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Scoop.it!
Guest bloggers sound off on solutions for the future. Eight change accelerators in energy, mobility and design start the conversation, and you join in. Via Alessio Erioli, proto-e-co-logics 
Scoop.it!
Identifying key players in collective dynamics remains a challenge in several research fields, from the efficient dissemination of ideas to drug target discovery in biomedical problems.
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Alan Turing, born a century ago this year, is best known for his wartime code-breaking and for inventing the 'Turing machine' – the concept at the heart of every computer today. But his legacy extends much further: he founded the field of artificial intelligence, proposed a theory of biological pattern formation and speculated about the limits of computation in physics. In this collection of features and opinion pieces, Nature celebrates the mind that, in a handful of papers over a tragically short lifetime, shaped many of the hottest fields in science today.
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Here are some brief notes about how Google fosters collective intelligence through the structure of the organisation, values and culture. Via Spaceweaver
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Fisheries, coral reefs, productive farmland, planetary climate, neural activity in the brain, and financial markets are all complex systems that can be susceptible to sudden changes leading to drastic re-organization or collapse. A variety of signals based on analysis of time-series data have been proposed that would provide warning of these so-called critical transitions. We propose a new method for calculating early warning signals that is complementary to existing approaches. The key step is to incorporate other available information about the system through the framework of a so-called generalized model. Our new approach may help to anticipate future catastrophic regime shifts in nature and society, allowing humankind to avert or to mitigate the consequences of the impending change.
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Megacities are our future: There are more than 20 megacities in the world today and by 2025 there will be around 30 of them. They are home to more than 10 million people and sprawl for hundreds of kilometers. Their projected rapid expansion by the middle of this century will drive our economies and shape our lives. But they are not carefully designed superstructures; instead, they are aggregations of building developments that spread like weeds over already stressed infrastructures. Megacities offer the greatest opportunities and challenges for humankind in the 21st century as they exist at the interface where urban systems meet technology to support human development.
With the appropriate infrastructures supporting them, combined technologies can form qualitatively new kinds of engagement between buildings and the megacity environment. An exploratory project between Astudio architects and AVATAR examines the potential for upgrading the environmental performance of entire buildings in situ. The structural bones of buildings are kept in place and pruned as fit for purpose frameworks, without having to displace existing inhabitants, which are then re-wrapped with living facades. These are the next generation of functional vertical gardens that are colonized by microorganisms and life-like chemistries that assist with the lifecycles of buildings being able to process waste and make biofuels using local resources.
Architecture does not need to be limited by inert surfaces, which create a barrier between people and the environment but could directly engage the surroundings through active interfaces which act as vast synthetic soils. These might be maintained under surveillance by smart microfluidics monitoring systems and robotic gardeners. A taste of these dynamic geotextiles can be experienced in the architectural installation Hylozoic Ground, a finalist for the Katerva Award insustainability. This jungle-like technology is a prototype for living building surfaces that combine cybernetics with smart chemistry. The immersive, evolving technology offers a responsive framework for a new kind of architectural experience that senses people and the environment and whose principles may be applied in other contexts, such as gardens. Hylozoic Ground could even offer its inhabitants positive emotional experiences similar to being close to nature.
The grand vision of achieving positive human development in the 21st century will require effective coordination between disciplines, institutions, cultures, and geographical regions. The pressing concerns that affect us all are many and varied—and would require humanity to perform at its very best to secure a long-term partnership with this unstable earth that is our home.
Questions:
What are the challenges to developing and implementing a global vision of positive human development?
How can developed countries best transfer knowledge to the Global South?
How can combined technologies in cities help address significant social inequalities?