-authors were undergraduate researchers Angelique Scheuermann (then of UC Berkeley) and Kathryn Loeffler (then of the University of Texas at Austin) who were funded by DOE's Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) program at the time of the study. The overall project was funded through Berkeley Lab's Laboratory Directed Research and Development program.

Team leader Brett Helms is clear about the potential impact of the discovery of PDK on our environmental future. "We're at a critical point where we need to think about the infrastructure needed to modernize recycling facilities for future waste sorting and processing," said Helms. "If these facilities were designed to recycle or upcycle PDK and related plastics, then we would be able to more effectively divert plastic from landfills and the oceans. This is an exciting time to start thinking about how to design both materials and recycling facilities to enable circular plastics." 

Cheers, Donna

*Information for this post taken from: “Plastic gets a do-over: Breakthrough discovery recycles plastic from the inside out,” Science Daily News, DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, May 7, 2019.  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190507110452.htm

Mind-Driven Technology: Coming Soon?

Happy Monday the 13th. The day seems perfect for a blog about the wonders--and possible warning signs--for our near future.

When I penned the original draft of Inherit the Stars back in 2009, I envisioned a future where, not computers, but the human brain would operate prototype ships, tactical drones and biodroids (biological androids) via a neuro-connective direct link device. And with proper training and experience, a person could develop the ability to do all of these things...simultaneously!

After all, why build a machine to mimic the human mind if the mind can be trained and tapped to do it better, and without removing the human equations of sympathy and the differentiation of right and wrong.

Image available for purchase on DepositPhotos

As it turns out, we may not have to wait anywhere near the 1,500-years-in-the-future setting of my series for mind-driven technology to be developed. DARPA is working toward that goal right now!

According to a July 17, 2018 article by Jack Corrigan on Nextgov.com, "The Defense Department’s research arm is working on a project that connects human operators’ brains to the systems they’re controlling—and vice versa."

DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is working to develop this neural interface that would allow personnel to connect to tech devices via brainwave activity. The end result would be to allow people to control technology as seamlessly as if they were operating a body part. In Inherit the Stars, this idea is introduced by way of Con-Drive, short for neural-connective drive.

In reality, this program has been dubbed Next-Generation Non-Surgical Neurotechnology, or N3, but it's exploring two different paths--non-invasion systems that are completely outside the body (ala the tech in my books) and a "minutely invasive" process wherein the individual must consume certain chemicals so that external sensors can read their brainwave activity.

In the very near future (if not already), such technology might help a 'mind pilot' operate an entire fleet of drones or robots for surveillance or tactical situations. Take that same concept and project it fifteen hundred years into the fictional future, and it may ring a few bells for my readers. A character developing the prowess to control a flotilla of multi-purpose tactical drones, operate a number of biological androids, and operate and pilot a prototype starship--all at the same time? Check and double check.

The rare prototype ships in my series represent various stages of the evolution of this technology, so have different levels and methods of connectiveness. Con-drive also makes it possible to go places other ships can't go--and to get there in times that no other ships can equal.

In our future, this evolving technology may allow for more immediate concerns, such as an individual who can sense the onslaught of a cyber attack or a malfunction.

Are there ethical and moral questions involved in such a technology? Certainly. And personal dilemmas? Of course. As with any 'enhancement' of the human mind, there are bound to be trade-offs. Such abilities may leave an individual feeling an outsider from his or her peers. Emotionally, and mental health-wise, there's a possibility this feeling of isolation could take a toll on the human psyche. It may leave someone with these enhancements questioning if they are not more--but less--human because of their abilities.

In many ways, direct mind connection to technology becomes like a futuristic superpower. And as with all superpowers, there's a personal price that must be paid.

Technology has been catching up to my Near Future SFR--The Outer Planets--for almost a decade now. But it's a bit sobering for me as an author to see that it's already beginning to catch up with a story set fifteen centuries into our future. As Dr. Alan Grant said in Jurassic Park, "The world has just changed so radically, and we're all running to catch up."

That seems to go double for science fiction authors.

Reference: DARPA  - Pentagon Wants to Bring Mind-Controlled Tech to the Troops

Have a great week.