Hawking's Ark passes Saturn's rings

Cairns spaceport, Australia, 15 June 2050: The space ship Hawking's Ark has passed by the rings of Saturn, the first time they have been seen by the naked human eye in recorded history.

The Ark has been sending back video of the rings and moons of Saturn for several months as it neared the planet, but the pioneers aboard the Ark held their first 'open glass' viewing of the planet today. The radiation shields protecting the Ark are designed only to be opened in emergencies but were pulled back for seven minutes today to allow the viewing.

"It was a sight I will never forget, more emotional than watching earth disappear behind Mars," said pioneer Rudi Ham Sin.

Hummingbird colony threatened

On a less upbeat note, the Ark's science blog for Monday reported that its hummingbird colony has lost six breeding pairs in the last year, with no new births. Hummingbirds were among the several thousand species which were not tested for physiological adaptability to space flight, due to the pressure to advance the departure of the Ark to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the birth of reunited China.

The Ark has traversed the space between Earth and Saturn in just over seven years, nearly as fast as was achieved by the fossil and nuclear fuel powered Cassini spacecraft which reached Saturn in 2004. The Ark's solar wind technology has been continually improved upon by pioneer scientists throughout the journey and the craft is now able to achieve non gravity assisted speeds of 10km (6 miles) per second.

Sidebar: The Ark is named after the Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, whose Hawking Foundation was dedicated to 'ensuring the future of the human race in space'. The Foundation established the first private lunar colony in 2027, to serve as a launch platform for the Ark. Financial difficulties struck the project in 2032 and a joint venture with the Chinese government rescued the project and ensured its completion, culminating in the launch of Hawking's Ark in 2043.

The nominal destination of the Ark is the star Tau Ceti, however it will leave reliable communication range within five years unless new technologies emerge. The Ark is intended to be a sustainable eco system, able to collect and store energies from gravity and radiation in space, and to mine asteroids or planets for the raw materials needed to maintain or even expand the mother ship into a fleet of Arks.

The Indian Government has announced that its Ark, the Ghandi, will launch in ten years and will follow the Hawking to Tau Ceti. The Indian Government has announced that it regards the survival of its colony and the plant and animal species within it as paramount and it will not compromise current space based testing in order to achieve an earlier launch date.

Protein oven recall warning

Hong Kong, 14 June 2050: The world's leading brand of consumer Protein Oven, the pBox, has issued a global recall of its pBox 420 oven.

The pBox 420 was the most purchased household appliance on mainland China last year, offering people the opportunity to culture their own chicken or beef-like protein 'loafs' in a simple breadbox sized unit.

"It was a boon to the modern kitchen," said celebrity chef Weechun Hai Dawson. "Protein cells, growth medium and an oven which could keep the culture at the exact temperature needed to ensure rapid growth - it was the first time this was achieved in a domestic appliance!"

Previous protein ovens were industrial sized units used to grow protein suitable only for canned goods or sauces, with a maturation time of three days. The pBox 420 was the first household unit which could grow 500 grams of chicken or beef-like protein overnight.

"It was as easy as baking bread, and produced a succulent meat which tasted almost indistinguishable from the real thing," Hai Dawson said.

The pBox manufacturer, Hitachyundai, issued a press release stating that the units were being recalled due to "growing reports of culture abnormalities". These abnormalities did not affect the safety of the protein product, the company said, but were "disturbing to some consumers".

Hong Kong consumer rights organisation, CorpWatch, said it had received several reports of cultured protein containing soft bone like tissue and an unverified claim that one consumer found a lump of tissue resembling an eyeball in a pBox Protein Loaf.

New cure for cell phone carcinoma?

Sydney, Australia, 29 April 2050: Australian researchers at the University of New South Wales claim to have identified a potential cure for the most widespread form of cancer, commonly dubbed Cell Phone Carcinoma.

Cell phone carcinoma is the leading cause of death in 70-90 year olds, who were exposed to dangerous radiation from early mobile telephone handsets before the link between these handsets and brain tumour development was proven.

