For the past several months, a friend of mine has been telling me about the potentially game-changing implications of an obscure (at least to me) metal named Thorium after the Norse god of thunder, Thor.

It seems he is not the only person who believes thorium, a naturally-occurring, slightly radioactive metal discovered in 1828 by the Swedish chemist Jons Jakob Berzelius, could provide the world with an ultra-safe, ultra-cheap source of nuclear power.

Last week, scores of thorium boosters gathered in the United Kingdom to launch a new advocacy organizing, the Weinberg Foundation, which plans to push the promise of thorium nuclear energy into the mainstream political discussion of clean energy and climate change. The message they’re sending is that thorium is the anti-dote to the world’s most pressing energy and environmental challenges.

Is Thorium the Biggest Energy Breakthrough Since Fire? Possibly. – Forbes.

There’s really not a whole lot in Nevada besides long highways and oil fields. But they do have Vegas, that desert oasis of high-density excess that puts Nevada on the map many times over. The state’s governor has just signed a law that makes engineers’ mouths water. It’s a law requiring the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles to “adopt regulations authorizing the operation of autonomous vehicles…”

Click here to read the entire report. You may have to scroll down a bit to view it.

Click here to learn more about driverless cars.

What we are witnessing is the many diverse technological fields (IT, bio-technology, computer science, physics, etc.) coming together and reinforcing each other, creating a meta-shift on a world-historical scale…

Click here to read this insightful report.

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Forecasters tackle the extremely deep future…

Click here to read the entire Boston Globe article.

Click here for more information about humanity’s future.

Click here to learn more about “Our Final Hour” by Martin Rees.

New law enforcement glasses can scan faces in a crowd and cross reference them with photos in a criminal database…

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“Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100″ by Michio Kaku is a best seller.

Click here to learn about the book.

Click here to learn about Michio Kaku.

Just try not to get jealous when your five-year-old brings one home from school…

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Click here to learn more about technology in education.

Google will test electronic payments using near field communication technology in New York and San Francisco within four months…

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MasterCard recently announced plans to help banks issue cards with embedded computer screens to U.S. consumers this year…

Click here to learn more about it from MSNBC.

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Find out how some of the sharpest thinkers imagine the world in the next decade and in 2050…

Click here to view the video report found on the Scientific American website.

Click here for more information on imagining the future.

Imagine this!

The issue of species dominance will dictate our global politics this century. Given the rate at which technologies are developing that enable “artilects”–artificial intellects–it is likely that…

Click here to read the entire report found on the Forbes Magazine website.

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DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) was established 1958 in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik. DARPA reports directly to the Secretary of Defense; however, it operates independently of the rest of military research and development…

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“Technology 25 Years Hence” by Ray Kurzweil is part of a New York Times series titled “Why Do We Need Predictions?”. See what Ray and others have to say…

Click here to access this NY Times discussion.

Click on the book title The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil to learn more about Ray’s book.

Besides being installed in everything from automatic teller machines and airport check-in kiosks to pacemakers and ocean monitoring sensors, microchips also are going into a staggering array of once decidedly low-tech items…

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Transhumanists advocate the improvement of human capacities through advanced technology…

Click here to read the special report by Michael Anissimov found on the Lifeboat Foundation website.

Click here for more on transhumanism.