Future Of Humankind Research Articles

Denatured Nature

Abstract This essay places the narrative of the Spanish writer José A. Cano (b. 1954 in Madrid) within the context of contemporary Spanish ecofiction. Concerned with the state of global humanity, Cano reflects a growing postnational perspective among Spanish writers whose works critically address the challenges of the Anthropocene—in particular, the destructive effects the tenets of Western modernity (Kantian ethics, utilitarian values, human-Nature divide, logic of exploitation, dualistic and anthropocentric thought, etc.) have had on the more-than-human world. Heavily influenced by the Romanian philosopher E. M. Cioran, Cano’s novel La felicidad del Malvado (2023) offers a pessimistic outlook regarding the future of humankind. Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote provides another backdrop for this transatlantic novel, situated between the United States and Madrid, allowing Cervantine humor to balance out Cioran’s omnipresent voice of doom.

Trajectories of the Anthropocene as a boundary concept bridging debates about climate change and ecological collapse (years 2000–2019)

ABSTRACT Since its first appearance, the concept of the Anthropocene has achieved remarkable success in terms of users and audiences, among both specialists and non-specialists alike. While not yet formalised in the geologic timescale, how has this notion spread so widely and quickly? Given the concept’s trajectories across different media spheres and over its first two decades of circulation, the Anthropocene notion has had four main uses: a ‘proving use’ employed for collecting evidence for the human epoch’s official recognition; a ‘questioning use’ for criticising its epistemological and political shortcomings; a ‘mentioning use’ when taking it for granted as a catchword; and a ‘metaphorical use’ for conveying the rising problem of global warming and ecological collapse. Regarding this last metaphorical use, the Anthropocene appears to act as a boundary concept bridging debates about climate change and aligning apocalyptic imaginaries of the future. The success of the Anthropocene concept might therefore be explained not by virtue of its intrinsic properties, unspecified virality and predetermined trajectory, but rather by the crystallisation and frequency of its use as a boundary concept. As such, it plays an evoking function in discursively introducing the whole semantic domain of the climate crisis condition and establishing the basis for talking about its apocalyptic consequences. Being used for unifying these narratives about the past and future of humankind and for capturing the variety of changes caused to the planet, the Anthropocene’s fields of circulation have thus enlarged vastly outside its geological debate.

The peaceful use of outer space: protecting life on Earth

The way we explore and use of outer space is fundamental in terms of the world economy, strategic thinking, terrestrial military strategy, geopolitics, human rights, commercial enterprise, tech innovation and, frankly, the future of humankind. The impact of our use of space and the increasing range of space activities mean that law has an important role in ensuring that such activities are carried out in an appropriate manner. But law is not enough. We need to adjust our mindset about the use of space to recognise its uniqueness and the ‘humanity’ and ‘common interest’ doctrines that underpin it. A claim by some elements of society that space is the new ‘warfighting domain’ contradicts the 6-decade-long understanding that it is a shared area governed by international law, where global interests converge to ensure its exploration and use for the benefit of humanity. The goal of preventing an arms race in outer space (PAROS) is vital and must be continued, yet it still contemplates and may even legitimise increased military uses of space. We need to set our ambitions even higher—a pursuit of a ‘peace race’ in space. Only then can we begin to move towards an even broader aspirational goal of utilising international human rights law to protect humanity for all threats that might emerge from activities taken above us.

Verso un nuovo umanesimo digitale

Digital technologies are producing disruptive changes in human beings and all aspects of human society. They generated a paradigm change, perhaps with even deeper effects than those generated by past scientific revolutions. While they offer unprecedented chances to develop a better future for humankind, they also raise serious concerns about possible unprecedented risks. This article is an attempt to clarify why we are presently at this crucial crossroads and calls for moving along a new perspective where technology is at service of humankind: the perspective a new digital humanism.

