28. desember 2024 12:00
Frá árinu 2010 hefur Jerome Glenn frá Millennium Project tekið saman yfirliti fyrir áhugaverða viðburði undir lok árs. Hér er samantekin frá árinu sem er að líða. Einnig eru birtar samantektirnar frá árinu 2010 til gamans og samanburðar. Munið að framtíðin er björt og okkar að móta hana. Takk fyrir samstarfið á árinu, Karl Friðriksson frá Framtíðarsetri Íslands.
2024 Year in Review (not listed in any priority; non-scientific, subjective review by Jerome.Glenn@Millennium-Project.org and jglenn@igc.org)
- Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny “dies” in prison.
- Global temperature continues to pass 1.5oC threshold above pre-industrial levels.
- Donald Trump fined $175 million for years of business fraud in New York and found guilty of election issue coverup.
- Boening maroons two astronauts on the International Space Station
- Claudia Sheinbaum elected as the first female president of Mexico.
- El Capitan, in the U.S. becomes fastest computer in the world (1.742exa FLOPs)
- US Supreme Court grants Presidential significant immunity.
- Donald Trump elected Present of the United States
- Both US and China initiated separate UN resolutions on AI; both were adopted by UN General Assembly and both supported by each other.
10. Massive protests against Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza.
11. International Criminal Court issues arrest warrant for PM Netanyahu of Israel
12. AI breakthroughs continue to accelerate and integrate with robots.
13. China and the EU create first legal framework for artificial intelligence.
14. The International Space Station moved twice to avoid orbital debris
15. China claims Tongtong is the first AGI robot with curiosity like a 3 or 4 year old.
16. Water molecules confirmed on two asteroids and a planet 280 light years away
17. UN Summit of the Future approves Pact for the Future
18. UN Climate COP 29 held in Baku.
19. China’s Chang-e 6 returned a sample from the far side of the moon.
20. First private sector soft landing on the moon by Intuitive Machines and Falcon 9.
21. Russian war on Ukraine continues makes little progress
22. Civil wars in Sudan and Myanmar continue
23. Liquid water discovered on Mars 7 miles below the surface.
24. Paris Summer Olympics reinforces the spirit of common humanity.
25. Bitcoin passes US$100,000
26. Nobel prize for physics and chemistry awarded to AI innovators
27. The UK becomes the first G7 country to phase out coal power
28. First-ever "close-up" image of a star outside the Milky Way Galaxy
29. Global warming continues as 2024 is the hottest year on record
30. Council of Europe’s AI Convention binding treaty signed by 11 countries so far.
31. Neuralink brain implanted paraplegic person plays chess with his thoughts alone.
32. Taylor Swift’s world tour generated more than $10 billion on local economies.
33. Global warming cost the world US$310 billion in damages.
34. Assad flees to Moscow as 13-year civil war ends in Syria
35. Google’s Willon superconducting quantum computing chip improves accuracy, error reduction as the numbers of qubits increases
2023 Year in Review (not listed in any priority; non-scientific, subjective review by Jerome.Glenn@Millennium-Project.org and jglenn@igc.org)
- ChatGPT wakes up the world to future AI impacts on education, work, culture.
- Turkey/Syria Earthquake kills 50,000, triggers building codes new enforcement.
- Russian invasion of Ukraine continues.
- Europe survived winter with new energy sources.
- Deepfakes, disinformation proliferates, no rules for information warfare.
- UN Treaty to protect 30% of the oceans’ biodiversity by 2030 open for signature
- Every neural connection mapped in a larval fruit fly.
- International Criminal Court (ICC) issues arrest warrant for Vladmir Putin.
- Former President Trump is indited 4 times with total of 91 charges.
