51 Future Now - Storming in CA, PACE Mission, Whale Tech, Master Now Georgia update, Glowing Plants, Bacterial Plastic to Silk transformers, STOL planes, IO Volcanism

Listen to Future Now 2.6.2024

We recorded this show in the aftermath of a large west coast storm, and if you listened in realtime, you would have heard the numerous tech glitches that happened, including dropping off the air multiple times.  But for the podcast version you get to focus on what we found most fascinating this week, not the glitches. In Space News, for example, the PACE mission will dramatically improve our tracking of life and weather over the Earth’s oceans, and led to a conversation on how other creatures of this planet may also benefit from our planetary tech.  If you like glowy things, consider the first commerical glowing house plant, a petunia with a biolumenescent gene from  a South American mushroom!  If that is too silly for you, consider deploying bio-engineered bacteria that eat our waste plastic, a relatively low cost/low impact approach to cleaning up our polymer messes.  We also have fun looking at the new Short TakeOff and Landing aircraft under development, the the exciting new infrared NASA photos of Jupiter’s highly volcanic moon, IO.  Hot spots all over, enjoy!

Light Bio’s bioluminescent petunia’s with mushroom glow genes