Динозавры – персонажи кинематографа как отражение трансформации отношений между наукой и обществом

The author explores the social and cultural implications of dinosaurs as popular cinematic characters. The article shows how dinosaurs gradually become heroes of mass culture. They left paleontological research to enter the wide symbolic space, to visualize and develop themselves in the space of animation. The author provides a brief review of animated series and films with dinosaurs from the first short film in 1914 to the present day, considering the changing roles assigned to these ancient animals. The change in the semantic load of movie hero dinosaurs was analyzed in the context of ongoing events, value transformations and relations between science and society. To understand this connection, the author refers to the ideas of Svetlana Boym and Mario Ricca. Following Boym's ideas, the author considers dinosaurs as "ideal animals for nostalgia" and finds that due to their unique characteristics, the prehistoric era and its inhabitants, dinosaurs form a whole and peaceful human prehistory, filled with the values of friendship, cooperation and love, fueled by appropriate cinematic stories. Thus biology, with its key idea of evolution and the struggle of species for survival, turns into a story with its victories, struggles and dramatic chance in the context of dinosaur filmography. Based on Ricca's ideas, the author considers dinosaurs in the context of the cultural history of animals, which a person turns into metaphorical icons of moral feelings and behavioral habits; the author draws a parallel between medieval bestiaries and modern presentations of ancient lizards. In addition, dinosaur characters are structured as semantic figures, paradoxically uniting the past, present and future of humankind, the prehistoric era and technological progress. In conclusion, the author uses optics of global evolutionism and posthumanism.

Songs in the Key of Life

Songs in the Key of Life

World’s first application of a self-deployable mechanism based on shape memory polymer composites in Mars explorations: ground-based validation and on-Mars qualification

Mars is believed to contain signs of the ancient life and to be the future of humankind. Deep space explorations on Mars have received extensive attention from the scientific and engineering communities. An ancient papyrus scroll-inspired mechanism to deploy the national flag after landing is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a papyrus scroll-inspired structure folded and deployed by shape memory polymer composites (SMPCs) was designed. The material was characterised by both thermodynamic analysis and static mechanical tests. Then, computational modal analysis was completed with material parameters at 25 °C, 55 °C and 85 °C to investigate the temperature effect. Besides, ground-based engineering validations were conducted, including vibration, shock and acceleration tests, as well as deployment verification. Natural frequencies obtained from vibration agreed well with that calculated from simulation. Regular and vacuum deployments showed differences but were both acceptable. Additionally, release reliability greater than 99.99% was obtained through repeated experimental data. Finally, on-Mars qualification was completed with China’s Tianwen-1 mission, with images of the deployed five-star red flag transmitted by the Zhurong rover. It is the world’s first validation of self-deployable mechanism based on SMPCs in deep space, and further applications can be expected.

Back and Forth to Methuselah: Utopia, Dystopia, and Problematizing Age and Longevity in G. B. Shaw’s Interwar Play Cycle

After the straightforward response to the horrors of the First World War in Heartbreak House (1919), Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) created a more nuanced and rather allegorical reflection on the aftermath of the military events that reshaped, among several fields of culture, both political and philosophical attitudes in Europe. In Back to Methuselah (1921), the author provides five interconnected plays from five different and, to a certain extent, imaginary eras of human history and civilization. Reaching back to biblical sources and origin myths, as well as forward to futuristic settings and certain predictions, this Shavian Pentateuch, accompanied by an equally complex Preface, is a representative of interwar utopianism. Aimed at general, age-old, and overarching, essentially eternal themes and issues, such as the meaning of life and death, possible ways to achieve maximum longevity, as well as the potential betterment and advancement of humankind, this five-part dramatic work appears to be Shaw’s first, but not only, truly “speculative” writing in the literary sense of the term. This essay presents a reading of Back to Methuselah as both a modernist piece of utopian literature and an authorial answer to wartime inhumanity, keeping the scope of analysis primarily on the features and elements that create and maintain the modern-day scientific and speculative nature of the play(s). Furthermore, I look at the way(s) in which the concept of age and the social phenomenon of ageism are addressed and utilized in the play cycle, also analyzing certain Shavian predictions regarding the future of humankind in general, as well as the dramatist’s views anticipating the emergence of a discourse later identified as posthumanism. Relying on the theoretical approaches and standpoints of recent scholarship, my ultimate goal is to examine the forward-looking plot(s), interwar significance, and present-day relevance of G. B. Shaw’s utopian sci-fi drama cycle.

A Rogerian Vision of Gender in a Pandimensional Universe.

Rogers' science of unitary human beings is used to present a unitary process in the origin of humans and the evolution of gender. It is suggested that the increasing diversity of gender may be indicative of the future of humankind. Human field image and Barrett's power theory are used to understand gender identity, experience, and expression for wellbecoming.