10. First X-ray image of a single atom.
11. First space solar power transmission from orbit to earth by Caltech.
12. Pure chicken meat from genetic material without chickens USDA approved
13. UN Security Council explores the security implications of artificial intelligence
14. China creates first national laws to regulate generative AI
15. July-October were the hottest months in recorded history
16. Massive demonstrations in Israel over reducing the supreme court’s power
17. Hamas invades Israel, global condemnation of Israel for devastating response.
18. China passes the US in number of scientific articles in the Nature Index.
19. India passes China as the most populous nation
20. Building blocks of life (methenium, CH3+ (and/or carbon cation, C+) detected in interstellar space.
21. FDA approval for testing brain chips implants in humans by Neuralink
22. World Summit II on Parliamentary Committees for the Future held in Uruguay.
23. India lands on near moon’s south poll, while Russia crashed a few days before.
24. Human brain activity translated into continuous stream of text.
25. Organized crime received $2.2 trillion from cybercrimes, while it cost business and individuals $8 trillion in 2023.
26. European Court of Human Rights to hear global warming case against 33 governments (first serious example of intergenerational law).
27. US and China, plus 27 other countries sign Bletchley Declaration on international cooperation to develop safe AI
28. Alzheimer’s disease onset decreased by 35% by Donanemab drug.
29. Mico- and nanoplastics pass the blood-brain barrier in mice.
30. Electronics grown inside living tissue furthers new field of bioelectronics.
31. The global average temperature temporarily exceeds 2°C above the pre-industrial average November 17th for the first time in recorded history.
32. COP28 in Dubai and COP29 in Baku announced, both oil-dependent economies
33. Google claims Gemini has advanced reasoning beyond GPT-4
34. Presidents Xi and Biden agree to joint US-China AI safety working group
For comparison, my annual lists since 2010:
2022 Year in Review (not listed in any priority; non-scientific, subjective review by Jerome.Glenn@Millennium-Project.org and jglenn@igc.org)
- First genetically modified pig’s heart transplanted into a living human lived 2 months.
- Russia invades Ukraine.
- Finland and Sweden ask to join NATO.
- China’s Zhurong rover landed on Mars.
- New Covid mutations continue around the world, but overall Covid pandemic degreases.
- Worldwide inflation driven by supply chains disrupted by Covid and Russian invasion of Ukraine, plus massive US and other national financial covid relief infusions of money.
- NASA’s James Webb telescope shows closest origins of the universe.
- ISO issues organization AI governance ISO/IEC 38507.
- US House Hearings proved Trump lead attempted coup refusing peaceful transition.
- Non-Cow animal protein milk using 99%less water, 97% fewer GHG, 60% less energy.
- Cell-based Chicken on sale in Singapore and US FDA approves Upside for sales in US.
- Robot taxies now in operation in Las Vegas by Uber and San Francisco by Waymo, also in Wuhan and Chongqing, China by Baidu.
- Finland’s World Summit on Parliamentary Committees on the Future initiates world movement for all parliaments to have their own Committees on the Future.
- UN aggress to UN Summit on the Future in 2024.
- Green House Gases reach the highest level since the industrial revolution.
- One third of Pakistan underwater costing $30 billion due to global climate change.
- Natural disasters (storms, floods, fires) cost $260 billion.
- UN Climate Conference in Egypt (COP27) payment for global warming damages.
- NASA proves asteroid’s trajectory can be altered to save the earth from future collision.
- Computer-connected lab-grown human brain cells learned how to play pong without being connected to a body.
- Human genome sequenced in just 5 hours and 2 minutes.
- US Dept. of Energy’s Frontier computer at Oak Ridge sets world record as fastest computer at 1.1 exaflops/second.
- First photograph of the black hole at the center of our galaxy.
- As of mid-2022 there were 103 million refugees or displaced persons (mostly from Syria, Venezuela and Ukraine).
- UN Biodiversity COP 15 agreed to protect 30% of the Earth’s land and water by 2030.
- COVAX delivered over 1 billion doses to poorer nations, half given by Pfizer.
- Queen Elizabeth dies after 70 years rein over the United Kingdom.
- ChatGPT interactive AI wakes up the world to future possibilities of advanced AI.
- US National Lab demonstrates fusion can make more energy than it consumes.
- Argentina wins the World Cup.
