NASA UNVEILS THE FOUR ASTRONAUTS WHO WILL FLY ON THE ARTEMIS 2 MISSION AROUND THE MOON IN 2024

NASA has announced the crew for the upcoming Artemis II mission, which is scheduled for late 2024, per ABC News. The mission will take three Americans and one Canadian astronaut on a 10-day journey around the moon and back, while demonstrating the safety of the spacecraft. The Artemis program represents a series of missions with escalating goals, with the third mission tentatively scheduled for 2025, aimed at returning astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo era.

/TECH

THE PERFECT COMPANION TO THE FUTURIST

We know why you come to The Futurist. Weird science! Innovative advances in medicine and health tech! The rest! But what if we told you there was a perfect companion newsletter out there? One that tackles the intersection of business and big tech in a fun and hilarious way? We are asking that you continue to love The Futurist but also, check it out.

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GRAVITY BATTERIES IN ABANDONED MINES COULD POWER THE WHOLE PLANET

Abandoned mines could be repurposed as gravity battery facilities to store excess renewable energy, according to a study by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), per Techspot. By lifting and lowering heavy objects such as sand, gravity batteries can store excess electricity generated by wind and solar. The researchers suggest that after initial conversion costs of $1-10/kWh, scrap and decommissioned mines could produce 7-70 TWh of electricity, enough to match the world's current daily electricity consumption.

THE BEAUTIFUL, HILARIOUS SURREALISM OF EARLY TEXT-TO-VIDEO AI

On one hand, watching AI-generated Dwayne Johnson eat rocks and AI Arnold fight with pizza is some of the funniest, strangest stuff we’ve seen in a while, as seen in New Atlas. On the other hand, the CEO of AI firm Hyperreal predicts that generative text-to-video AI will become a major legal problem in the IP industry, with potential court battles over the ownership of training data. Until then, enjoy the weirdness.

SCENARIO: YOU JUST WOKE UP AND THE STOCK MARKET IS LOSING ITS MIND

What do you do? Every stock or asset the experts talked about are moving in every direction! How do you manage that? Could you have been better prepared? Oh no, that one just crashed — but wait, that one just went ad lunam! It’s scary, your stomach is turning, you wish you had better guidance. If only there were a newsletter called The Gist that, if you signed up, would deliver amazing money insights to your inbox twice a week… Well, guess what?

THERE IS AND IT'S HERE »

POLYAMOROUS RELATIONSHIPS CAN HAVE AS MANY BENEFITS AS MONOGAMOUS ONES

Wives, get ready for your husbands to shove this issue of The Futurist in your face. Because while polyamory faces discrimination and stigma, research shows it can provide emotional and physical benefits, reports Phys.org. Legal and political scholars are calling for reform to recognize the diversity of intimate relationships, and one professor even argues that polyamorous relationships can be more durable and can actually benefit children.