Things are changing and changing fast. From the time I was born to now I have witnessed what seems like a science fiction dream. The changes have been so dramatic many of them could not even have been conceived of back then. If you would have told someone we would have a computer in almost every home they would have said it was nonsense since these things filled many rooms and were extremely complicated and expensive. The thought of satellites whizzing above our heads seemed like a fairy tale and cell phones, well all I can say is that topic never even came up. Back then we thought we were very advanced, because technical progress is a matter of prospective and when you have nothing to compare it against except history you are advanced to a certain extent. The ancient Greeks thought they were advanced and they were for their time when compared to everyone else.

Let’s look at some of the changes coming down the road today. It seems there is no stopping the progress auto makers are making toward fielding self-driving cars. Waymo has just added 100 self-driving Chrysler Pacificas to its fleet. Waymo is the spin-off of Google’s self-driving cars project. What makes this purchase unique is the fact the equipment inside the car has not been added on. It is built in at the factory and may be the first time this has happened. The designing and building of these special cars only took 6 months to accomplish. It has been shown 95 percent of accidents are caused by human error. This means a successful self-driving car can save a lot of lives. Of course this assumes the equipment in the car works perfectly. Self-driving cars are on the way and nothing will stop them from coming to market. Recently an Uber self-driving car was photographed going through a red light.

The move towards green energy is building to tidal wave proportions. Recently Futurism reported 5.2 trillion dollars’ worth of investments in the oil and gas industry have been pulled. More money every day is being taken from fossil fuel investments and it is hurting the bottom line. If you ask most people they will tell you fossil fuel’s time is coming to an end. It certainly didn’t help fossil fuel when several countries announced they were running completely on renewable energy. Our planet is blessed with abundant sources of free energy in the form of sun, wind and water to name some. It certainly seems it’s time to stop wasting these gifts. The problem is the almighty dollar controls everything and if it wasn’t for that fact we would already be running the United States on renewable energy. It will also make it safer for us if every home has its own power source instead of all of us being on a grid which could be taken out by hackers or destroyed by bombs.

Scientists have been trying to predict why some of us become criminals while the vast majority of us do not. This is nothing new, it has probably been going on since the first police force was put into action. Is criminality a product of environment or nature, that is the big question? Researchers at Duke University decided to try and find out the answer, so they examined data from a study in New Zealand which covered 38 years. Children as young as 3 years old were examined. Their social skills, language comprehension, motor skills and reflexes were tested. What they found surprised them. They found the 3 year olds with the lowest 20 percent brain health grew up to commit over 80 percent of the crimes. Since brain health isn’t the only indicator for future criminality the researchers left out those who were below the poverty level. Here is an interesting note, those same 20 percent were responsible for demanding the most from the state such as 57 percent of hospital stays at night, 66 percent of welfare benefits and 77 percent of fatherless child-rearing.

Scientists have been studying animal species for hundreds of years and one would think we should know all about them by now, but this is far from the truth. One of the reasons for this is we just keep discovering new animal species every year.  In 2011 an undersea expedition was launched to study deep sea hydrothermal vents. These are vents on the ocean floor which emit boiling hot water. It would seem nothing could live there and yet there is life all around these vents. When the area where these vents was reached and studied, scientists found all sorts of life living by the vents. There was so much marine life by the vents 6 new species were found right away. One has to wonder if life can exist in these harsh areas, can it also exist on planets we have written off as being unable to support life.

The Canadians have decided to create a nation-wide tax of 10 Canadian dollars to combat carbon emissions. The tax will increase by 10 dollars every year until it reaches 50 dollars. They have also banned the use of coal. Coal will be replaced with cleaner energy choices. Some Canadian politicians are not happy about the tax and have said it will damage the economy since President elect Donald Trump has promised to put coal and oil back into play in the United States.

When the first meat for a hamburger was grown in a lab it cost about $330,000, I don’t think anyone would want to pay that much for a burger do you? This hasn’t stopped Tyson Foods from investing massive amounts of money in lab grown meats. So far they have invested 150 million dollars in the venture. They now have a 5 percent stake in Beyond Meat, a protein producer. Beyond Meat is known for making hamburgers and chicken out of peas, carrots and plant based ingredients. Tyson doesn’t believe lab grown meat will replace all meat, but that it will give a choice and help reduce livestock farming since this takes such a big toll on our environment. It has also been said a lab type plant growing meat will be much cleaner and more germ free. It might eliminate some or all of those meat recalls.

There are several countries thinking about doing away with money and becoming cashless societies. They would use digital money for everything. I am talking about using the equivalent of a debit card for everything. Three of the countries thinking about doing this are Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Unfortunately this means everything bought there will be known and all transactions controlled by banks.