2021 Year in Review (not listed in any priority; non-scientific, subjective review by Jerome.Glenn@Millennium-Project.org and jglenn@igc.org)
- The Pandemic cost the global economy US$28 trillion, beteem 2020 and 2025 estimates the IMF and continues to mutate with new variants becoming the majority of infections.
- Over 9 billion Covid vaccine shots have been given in 184 countries by year end.
- About 5.8 million Covid reported deaths; 12.6 million attributable to COVID-19, including unreported deaths.
- Anti-Covid pills approved (Pfizer's Paxlovid and Merck's Molnupiravir).
- Joe Biden becomes US President, creates massive US vaccination and economic recovery program, commits $4 billion to GAVI for international vaccines, other overseas economic recovery, and rejoins the Paris Climate Accords.
- Trump extremists invade the US Capitol fail to stop the election certification.
- UN Secretary-General releases “Our Common Agenda” as the most future-oriented UN reform document ever produced by the UN SG’s Office.
- First part of IPCC’s 6th assessment: “the effects of human-caused climate change are now "widespread, rapid, and intensifying."
- Historic droughts, fires, floods cost $170 billion $20 billion more than last year.
- COP26 US-China joint statement, reduce methane 30% by 2030 which focuses on agriculture, keep to 1.5°C goal but current country pledges will not make it.
- US National Intelligence Council’s report: Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena [UFOs] showed that UFOs are real, but not understood.
- James Webb space telescope launched to see origins of the universe, birth of galaxies, and potential for life on distant planets.
- Scientists create simulated space warp bubble that shows warp drive for interstellar travel might be possible.
- Reusable private sector rockets launched Branson and Bezos into sub-orbital space tourism, while Musk launches three-earth-orbital private tourism.
- NASA flies helicopter on Mars and makes oxygen from Martian atmosphere.
- China lands a robotic rover on the surface of Mars.
- China launched the crewed Shenzhou-12 spacecraft to dock with Tianhe Space Station.
- Russia blows up its own satellite creating 1,500 new pieces of space junk in its anti-satellite test.
- The world embraces 5G without biological impact studies.
- Cyber and information warfare continue to expand beyond public understanding.
- Turkish Autonomous AI drones used in Syria, Libya and by Azerbaijan against Armenia.
- North Korea continues missile tests including submarine launched missiles.
- Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons adopted by the UN in 2017 entered into force after 50 countries ratified the treaty by January 2021.
- Increased tensions (Russia and Ukraine) (China and Taiwan) and armed conflicts continue in Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Somalia, Syria, Yemen.
- US and other NATO allies pull out of Afghanistan; Taliban regains power.
- The G20 endorsed G7’s decision to create a global minimum corporate tax.15%
- Computer chip shortage shows global dependency on Taiwan.
- Elon Musk’s Neuralink fabricated computer-connected fibers to individual neurons in the brain of monkeys to play pong without an external interface.
- Elon Musk becomes the richest man in history.
- Japan’s Fugaku continues as the fastest public supercomputer at 442 petaflops.
- Chinese start-up SpinQ creates desktop quantum computer.
- IBM's 127 qubit chip is available for commercial use and IBM has produced a 2-nanometer chip with 50 billion transistors.
- Total market cap of cryptocurrencies passed $3 trillion November 2021 and El Salvador makes Bitcoin a national currency along with US dollar.
- US government penetrated blockchain to recover Bitcoins for Colonial Pipeline.
- NFT (nonfungible token) JPG file digital art sold for $63 million.
- WHO approves first Malaria vaccine.
- Malawi opens the first 3-D printed school building.
- Pandora papers exposed secret offshore accounts of 35 world leaders, including 130 billionaires.
2020 Year in Review (not listed in any priority)
- COVID-19 brought the world to a grinding halt, increased tele-everything & AI
- The pandemic caused first global “time out’ for humanity to rethink everything
- The Internet connects about 60% of humanity: 5 billion people
- US President Trump Impeached twice
- CERN has contained antimatter (antihydrogen) for 24 hours.
