These days I read the news with an interest in anything that’s going to affect the way the future looks, given that I’m writing a series that takes place a couple of decades out. Here are a few articles that caught my eye from this week:
Mystery Illness in India
Over 500 people hospitalized and one dead so far in an area that’s been hit hard by Covid. Reports say that people started suddenly convulsing and they’ve already ruled out the initial assumptions of what caused it. I immediately think “airborne pathogen” and assume it’s either a biological weapons test or a terrorist attack, but maybe it will turn out to be something benign. Either way, something along these lines could easily become commonplace everywhere.
Advances with Radioactive Diamond Batteries
New technology that infuses carbon-14 into a lab-grown diamond shape that minimizes the distance the beta particles travel which maximizes the nuclear battery’s efficiency, instead of relying on the conventional configuration which sandwiches the nuclear source and semiconductor in discrete layers. It basically creates a crystal diamond battery from recycled nuclear waste and creates energy for hundreds (or thousands) of years. The output is low, but steady, best used for things like pacemakers or space probes. It only takes a little shielding to prevent radiation from being a problem, and the coolest thing? They’re calling them “Dragon Eggs”. I get excited about all the new energy technologies.
Sinkhole in Australia
A burst water main caused a hole about six meters wide and swallowed pavement and a traffic light near a shopping center. Is it a weird hobby to collect interesting disaster scenarios?
Latin American Cartels using Crypto Currency
The amount of cash being confiscated by law enforcement is down significantly and crypto currency is being blamed as the cartels use bitcoin as a way to launder money without as much interference or regulation. Fascinating, both because I work in banking and because drug cartels moving money is a plot point in my latest book, although *spoiler alert*, they do it more conventionally.