The new technique involves the implantation on the skull of a subdermal patch containing anti-cancer agent interleukin IIIc, which provides a constant supply of interleukin to the site of cell phone carcinoma, in the temporal lobes.

"This is the first time interleukin has been delivered via a continuous flow subdermal deposit," said Doctor Ellen Chan, of the University of NSW Oncology Research Division.

"Our early results are so promising we stopped the study as it would have been unethical not to offer the therapy to all participants."

The five year study was only in its third year. Subdermal interleukin was given to half of the 400 participants, while a placebo patch was given to the other half. All participants were in the 75-80 year old age group, and assessed to be at high risk of developing cell phone carcinoma.

"In the interleukin group only one patient developed cell phone carcinoma in the first three years, but in the control group using placebo, 15 patients have now developed the disease," Dr Chan said.

Third major breakthrough from government facility

If proven in further clinical trials, this will be the third major breakthrough in ten years to come out of the Australian Government's National Health and Medical Research Program (NHMRP).

Two others included the development in 2035 of a vaccine against diabetes, and the cholesterol neutralising agent Profactum, released in 2043. The program has produced numerous other minor improvements to existing therapies, most notably in the area of HIV and AIDS.

The NHMRP was the Australian Government's response to the decision by big pharma to cease all clinical research in Australia, following mandatory price reductions on prescription medicines in Australia.

The Government diverted a large part of its defence and foreign aid budgets to medical research, focused on specific health priorities which would benefit both Australia and the developing world.

"We will approach medical research like the Chinese approached the Mission to Mars," said the then Australian Health Minister, Troy Barnaby. "With single minded determination and a bloody minded will to win."

Diabetes was the first priority identified, and all research resources nationally were devoted to identifying the most promising drug candidates, and attracting the leading researchers to Australia. When a diabetes vaccine was developed to halt the body's own destruction of pancreatic cells, the research was made available free of charge to other governments under a philosophy borrowed from technology, 'open source science'.

"When insulin for diabetes was discovered by Banting and Best in Canada they didn't patent it and sell it only to the wealthy of North America. They invited European and American researchers to work with them to spread their discovery to the four corners of the world and we want to return to that model," said the international coordinator of the diabetes vaccine program in 2035, Dr Ji Nan Hsu.

The open source science model has now been adopted by all major developed nations, with China the most successful in developing breakthrough medical discoveries to date, most recently including targeted gene therapies to halt the onset and progresson of multiple sclerosis and alzheimers disease. The first and most famous breakthrough to emerge from China's focused research program was in vitro spinal cord regeneration allowing the reversal of para and quadriplegia.

Drug companies which have tried to patent and market variations of open source therapies under their own labels have been blocked in court or locked out of hospitals throughout the world.

'Father of Modern China' on display in Madison Square Gardens

But is it really him?

New York, 26 April 2050: The plasticised body of former Chinese Premier Jian Meng drew 120,000 people to its first day of public display here today.

Tens of thousands of mostly Chinese Americans waited in pouring rain all week to be among the first to view Meng's body outside China. Viewings will take place in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, before the body returns to its mausoleum in Taipei.

Meng, who died in 2048, is credited as the architect of the 'Chinese Miracle'. He led the transformation of China to a socialist free market economy, and achieved the peaceful re-integration of the island state of Taiwan in 2027.

But it was as a young firebrand, newly elected Premier that he devised the key policy which historians agree led to China's rise to be the pre-eminent global superpower - the 'Ten Years to Freedom' campaign. This was the decision in 2015 to phase out the use of fossil fuels by motor vehicles and industry within a decade.

Meng took the dramatic step in 2020, just five years into the campaign, of banning the sale of fossil fuels for private motor vehicles.

Meng claimed in his Little Green Book that, 'the 2015 attack by perfidious (sic) USA against Iran, and the subsequent impact on our economy from instability in oil supplies made it clear to me that China must either shuck the yoke of oil tyranny, or join the horde of morally corrupt nation states fighting like alley cats over the spilled milk of the Arab sheiks.'

