What is preparing the coming year: the hidden threats of 2014

What is preparing the coming year: the hidden threats of 2014

The year 2013 was probably remembered more than the others by various gloomy predictions about the coming end of the world and the death of all mankind.

It is worth remembering at least what serious concerns were associated with solar storms. Or how much noise was there when in Hawaii they recorded a new record for carbon dioxide concentration?
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In addition, the technical community actively discussed the extension of life. Another hot topic was high-speed machine-to-machine trading, especially as the speed of transactions began to approach the speed of light.
Here are some big and not very predictions about what awaits us in the near future.

Power system crash

In general, in 2013, solar storms were written very actively. For example, the annual report of the American National Intelligence Council states that “geomagnetic storms pose a significant threat” to electronics and power systems.
The last "super strong solar storm" broke out in 1859, and it is very likely that the next cataclysm will occur in our time.
The power of these storms can be judged by the storm of 1989, when the Canadian Quebec power system failed, and 6 million consumers remained without electricity.
According to statistics, Quebec level storms occur once every 50 years. And super strong storms once in 150 years. The last cataclysm of this magnitude - "The Event of Harrington" - occurred in 1859. Then the telegraph systems failed throughout Europe and North America, and the northern lights were observed throughout the world.
Specialists in the national laboratory in Idaho conducted studies that proved that geomagnetic disturbances can seriously disrupt or disable electrical transformers and undermine the foundation of the entire US power grid.
Super strong solar storms are a serious thing even when there are no electronics nearby. For example, in 1859, during the “Events of Harrington”, because of the bright northern lights, the whole fire brigade was alarmed: people thought that a large fire had started somewhere.

What “babakhnet” next year?

Some experts believe that bitcoins will be “fired”. Others predict the collapse of the cloud platform Open Stack - it supposedly will be bent because of the innovative collapse.
In 2013, scientists discovered the largest volcano on Earth and in the entire solar system. The Tamu underwater massif is located in the northwest Pacific and is comparable in size to the state of New Mexico or Britain. Fortunately, the volcano is inactive, so that it certainly will not "babahat" in the near future.

In Google, following Edison, they thought about extending life

In 2013, Google founded a subsidiary, Calico, that will deal with health and longevity. In the Time newspaper, the article immediately responded to an article with the headline “Can Google defeat death?” . Details about what the company does, so far very little. It is only known that it was headed by Arthur Levinson, head of the board of directors of Apple. Levinson himself is a biochemist by training, so he is quite capable of helping a young company not only with word, but also with deed.
Thomas Edison had once discovered the secret of longevity: a moderate lifestyle. According to the scientist, he usually slept for four or five hours a day, ate no more than 700 grams of food, smoked cigars and chewed tobacco, but never touched cigarettes. Edison also regularly subscribed to 118 scientific journals and 5 newspapers. The scientist lived to 84 years, although in his time, i.e. at the beginning of the 20th century, people lived on average for 52 years.

Too fast for a man?

Recently, the technical community constantly talked about the fact that machine-to-machine trading would one day lead to the collapse of financial markets.
In a recent article in Nature, it was said that people have less and less opportunity to keep track of and interfere with the work of automation and electronics. As stated in the article, in new systems, the speed of information transmission and processing is already far superior to the capabilities of the human body and will soon be comparable to the speed of light.
The author of the article also reproaches the financiers for laying out a specialized transatlantic cable only to speed up the exchange of information between traders in the US and England by 5 milliseconds. However, in the US Securities and Exchange Commission, they repulsed both reproaches and warnings. According to stockbrokers, high speed data exchange will only help to quickly deal with problems in financial markets.

“Bad weather for half a year”

In its report, NASA stated that in May 2013 the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exceeded 400 ppm. The last time this happened about 3-5 million years ago, long before the appearance of people on Earth.
Scientists are confident that this “record” is one of the signs of the coming global climate change, which will come in a few years or decades. The current report of the National Academy proposes the creation of a global warming prevention system. Scientists fear that humanity and nature are threatened by the loss of sea ice and various animal species, as well as other climatic changes.

Via computerworld