- Iranian General Qasem Soleimani killed in US drone strike
- UK withdraws from the EU
- Tokyo Summer Olympics postponed to 2021
- Polio eradicated from Africa
- At least 1.5 billion students were out of school at the peak of the pandemic
- The world fell into recession caused by the Covid pandemic -4.4% decline
- Stock Market falls 2997 points on March 9th then passes historical high of 30,000
- Jeff Bezos becomes first to have a net worth over $200 billion.
- Carbon emissions fell a record 7%, yet CO2 ppm rises to new records
- 2020 likely to be hottest or second hottest year on record.
- Over 1.3 million recreational drones in US; 100+ countries have military drones
- 995 satellites were launched in 2020; nearly 3000 satellites orbit the earth today
- Deinococcus Radiodurans bacteria adapted its DNA to live in outer space
- Black Lives Matter movement in the US spreads worldwide
- China announced a quantum computer calculated in 200 seconds at room temperature what a supercomputer would take 2.5 billion years to complete.
- Joe Biden beats Donald Trump for the US presidency
- First Asian-Black Woman elected Vice President of the United States
- Worst invasion of desert locusts in East Africa in 70 years
- Japan brought back samples from an asteroid 300+ million kilometers away
- 42 journalists killed for being journalists
- Terrorism deaths fell for the past five years
- UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco, Bhutan create diplomatic relations with Israel
- Beirut Lebanon Port massive explosion kills 190 people August 4th
- Hong Kong public uprising against PRC’s national security law for Hong Kong
- Climate change leads to record number of hurricanes, fires, and floods
- Political polarization continues to worsen; social discord increases
- Video conferencing goes mainstream for friends, education, work, and health
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death brings new conservative U.S. Supreme Court
- Plant-based hamburgers become available in fast food restaurants
- CRISPR gene editing for home test to identify COVID RNA for precision testing.
- SpaceX brings crew to the Space Station, as first private space craft to do that.
- Vaccines made in record time and first time from mRNA by Pfizer and Moderna
- Venezuela, Yemen, and Syria continue downward spiral
- Elon Musk’s Neuralink fabricated computer-connected fibers to individual neurons in the brain of pigs.
- China plants PRC flag on the moon during lunar sample return
- Thousands of 12,500 years old cave paintings alone 8 miles long in the Amazon
- Largest set of cyber-attacks hit the United States
2019 Year in Review (not listed in any priority)
- Public quantum computing via the IBM cloud; Google (54 qubits) quantum supremacy (not publicly available) passed China which has 50-cubit device.
- First photo of a Black Hole
- Atmospheric CO2 reached 411 ppm in May 2019 (in May 1958 in was 317.5)
- Global Warming declared emergency by 11,000 scientists in BioScience
- Greta Thunberg of Sweden triggers increased attention to global warming
- China first to land on the dark side of the Moon.
- Islamic State (ISIL) lost its land; Russia/Turkey take land left by the US
- Public protests in Algeria, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, France, Haiti, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kashmir (Internet Blackout by India Lebanon. London, Montenegro, Russia, Sudan, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe
- US-China trade war
- President Trump Impeached
- Brussels Bans 5G due to insufficient health/biological impact studies
- Over 400 mass shootings in the USA
- US Stock Market hits record Dow passes 28,621.
- Measles increasingly spread worldwide due to lower vaccination rates
- North Korea continues to test missiles in volition of UN Security Council
- Brexit continues in limbo
- Notre Dame burns in Paris
- Same-Sex Marriage Legalized in Taiwan and Austria
- China increases facial AI surveillance; San Francisco bans facial recognition
- Space X launches 60 Internet Satellites
- Ebola Vaccine approved, while Ebola in the Congo continues
- Chip-to-chip quantum teleportation and multi-photon entanglement in silicon
- Large areas of the Amazon rain forests burn out of control
- A 315-billion tonne iceberg broke off Antarctica.
- Neurolink connects single neurons to single sensors connected to external computer
- Finland elects the youngest PM in the world.