China's reduced dependence on fossil fuels, and advanced alternative energy economy, enabled it to ride out the shockwaves of the 2028 Oil War with minimal economic impact compared to the fossil fuel dependent economies of the USA and EU.

Questions about authenticity

Meng is revered in China, and throughout the Chinese diaspora. It is the first time his body has been moved outside of China due to the grave risk of damage during air or sea transportation.

Meng's body was transported to New York by a Chinese PLA Suborbital, after Lloyds of Hong Kong agreed to underwrite the venture for an undisclosed sum.

The decision by the Chinese government to suddenly relent and allow Meng's body to leave China has however sparked rumours that the body is in fact not Meng, but simply a simulcra in lifelike plastic - or even a clone.

"How would you ever know?" asked one woman after her ten minute viewing was finished. She had queued for three days to see Meng. "It looks like him, so real he looks like he is just sleeping, but he is sealed in polycarbon so it makes him look like a plastic doll," she said.

Another man, who claimed to have met Meng at a Washington DC Embassy reception in 2028, said he was in no doubt. "It is him. Exactly as I remember him, just older. No doubt about it."

Plasticisation of the dead was pioneered by a German shock artist at the turn of the century, and is now in use for the mummification of persons of cultural significance by several cultures including China, Ukrainian Russia and India.

The first and oldest plastified mummy is that of former Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, whose body was removed from public display in 2029 following the Second Orange Revolution, which saw Western Russia vote to merge with Ukraine, and the subsequent destruction of many former Russian cultural icons.

Secret hidden in the sands will at last be probed

Aratta, former Iran, 5 April 2050: Archeologists returned for the first time today to the site of the ancient city unearthed in a nuclear blast during the Oil War.

The city has been extensively surveyed by satellite and high altitude sideband radar, but until now the hotzone has been considered too dangerous for even temporary human habitation.

The ruins appeared in the moon like crater caused by a nuclear blast and windstorm near the former South Eastern Iranian city of Jiroft. Buildings obvious from the aerial survey include several apparent dwellings and a huge temple on a low hill, with a large plaza located at the juncture of two rivers.

Most importantly, infrared imaging appears to indicate an enormous boat shaped object within the temple building. The quest to conclusively locate Aratta has intensified since the 2020 discovery in Azerbaijan of bronze engravings of the Sumarian Enmerkar legends, which appear to indicate that 'the mount between rivers at the town of Aratta' was the resting site of the fabled Ark of Noah - not modern day Mt Ararat as some believed.

"If it is indeed shown to be Aratta, the city of Sumerian legend, it may date back as far as 2,500 BC and hold the key to the myth of the flood," said U Shanghai spokesperson, Mr Jack Chang.

Experts at Calcutta University have called the expedition 'foolhardy, and doomed.'

"Aratta has been conclusively proven to exist at the site of Phraapsa, near the river Araxes," according to Calcutta U Professor of New Archeology, Sriranjan Chaudry. "And there was no Mount, no Noah's Ark."

"Our colleagues are putting at risk their reputations, and their lives, for what could show itself to be nothing more than a Parthian trading town," he said.

Due to prevailing electromagnetic anomalies in the region, there will be no communication possible with members of the University of Shanghai expedition until their return and deradiation on Friday.

Largest ever turnout for Tehran Day marches

Kuala Lumpur, March 17, 2050: More than 20 million people worldwide are believed to have turned out for Tehran Day peace rallies this year.

The largest marches were in Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia and Denmark. Five million people marched in Jakarta alone and Denmark, with a population of just 10 million people, registered four million marchers.

Rallies in the rest of Europe were smaller, with two million turning out in France and similar numbers in Germany, Italy and the UK.

"The world is still in mourning over the deaths of 50 million people in the Oil War," UN Secretary General Carla DuPont said in front of 50,000 people gathered outside the UN headquarters in Beijing. "It should mourn for a thousand years."