National identity in historical video games: An analysis of howCivilization Vrepresents the past

AbstractAlthough the last two decades have seen a vast increase in studies that analyse banal nationalism in media, there is one medium that has largely been ignored in these discussions: video games. This article fills part of this gap by analysing the way in which the historical strategy gameCivilization Vrepresents the Past and what role it gives nations within historical processes. This video game was marketed globally by an American company, but it evokes Spanish, Japanese, and English nationalist narratives and imagery. Although globalization and nationalism are often framed as opposing forces, this is hardly the case here. This paper will combine insights of Game Studies and Nationalism Studies to illustrate how the elements that conformCivilization Vincentivise and enable players to re‐enact a narrative that portrays essentialised nation‐states as the only relevant actors in the past, present, and future of humankind. Although a product of globalization,Civilization Vstrengthens rather than erodes national boundaries.

The Historical Direction of Human Civilization—Interview with Wensheng Teng, Fifth President of the International Confucian Association

ABSTRACT To deepen understanding of the important role played by strengthening exchanges and mutual learning between the world’s civilizations in the process of building a community with a shared future for humankind, we present Yan Wang’s interview with Wensheng Teng, former Director of both the Party Literature Research Office and the Policy Research Office of the CPC Central Committee. From 2008 to 2019, Wensheng Teng served consecutively as vice president, executive vice president and president of the International Confucian Federation.

MUNDANE SCIENCE FICTION: LOSS OF DREAMS OR MATURITY?

The aim of the paper is to study the role of the mundane in contemporary culture based on the mundane science fiction (MSF). The term originated in 2004 thanks to «The Mundane Manifesto» by Geoff Ryman and his anonymous co-authors who argued for a focus on the modern science paradigm instead of dreams of outer space. The Manifesto outlines SF subgenre, where the setting is in the near future on the Earth or within the Solar System, excluding interstellar travel or contact with aliens. MSF suggests the believable use of technology and science, as it exists at the current time or a plausible extension of existing technology. There is a debate about the genre limits and its canonical works since it also covers cyberpunk, dystopia, etc. Remarkably, in the Soviet literature, such a genre called «near-future science fiction» existed in the 1940s and 1950s. It is a subgenre of «hard» SF focusing on the inventions useful for the national economy and lacking psychological depth of characters. This literature mostly had low artistic quality because of the Soviet ideological pressure and many limitations.The benefits of the paper are the following. First, the author distinguishes between two ma in approaches to SF, namely a more practical and literal reception and a more metaphorical reception. The former is characteristic of readers of realistic literature who try to find the true-to-life elements in SF blamed as escapism. The latter is close to the SF fans. However, blaming SF for escapism seems an excessive sociologizing of literature and ignoring the great role of metaphor in cultural development. Consequently, MSF is an effort to bridge a gap between SF and realistic literature. Second, the paper presents the first attempt to compare MSF to the Soviet «near-future SF». The author argues that since such a «near-future SF» occupies a niche in Western literature, it is a sign of the global changesthat are taking place during the lifetime of the current generation, bringing, in addition to progress, the acute threat of environmental catastrophe. Moreover, the role of neo Marxism, on the one hand, and technophobia, on the other hand, are emphasized. Third, for the first time the possible connections between MSF and the frontier myth important for the American national cultural mythology are studied. At the core of Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel «Aurora» (2015) and James Gray’s movie «Ad Astra» (2019), MSF is regarded as a rejection of the ideology «space: the final frontier». Both works shift the focus from the global to the personal, from the unusual to the mundane, from expansion and colonization to the internal problems. The author concludes that the anthropological turn occurs in SF as well: there is a loss of metaphor, allegory, and archetypal basis, an abandonment of escapism, Enlightenment utopianism, belief in progress, romanticism, and industrialism in favor of more realistic view on the future of humankind. Unfortunately, in many cases, «mundane» means not only «mature» but «boring» here, making SF more science than fiction.

