Via MrsA Wiggins.

I should note that there’s currently an SFF anthology with the theme of refugees seeking submissions, for charity, but paying pro rates. Check on The Submission Grinder – I think it’s called “Welcome”, but “refugee” is in the name as well.

Originally shared by N.R Dewi Nurmayani

http://www.dezeen.com/2015/11/23/refugee-camps-cities-of-tomorrow-killian-kleinschmidt-interview-humanitarian-aid-expert/

Good stimulus for steampunk or fantasy stories.

Originally shared by The Public Domain Review

One of the many designs for hydraulic automata created by the first-century-AD engineer Hero of Alexandria. Many involved elaborate networks of siphons that activated various actions as the water passed through them, especially figures of birds drinking, fluttering, and chirping. Read more in our latest essay “Frolicsome Engines: The Long Prehistory of Artificial Intelligence” by Jessica Riskin — http://bit.ly/1W9hZTR

Originally shared by David Brin

Scientists are making some progress in learning how to manipulate the microbiome, a realm that I predict will bring the 21st Century’s first truly major medical transformations – because the array of bacteria living within us, while large and complex, is inherently linear and ought to be well-corelated, soon, with genes, body types, diet and lifestyle. Already there are pushes to alter many longstanding practices, as described in Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/findings-from-the-gut-new-insights-into-the-human-microbiome1

Do you know of SFF people being excellent to one another or to others? Let Jim Hines know.

Originally shared by Jim Hines

http://www.jimchines.com/2016/04/help-me-share-the-awesome-side-of-sff/

Serious question: Do organizations tend to evolve in the direction of bureaucracy because that’s inherent to how people work, or just because we’re used to working that way? And how might we stop that from happening, in either case?

Originally shared by Jennifer Ouellette

Wikipedia Is Basically a Corporate Bureaucracy, According to a New Study http://gizmodo.com/wikipedia-is-basically-a-corporate-bureaucracy-accordi-1746955234 …

http://gizmodo.com/wikipedia-is-basically-a-corporate-bureaucracy-accordi-1746955234

Via Winchell Chung. I have a mid-future solarpunk setting currently cooking, and in the first story I’ve started for it, the main character’s mother runs the cattle vats for the vertical village.

Originally shared by Transhumanism Videos

http://www.sciencealert.com/lab-grown-burger-patty-cost-drops-from-325-000-to-12

A companion to the other post about the “symbiocene”: we will need new ways to organise collective effort in order to achieve symbiosis and sustainability, ways that distribute benefits more evenly and more fairly.

Originally shared by Brand Gamblin

This is a great read, but it really depends on Net Neutrality. So, who knows if it will come to pass.

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/nov/07/radical-new-economic-system-will-emerge-from-collapse-of-capitalism?CMP=share_btn_gp

Simultaneously radical and sensible, this article touches on a lot of the issues that are at the root of my “New Stability” mid-future setting (in development).

Very relevant for solarpunk/ecopunk SF in general. And, of course, for the real world.

Originally shared by Rita de Heer

A somewhat long article that explains the fallacies surrounding the present use of the concept of ‘sustainability’ and proposes a number of solutions …

https://glennaalbrecht.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/exiting-the-anthropocene-and-entering-the-symbiocene-via-sumbiocracy-symbiomimicry-and-sumbiophilia/