The most dramatic march was conducted by a group of 20 representatives of the Persian Gulf diaspora who flew into the Tehran hot zone by helicopter to plant a wreath at the site of the former Shahyad Tower. The group was arrested and quarantined by Saudi police when the helicopter returned to Riyadh.

History Line

It was on this day in 2015 that armed forces of the then Superpower, the United States of America, used tactical nuclear weapons against an underground nuclear research facility in Tehran which it claimed was used to produce and store nuclear weapons. It was the first use of nuclear weapons in war since they were used to end the Second World War in 1945.

20,000 people died immediately in that attack, and up to 130,000 are believed to have died as a result of radiation induced illnesses related to the attack.

International condemnation followed, as did massive disruption to oil supplies and the global economy. This culminated in the invasion in October 2028 by Coalition Forces (principally US, Israel, Turkey) of Jordan and Saudi Arabia aimed at securing access to the Safaniya and Ghawar Oilfields.

Saudi and Iranian forces combined with Syria and Egypt to oppose the invasion and what became known as the Oil War followed. It is unclear which nation was the first to use nuclear weapons in the Oil War, but historical consensus is that Saudi Arabia detonated underground nuclear weapons in the Ghawar, Abqaiq, Hawtah and Marjan fields in order to deny them to the invaders.

A large element of the US XVIII Airborne Corp was trapped in the hotzone created by these explosions and the US, Turkey and Israel responded over the next week with tactical nuclear strikes on Iran, Syria and Egypt.

The conflict was halted when a united Russia, Pakistan, China and India threatened all out nuclear war with the US unless it ceased hostilities. US Congress removed the then US President Carlton, and Coalition nuclear forces in the Gulf and mainland USA were disarmed by the UN.

On November 3 2028, three weeks after it started, the Oil War ended, and 50 million people were dead, including more than 50% of the population of Iran.

Launch of EyePad Bioware delayed to 2051

Tokyo, March 17, 2050: Eyeware enthusiasts were weeping behind their shades today when Applesoft announced that European and Chinese regulators had asked for further clinical studies before they would consider approving the new bioware upgrade to the ubiquitious EyePad.

Applesoft had planned to launch EyePad Bioware in June this year, following what it claimed were successful clinical trials of the new EyePad’s surgically implantable sensory enhancement unit.

Published clinical study data indicates subjects who had the unit implanted, reported being able to hear, smell and taste in-game special effects.

Yahoogle Game Industry Analyst, Charles Chang, said he had seen confidential company data which was part of the EU and China submissions, showing that gamers using the implant also experienced dramatic weight gain and other side effects.

"It may just be an issue of the advertising and product placement in the games," he said. "Sonysoft chose to test the units using the RazorWire III game, which includes significant product placement from fast food companies. My sources tell me that in one study they enabled the sensory effects for the food in the game, causing subjects to dramatically increase their snacking behaviour. This is what is worrying regulators."

The vocal Taipei based Eyeware Consumer Protection Organization issued a news release praising the decision to request further clinical studies before approving the implant.

"Multiple independent studies show that long term Eyeware use can lead to social isolation, depression, aggressive behaviour and crime – all behaviours reminiscent of drug addiction," said Garda McVeigh, spokesperson for the ECPO.

"We remain deeply concerned about the impact of adding sensory enhancement to an already dangerous machine," she said. "Our information is that it is not just weight which increased in trial subjects, but also sexual self abuse."

There are currently estimated to be 1.2bn Eyeware users globally. Applesoft has captured nearly 80% of the Eyeware market with its EyePad glasses, a gaming and content viewing platform with Omninet capability.

A perceived limitation of the system is that to hear audio, users must still place earbuds in their ears. The Applesoft implant was intended to address this by providing audio direct to the aural nerve, but Applesoft also chose to explore in clinical studies the opportunity to stimulate other sensory organs with the upgrade.

"One option for Applesoft is to drop the taste, smell and other enhancers and bring the unit to market now with just the audio feature," Yahoogle’s Chang said. "The question for Applesoft marketing though - are people willing to undergo a surgical procedure just to avoid having to wear earbuds?"