- US pulls out of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF)
- Volkswagen Beetle production ends
- First NASA all-female spacewalk outside the International Space Station.
- Venice flooding emergency
- Pope Francis abolishes pontifical secrecy in sex abuse cases
- Deep fake software publicly available decentralized information warfare
- Plant-based hamburgers go mainstream in KFC, Berger King, McDonalds, others
- Venezuela, Yemen, and Syria continue downward spiral
- 50th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing, ARPANET, and Woodstock.
2018 Year in Review (not listed in any priority)
- Fusion maintained for 100 seconds Wendelstein 7-X
- North and South Korea teams together in Winter Olympics; allowed family visits
- China doctor uses CRISPR-cas9 for first gene edited embryo (to prevent AIDS)
- IBM's Project Debater AI defeated a human in a debate
- China’s constitution changed to allow President Xi Jinping to rule for life
- Syria, Venezuela, Yemen continue to get worse
- Over half the world is middle class (US$ 11-110/day)
- Democrats regain US House of Representatives
- China-US trade scansions, and NY Stock market volatility
- Political leadership uncertain in US, UK, France, and Germany while political leadership seems more certain in Russia and China
- Stephen Hawking dies
- Canada legalizes Marijuana (Uruguay did before)
- US Government reports global warming forecasts are more serious than before;
- 4th hottest year on record; 20 of earth’s hottest years occurred in last 22 years
- CO2 ppm reached 411.24 in May 2018; May 1998 it was 369.42
- NASA returned to Mars for analysis inside of the planet
- Several Russian strategic nuclear bombers land in Venezuela
- 107 of 109 space launches successful; SpaceX delivered 64 satellites on one rocket
- Elon Musk launched a Tesla car in space to test payload capacity of new rocket
- China launched spacecraft to land on the far side of the moon in January
- Voyager 2 left the solar system (Voyager 1 left in 2012)
- Apple reaches US$1 Trillion value, then falls back a few months later
- Extreme weather caused 4th highest number of insured losses
- About 2 million drones fly in the US expect dramatic increases worldwide
- 10-minute cancer test developed in Australia
- Saudi Arabia lets women drive, but executes a journalist in their embassy
- France beat Croatia to win the World Cup
- 5G wireless telecommunications technology
- US President Trump pulls out of Iran agreement
- Russian Information Warfare attacks found far more invasive on US election than previously knows via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and others
- Over 200 top US executives, politicians, entertainers, fired for sexual misconduct
- Based on program upgrades, four additional binary black hole mergers detected from data recorded in 2015, 2016, and 2017 – bringing the total to 10 black hole mergers and one binary neutron-star merger
2017 Year in Review (not listed in any priority)
- Most babies born this year are likely to see the year 2100
- Me Too Movement knocks out stars in politics, sports, and the media, and spreads around the world exposing male abuse of women
- First successful human embryo genetically edited
- China announced quantum entanglement between satellite and ground station
- Putin denies thousands of Russian-sourced bots targeted at specific US voter-groups and regions via Twitter and Facebook accounts with thousands of hate-Hillary and pro-Trump messages reaching over 100 million US voters
- Donald Trump became US President with 3 million fewer votes than Hilary
- President Trump announced withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and UNESCO, while recognizing Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel
- Mugabe ousted in Zimbabwe, Zuma ousted in South Africa, Yahya Jammeh ousted in Gambia
- Venezuela accelerates its downward spiral
- Cultural genocide, mass killings, rapes of Rohingya by Myanmar Army
- 2017 likely be the hottest year on record in the absence of the El Niño; July 2017 had tied July and August 2016 as the hottest month on record
- SwissRe estimated global warming assisted natural disasters during 2017 cost insurance industry about US$100 billion (Caribbean hurricanes cost $290 billion)
- Yemen : 1 million got Cholera; 8 million near starvation; water nearly gone
- EU fines Google $2.7 Billion for anti-trust activities
- Bitcoin hits $19,500 before retreating; NY’s Dow hits record 24,792
- SpaceX relaunched and re-landing a used Falcon 9 rocket booster saving $18 million per launch.
