Human civilization at a critical junction between authoritarian collapse and superabundance
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 12-Jun-2025 16:09 ET (12-Jun-2025 20:09 GMT/UTC)
A new scientific study published in the journal Foresight concludes that human civilisation is on the brink of the next ‘giant leap’ in evolution. However, progress could be thwarted by centralised far-right political projects such as the incoming Donald Trump administration.
"Industrial civilisation is facing 'inevitable' decline as it is replaced by what could turn out to be a far more advanced ‘postmaterialist’ civilisation based on distributed superabundant clean energy. The main challenge is that industrial civilisation is facing such rapid decline that this could derail the emergence of a new and superior 'life-cycle' for the human species", commented Dr Nafeez Ahmed, author of the paper, member of The Club of Rome, member of the Earth4All Transformational Economics Commission and Distinguished Fellow at the Schumacher Institute for Sustainable Systems.
Researchers in China achieve a deeper understanding of the reduction of healthy seeds in highly photosynthetic rice crops
An Osaka Metropolitan University research team has discovered proteins with emulsifying action that can be readily released from yeast cell walls. One of them exhibited emulsifying activity comparable to that of casein, a milk-derived emulsifier.
Ordered nanopillars on a flat surface are demonstrated to generate and steer extremely high-speed electrons under irradiation by ultrahigh intensity, femtosecond laser pulses of light. The authors demonstrate that mere adjustments in the spacing of the nanosteps and the incident angle of the laser, can provide a high degree of directionality and beaming of these fast electrons. This is yet another example where tiny, nanoscale structures on a surface can provide a high degree of control in a physical process, with potential applications in material science, chemistry and biology where such directional, narrow electron beams can be used for lithography, microscopy, imaging or cancer therapy.
Dan G. Duda, DMD, PhD, of the Edwin L. Steele Laboratories for Tumor Biology and Department of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, is the corresponding author of a paper published in Cancer Immunology Research, “Combination CXCR4 and PD1 Blockade Enhances Intratumoral Dendritic Cell Activation and Immune Responses Against Hepatocellular Carcinoma.”