"The Applesoft pipeline includes a next-gen version of the EyePad for contact lenses – I believe they would be better off trying to accelerate that product, than to keep going with Bioware now," he said.

India accuses China of using biomimetic weapons


Uttar Pradesh, March 16, 2050:

Biomimetic insect cyborgs have been deployed by China in the Aksai Chin conflict, according to Indian military sources.

Indian military officials held a press conference here today and displayed several locusts, which appeared to be fitted with a tiny electronic device.

"These weaponised insects clearly contravene the 2041 Seoul Protocol against the use of weaponised insects, animals or viruses," an Indian military spokesman claimed.

The Seoul Protocol was developed following the release by United Korea in 2038 of migratory fowl weaponised with a flu-like virus, which spread throughout the Korean Peninsula and Southern China, and resulted in the death of 22,500 people.

China however is not a signatory to the Seoul Protocol. Chinese officials contacted today refused to comment on the Indian claims. The two Superpowers are currently at war over the 580 sq.km Aksai Chin district bordering Kashmir.

An Indian military engineer said the insects appeared to have been created for surveillance and explosives detection, judging by the hardware in their bodies.

"Also, all the insects we found were dead, indicating they may have a deactivation system which will kill them when they have reached their target, in order to be sure they stay in place," he said.

China has long been known to have a biomimetics program, following the high profile defections in 2042 of two US scientists. The US killed many of its more advanced biomimetics research programs in the 2040s following the collapse of its domestic economy.

The US insect cyborg program was first initiated in 2006, and prototypes underwent several field tests, but if confirmed this will be the first time any country has deployed them in wartime.

Canada refuses to deport 'draft codgers'

Ottawa, March 15 2050: The Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hugh Ballimore, announced today that he has decided to invoke ministerial privilege and deny an application from the US Justice Department for the deportation of more than 150 former US citizens currently in Canada, and sought by the US for evading a military draft order more than 40 years earlier.

Most of those sought are now in their sixties and seventies, and have been dubbed by the media as 'the draft codgers'.

"These persons were granted political asylum in Canada during the 2010 war in Iran which led to the use of nuclear weapons and rendered the Arabian peninsula uninhabitable. Canada respected their brave decision not to support that war 40 years ago, and we respect it still," Mr Ballimore said.

Mr Ballimore would not speculate on the apparent campaign by the US to pursue 40 year old desertion and draft dodging warrants, however defence observers have hypothesised the campaign is actually intended to send a message to those being called up in the latest US military draft in support of its war in Central America.

"They want the current crop of draft dodgers to know the US never forgets, that if they run, they will be hunted down sooner or later," Yahoogle Military Analyst Derek Chow said.

SEHK divests: NYSE for sale again

Hong Kong, March 14, 2050:

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange (SEHK) has announced it will further de-merge and offer for sale the New York Stock Exchange - for the second time in three years.

A 2047 plan by the SEHK to divest itself of the NYSE and NASDAQ together resulted in the sale only of the NASDAQ, with insufficient interest in the NYSE from Asian buyers, to justify a sale.

SEHK Chairman, Roland Yeung, said, "We believe an Asian or Australasian buyer will be found for the NYSE this time around. Asian confidence in the American dollar is starting to return and America is still a major supplier of old economy goods and labour to Asia."

Among those now rumoured to be interested in the NYSE sale are the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE), the United Korea Stock Exchange (UKSE), and the US Government itself.

Despite US Government talk of buying back the exchange, the NYSE's recent chequered history of unsuccessful proposals of merger and acquisition doesn't inspire confidence that, in the long term, it will be able to re-establish a position in the global markets as an independent player.

Christmas Island Dispute Referred to the Hague

Island that Went Down Under, belongs Down Under, say Australians

The Hague, March 14, 2050:

Australia has referred its dispute over the territory formerly known as Christmas Island to the International Tribunal on Global Warming in the Hague.