Biomedical Engineering: Materials, Devices, and Technological Innovation Continue to Build a Better Future for Humankind

Biomedical Engineering: Materials, Devices, and Technological Innovation Continue to Build a Better Future for Humankind

ST. Paul University Philippines’ Thrust Towards Education for Sustainable Development

Educators have a pivotal role in promoting education for sustainable development (ESD). It is imperative to focus on sustainable development in order to survive and thrive in the present, and thus ensure that there would be a bright future for humankind. This descriptive study delineates the policy imperatives and integral implementation of ESD enhanced by the service learning program (SLP), and aligned with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) at St. Paul University Philippines (SPUP).

Waste Management for Lunar Resources Activities: Toward a Circular Lunar Economy

Space resources activities are currently the objective of a thriving cross-disciplinary global effort aimed at assessing their role and potential in the future of humankind. New innovative mission concepts, legal frameworks, and advanced technologies are being actively developed and proposed with the final goal of enabling profitable and efficient space resource utilization. The immediate location for these impacts is the Moon. In sight of this bright cohort of imminent perspectives, it is imperative for the global community to properly assess the potential effects and consequences of the forthcoming space resources activities, with the goal of including sustainability in the foundations of the ongoing progress and ensuring its enforcement in every future endeavor. Within this context, this article addresses the topics of Moon mining waste management and a lunar circular economy as key issues in the sustainable utilization of space resources. The most promising technologies are considered for lunar resources extraction and processing—with special focus on water—correlating their waste generation potential to the scale of the efforts implemented and to the projected availability of the resources of interest. Importance is also given to the corollary activities of space mining—such as logistics and transport operations—for their implications in waste management. Protocols and technologies with the lower waste generation potential are identified and further scenarios are elaborated for waste handling, reduction, reuse, and recycle, as well as end-of-life strategies for mining plants. This report's recommendations are proposed for the development of incremental regulation for waste management, including but not limited to the definition of common areas of noninterest for waste disposal and regulatory obligations for conducting impact assessments before the establishment of mining activities. Please note that this abstract is submitted under the auspices of the Space Generation Advisory Council, as part of the activities of the Space Exploration Project Group.

Li Song: driving China's maternal and child health transformation

Li Song is not deterred by the responsibilities of her role as Director General of the Department of Women and Children's Health at China's National Health Commission (NHC), a post she has held since March, 2021, having worked in the department for the past 19 years. “I constantly remind myself how women hold up half the sky, and that children are the future of humankind, core values at the heart of our work”, she says. A Lancet Commission on 70 years of women's reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health in ChinaWomen's reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health (RMNCAH) is a cornerstone for the healthy development of the next generation and a driving force for the progress of population and society in the future, especially in this era of population ageing and low fertility in China. In past decades, China's RMNCAH has made remarkable achievements in development goals related to reducing maternal and child mortality. However, as China moves towards a thriving goal—namely, towards ensuring health and wellbeing—the country faces emerging problems and new challenges in RMNCAH. Full-Text PDF

Singlet Fission

There is no doubt that solar energy will play an increasingly key role in the future of humankind. The ability to harvest, store, and utilize energy from the sun, however, poses a number of significant challenges that need to be met and overcome to efficiently exploit this resource. The past decades have seen significant efforts in the development of new materials, improved solar cell design, and increased device efficiencies. Organic photovoltaic solar cells (OPVs) have the potential to make a crucial contribution to our energy future through, for example, the possibility of low-cost device formation and the use of earth abundant elements. Realizing the potential of OPVs, however, requires that both the efficiencies and long-term stabilities be increased. This special collection in ChemPhotoChem describes a variety of approaches toward using singlet fission as a basis for an improved scheme of solar energy capture and conversion. These articles and a minireview provide exciting insight into new molecules, theoretical analyses, and mechanistic schemes at the forefront of research efforts to harness the potential of singlet fission. Why highlight singlet fission in a special collection of papers? The upper thermodynamic limit for single-junction solar cells is just above 30 %, due largely to the fact that excess energy from the absorbed photons is lost to heat rather that used for charge generation. To overcome this limit, creative and innovative strategies, such as singlet fission, are necessary. Singlet fission is a spin-allowed process in which, upon photoexcitation, the initial singlet state spontaneously splits into a pair of correlated triplet states. Current models suggest that solar cells based on singlet fission could achieve efficiencies of nearly 50 %. Singlet fission in systems based on organic molecules has been known for over 40 years, but only recently has it been embraced as a realistic scheme for OPVs. In the past decade or so, many significant advances have been made with respect to optimizing molecular materials, incorporation of materials into proof-of-concept devices, and understanding the mechanism of singlet fission. Nevertheless, challenges remain, including the ability to effectively “harvest” and convert triplet-excited states formed by singlet fission into useable forms of energy as well as the development of materials and devices that feature long-term stability in OPVs. The design of stable new molecules for singlet fission will undoubtedly play an important role toward solving these changes, including for example, electron-accepting and radical-based systems to complement the use of electronic donating acenes. We hope that this special collection will provide both a window into our current understanding of singlet fission for OPVs as well as provide inspiration toward providing answers for challenges that remain in the field. Rik R. Tykwinski is Professor and Chair of Chemistry at the University of Alberta (Canada). As a physical organic chemist, his research interests center on the synthesis of molecules that model the carbon allotrope carbyne and structure–function studies of carbon-rich conjugated systems. When not in the office, he is most likely entertaining his two sons or out on his mountain bike. Dirk M. Guldi is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Erlangen (Germany). His research interests are centered around light- and charge-management in solar energy conversion schemes using nano-carbons. While doing a full-time academic job, he fits in tri-training into a full and fulfilled life.