- Xi Jinping sets 5-year agenda at China’s 19th Party Congress China including the Belt and Road massive infrastructure program and AI leadership by 2030
- North Korea has 2,000 full-time hackers into financial systems (BBC)
- First observation of gravitational waves from collision of two neutron stars.
- North Korea tests hydrogen bomb and ICBM capable of reaching the USA
- Quantum entanglement with 10 qubits on a superconducting circuit achieved
- Defeat of ISIS/ISIL/IS control of Mosul most of the lands it had controlled
- Australia became the 25th country to legalize same-sex marriage
- Narrow AI proliferates from medical diagnosis to home assistants; even an AI robot opened a conference in South Korea and given citizenship in Saudi Arabia
- Emmanuel Macron provides a new face for European leadership
2016 Year in Review (not listed in any priority)
- Paris Agreement on Climate Change entered into force
- Hottest year on record (again) and highest CO2 ppm in recorded history
- Rapid progress in genome editing with CRISPR-Cas9
- Syrian conflict continues to get worse
- ISIL loses most of its territory
- Colombian Government and FARC end longest bar in Latin America
- IAEA verifies Iran met Nuclear Framework Agreement goals
- Google’s AlphaGo Beat Korean Go champion
- AI’s rapid proliferation from Google’s Translate to Amazon ‘s Echo
- Brexit
- First vertical return landing of space rocket
- Fidel Castro and John Glenn die
- Microsoft’s HoloLens
- Failed Military Coup in Turkey
- OECD adds Latvia as 35th Member
- Zika Virus spreads across the Americas
- Summer Olympics in Rio Janeiro, Brazil
- North Korea conducts 5th Nuclear Test, claims a hydrogen bomb test
- Bob Dylan gets Nobel Prize for Literature
- Putin orders cyber-attacks, fake news, infowar against Hillary Clinton’s election
- Hillary Clinton wins USA vote; Donald Trump wins electoral college
- ICC sentences Ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić to 40 years
- 214,000 offshore companies’ 11.5 million documents exposed in Panama
- NASA’s Juno went into Jupiter’s orbit on July 4th
- US and Russia stay in the International Space Station for record 340 days
- Baby born in Mexico with DNA from 3 parents (mitochondrial transfer)
- Ecuador and Italy get major Earthquakes
- 70-year-old Indian women gave birth to baby
- 20th Anniversary of The Millennium Project (smile).
2015 Year in Review (not listed in any priority)
- UN Climate Change Agreement in Paris
- Hottest year on record
- Gene editing made much easier via CRISPR, could alter human evolution by germ-line engieering
- Gravitational waves detected from the collision of two black holes
- Running water discovered on Mars
- Skin cells turned into stem cells
- Mass migration into Europe
- Rise of ISIS, ISIL, IS, Daesh and Boko Haram
- Russia takes Crimea
- Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement
- Greek financial crisis
- Earthquake in Nepal nearly 9000 die
- US-China joint global warming statement on new goals
- Pope’s Encyclical Letter on global warming
- Solar Impluse – solar electric airplane circumnavigates the globe
- US-Cuba opens diplomatic relations
- US Supreme Court ruling same-sex marriages legal
- Global Je suis Charlie demonstrations against ISIL attacks in Paris
- Russian plane shot down over Egypt
- Nuclear Framework Agreement with Iran
- 3D printing and drones became mainstream
- China expands Island construction in South China Sea
- Environmental movement is back: Keystone XL Pipeline & Climate Agreement
- Carteret Islands environmental (sea-level) refugees (Papua New Guinea)
- Most UN Millennium Development Goals reached for 2015; Sustainable Development Goals set 2030
- 70th Anniversary of the United Nations
- Fly-by of Pluto video transmission received
- Vertical landing of two kinds of reusable rocket sections.