Christmas Island was evacuated in July 2040 due to rising sea levels, and was declared fully submerged by the ITGW in April 2042. However in December 2049 volcanic activity caused approximately 16 square kilometres of the island to re-emerge.

The island is now claimed by Australia, Malaysia and China, though only China has established a manned settlement on the barren outcrop.

At its population peak in July 2005 there were 350 people living on Christmas Island, which was then an Australian Territory but comprised 70% ethnic Chinese, 20% Malaysian and 10% European minorities.

The island is located in one of the world's few remaining legal commercial fishing zones.

Saudi-Iranian Oilfields To Remain Closed

Riyadh, March 14, 2050:

UN Atomic Energy Agency inspectors announced today that the latest radiological survey of the oilfields of the Saudi-Iranian Fallout Area confirms it will remain closed indefinitely.

Financial analysts on Yahoogle Net Friday speculated that the UNAEA report would clear the way for a partial re-opening of the Saudi-Iranian fields this century, and a possible limited return to the use of petroleum based energy sources for other than military needs.

Yahoogle energy commentator Sundi Mihrab maintained that undisclosed sources in the Shanghai Bureau of Alternative Energies had intimated to him last week that 'it was not impossible limited production in the Saudi-Iranian zone could resume this century'.

"People forget that at the turn of the century, oil was the lifeblood of industry,"Mihrab said.

"It is not unreasonable to expect that if production could be safely resumed in the Saudi-Iranian fields, and exploration in the Antartic resumed, it could provide a safe alternative to Antimatter Reactors and their inherent waste disposal issues."

A UNAEA spokesperson told ZI that radiation levels in the Saudi-Iranian fallout zone were likely to be hazardous to human health well into the middle of the next century, and the technology for robotic exploitation of the fields was not yet proven.

Einstein Rosen Bridge Opens in Zurich Media Lab

Wormhole to the turn of the century means your grandfather can read about you: before you were born!

Zurich, March 13 2050: Thirteen staff members from Zurich Intermedia were magnavaked to the Zurich International Hospital this morning and treated for various injuries related to the opening of an Einstein Rosen Bridge on the third floor of their Barnhofquai office.

"One of the workstations started sparking and everyone was gathered around watching it," Said Yuki Sakamoto, New Media Coordinator for ZI.

"A huge translucent bubble began to form and then it exploded; everyone was thrown against the walls," she said.

When the blast cleared an ER Bridge had formed around the workstation, preventing anyone from approaching closer than twenty metres. An ER Bridge, or wormhole as they are popularly known, is a curved-space structure that can join two distant regions of space-time through a tunnel-like curved spatial shortcut.

"The computer workstation appears still to be functioning, and still linked into the media network system," said ZI Tech Manager Ian Bell. "We tried yanking the power and cutting the signal to the unit but it is still acting like it is connected. Everything that goes over the wires here, is appearing on the unit in the bubble just like normal."

If confirmed as an ER Bridge, it is the fourth such phenomenon to appear in Zurich since the January powerup of the CERN Antimatter Reactor, Athena III.

Already, scientists are saying the location of the other end of the wormhole can be calculated.

"The strength of the Schwartzschild Field surrounding the bridge enables us to calculate with a precision of plus-minus 20 days, its chronometric depth," Zurich University Professor of Particle Physics, Dr Vilfred Vikkersund said. Dr Vikkersund visited the site just hours after the latest incident.

"This field is relatively weak, reaching back only as far as the year 2006 by my calculations - sometime between March 13 and April 1, to be precise."

Dr Vikkersund theorised that if by chance the bridge appeared in 2006 close to a networked computer system (in those days, meaning a wireless network), citizens in 2006 could be able to read the contents of the ZI screen in the Barhofquai office.

"Of course the chances of that, are about a gazillion to one,"he said. "About the same as US President Schwartzenegger's clone winning the Presidency again."

CERN has repeatedly denied that the appearance of Einstein Rosen Bridges in the area around Zurich is directly linked to the operation of its Antimatter Reactor.