Empirical study of Brazilian diaspora religious practice in Spain

Globalisation is inextricably linked to capitalism. One reality of an increasingly globalised world is that cultural diversity and differences are at the forefront of governmental policy in countries around the world. This places renewed emphasis on the concept of 'other' and creates disharmony within society. However, the future of humankind depends on appreciating and accepting diversity and forging connections. For Masanobu Yamada, Department of Area Studies, Faculty of International Studies, Tenri University, Japan, such connections can be achieved through religion, which can provide security, a sense of belonging and cultural connections. Yamada is interested in religious studies and is investigating how religion can transcend national borders and create a sense of community. Key to Yamada's research is religions that were formed in Japan and later expanded into Latin America, and religions that were disseminated by Brazilian immigrants in Japan and Europe, with cultural activities propagating from the region of origin and moving across global borders. Yamada has also discovered instances where the beliefs being propagated by people on the move have also been promoted by people remaining in their home country. He is interested in unravelling institutional-level dynamism and believer-led dynamics. He is keen to explore the transformations experienced by people who emigrated abroad and their family and friends who remained in Brazil, with a focus on connections through religious values and how this contributed to the creation of a new culture.

From sustainable development to degrowth: philosophical and educational strategies for sustainability

The article is dedicated to analyzing the philosophical and educational grounds for the sustainable development of humankind. The growth of human civilization is already recognized to have its strict natural limits, and that has resulted in the formulation of the concept of sustainable development as a strategy for the future of humankind. However, there is some discrepancy noted in the concept of sustainable development – in particular, it is the lack of fundamental consistency between its ‘economic’ and ‘ecological’ components. It is insufficient to consider the nature being valuable only as a base of resources, as means for social and economic development. As sustainability could only be based on some minimal conditions for living within the regenerative capacity of the planet’s ecosystems, it is evident that the current crisis is a crisis of senses, values and lifestyle no less than it is the crisis of industry and social demography. Sustainability is argued to require a new kind of society that would be able to decrease its growth and its excessive consumption habits. The article analyzes the concept of degrowth as a kind of more radical and practical supplement to the rather abstract idea of sustainable development: degrowth is defined as an ecologically sound development. That concept is also shown to present new challenges for higher education as a social institution tasked with constituting a human personality capable of living in a environmentally sound future. Thus, higher education is faced today with the challenge of shaping out not only knowledge and skills, but values and behavior patterns as well, by giving more attention to general culture, critical thinking and creativity and by increasing social responsibility for environmental protection and adopting lifestyle practices of degrowth and reduced consumption.

DECLINING SEX RATIO AT BIRTH IN INDIA: IMPLICATION OF SEX DETERMINATION TECHNOLOGY MISUSE

The paper examined decline sex ratio at birth in India and its major states. Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB) refereed to male births per female births. As of 2014, the global sex ratio at birth was estimated at 107 boys to 100 girls. At present, declining sex ratio at birth deemed to be a silent emergency. But the crisis emerged as real, and its persistence has profound and frightening implications for society and the future of humankind. Keywords: Sex Ratio at Birth; Child Sex Ratio; Sex Determination Tests and Female Foetus Abortions