- Price of oil falls dramatically
- Costs of security for public spaces and cyberspace increase dramatically
2014 Year in Review (not listed in any priority)
- US-China joint cooperation on reducing greenhouse gases
- Record growth in US and China’s stock markets
- 127 billionaires have pledged to give half their wealth to philanthropic causes
- 2014 expected to be the hottest year in recorded history
- CO2 emissions estimated to be 2.3% more than in 2013.
- Hybrid synthetic DNA replicated and grew (A third base pare (d5SICS and dNaM) added to natural E.coli DNA two base pairs (A-T & C-G)
- India’s spacecraft reached Mars; European‘s spacecraft landed on a comet
- Antares rocket, SpaceX, and Virgin Galactic spacecrafts crash/blowup
- Syrian civil war continues over 2 million refugees
- Syrian chemical weapons surrendered
- ISIS, then ISIL, then IS beheadings; new US and others‘ airstrikes in Iraq/Syria
- One Malaysian Airplane disappears, another shot down over the Ukraine
- Russia takes Crimea and invades Ukraine (said with military volunteers)
- Falling oil prices, falling Ruble, and increasing inflation in Russia
- Mt Gox largest Bitcoin exchange failure
- Ebola kills 7,000 across West Africa (many more die of Malaria each year)
- 3D Printer on the International Space Station prints a socket wrench
- Private drones and computer rist watches begin to proliferate
- Argentine court gave Orangutan personhood rights for bodily autonomy.
- Pope Francis criticizes Vatican management for pathology of power
- First successful use of Simon’s algorithm on D-wave quantum computing
- Brain to brain computer mediated communications demonstrated
- A computer program Board of Directors Member for Deep Knowledge Ventures
- Panama and Suez Canals massive expansions
- Over half of all animals gone in less than 50 years (Living Planet Index)
- Malala Yousafzai shares Nobel Prize for Peace
- US-Cuba diplomatic relations
- New Government in Iraq
- US combat troops leave Afghanistan
2013 Year in Review
- New Pope sets a new tone for the 1.2 billion Roman Catholics
- Global Slavery Index estimates there are about 30 million slaves in 2013.
- Nearly 40% of humanity uses the Internet
- Malala Yousafzai survives Taliban assassination and becomes a new world force
- Nelson Mandela’s passing reminds the world of greatness
- The largest petition to recall a government in history: 22 million sign petition in Egyptian for Morsi’s resignation
- Egyptian military crackdown on the Moslem Brotherhood
- China lands a robot rover on the Moon, India launches spacecraft to Mars
- Elon Musk continues private sector space program SpaceX Falcon 9 launching a geostationary satellite at 1/3 the cost
- Syrian Civil War worsens while it agreed to disarm chemical weapons
- Hassan Rouhani opens Iran to the West and signs nuclear processing agreement
- No. Korean conducts 3rd underground nuclear bomb test and executes Pres’s uncle
- China tensions with Japan & neighbors increase; US & China warships monitor
- US Affordable Health Care Website problems
- CO2 passes 400 parts per million in the atmosphere; 2013 7th hottest year recorded
- Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines with the most powerful tropical storm to make landfall on record with gusts reaching 235 mph.
- Shanghai and California initiate cap and trade systems
- First hamburger publicly cooked and tested from pure meat tissue grown without growing a cow
- UN adopts the Arms Trade Treaty of conventional weapons
- Edward Snowden release of US intelligence wiretapping heads of state.
- Largest meteor in a century hits Russian city of Chelyabinsk
- USA makes recreational use of marijuana legal in Colorado and Washington and Uruguay becomes the first country to make it legal to produce and sale marajuana
- US Government shutdow for 16 days; Tea Party begins to lose power in the US
- Human adult cell nuclei inserted in egg cells with previous nuclei removed that produced new embryonic stem cells clonded for new stem cell line.
- Higgs particle confirmed that gives rise to matter
- Google Glass demonstrated
- President Obama annouces Human Brain Initiative
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report
- The were 628 recorded cyber-attacks over a 24 hour period on July 24, 2013 with majority targeting the USA
2012 Year in Review
- Humanity continues to be succeeding /winning more than it is losing, according to the 28 variables in the State of the Future Index
- Higgs-like Particle discovered that may explain how matter is created
- Skydive from the edge of space (24 miles) going faster than sound (Mach 1.24)
- Moslem Brotherhood takes over the leadership of Egypt
- Egypt’s Morsi goes from world hero (cease fire agreement) to world pariah dictator within 24 hours
- China and its ocean neighbors contest boundaries increasing tensions wit`h and among Japan, Philippians, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei
- North Korea successfully launches intercontinental missile for orbital satellite
- Wikipedia and others went dark to successfully block the US Congress’s SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act).
- Big Data becomes popular subject for decisionmakers to explore how to use
- China’s third human space launch carring the first Chinese woman into space rendezvoused with China’s Space Lab
- SpaceX’s Dragon is the first successful private sector station re-supply vehicle
- Mars Landing of Curiosity Robot
- China proposes space power collaboration with India
- Driverless cars by Google are legal in US (California, Florida, and Nevada)
- President Obama’s endorsement of Gay Marriage
- London Olympics – nurtures spirit of world peace
- Facebook’s IPO financial loss
- Pope’s assistant exposes some of the Vatican’s inner political corruption.
- Severe political stalemate in Washington, D.C., US continues
- More than 100 journalists have been killed so far this year, making 2012 the deadliest year for media since UNESCO began keeping records on the issue
- Syria’s civil war accellorates.
- Likely 2012 will be the hottest year in US recorded history
- Climate continues to change: USA is 60% in drought, super hurricane Sandy, heavy flooding in Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Singapore, UK
- Euro financial crisis continues with riots especially in Greece and Spain
2011 Year in Review
- World grew to 7 billion people
- Arab Spring/Awakening
- Occupy Movements initially on Wall Street
- Other protests took to the streets in Greece, Russia, China, Spain, others
- Japan Disasters
- Tenth Anniversary of 911 Terrorist Attacks
- Bin Laden Killed
- US pulled out of Iraq
- Steve Jobs Died
- Tablet computers
- Space Shuttle retired
- China produced more cars that the US or Japan
- Severe political stalemate in Washington, D.C., US
- Robot 25% of Japan over 65 years old
- Robonaut 2 humanoid robot (without legs) on International Space Station
- IBM Watson computer beats human Jeopardy champions
- Super High Vision 7,680 by 4,320 parcels created by Sharp is 16 times HD resolution
- Brittan’s Royal Wedding
- Unprecedented volume of Methane found bubbling up from shallow Arctic sea floor
- Large Hadron Collider discovered a particle composed of a quark and anti-quark
- Programmable quantum photonic chip
- 26 Year old in charge of nuclear weapons in North Korea
- More Internet users in China than the entire population of the USA
2010 year in review
2010 was the warmest year the earth has yet recorded.
- China passed Japan in 2010 to become the world's second-largest economy behind the United States, and has the second largest number of billionaires in the world.
- BP Gulf Oil catastrophe
- Wikileaks
- Philippines may pass India this year as the largest call center than India – Financial Times.
- Airports across Europe closed for a week by Volcano ash (Eyjafjallajökull) causing chaos for millions.
- North Korea’s sinking a South Korean ship and shelling one of its islands.
- Stuxnet computer worms attacking Iran’s nuclear program.
- Financial crises and severe government cut backs across much of Europe.
- Synthetic biology breakthrough creating an artificial life form.
- US health care law
- Haitian earth quake and cholera, Pakistan floods
- Mexican organized crime violence continues to escalate
- More electronic than paper books sold by Amazon.
- Tea Pot boils in the USA
- Sarah Palin shots a defenseless animal.
- Gays ok in US Military.
- Polar Ice continues to melt faster than forecasted, while few results in Copenhagen and Cancun.
- Frozen water discovered on the Moon – One the lunar pole about 600 million metric tons (158 billion gallons) in 40 craters.
- H1N1 declared a pandemic
- US combat troops out of Iraq