Saving the Planet: Nobel Prize Recognizes Climate Science, but Will Mindsets Change in Time to Sustain Nature’s Potential and Value?

The scientific research on climate change is robust and presents alarming perspectives for the survival of our species. Several international organizations have been making efforts to encourage a change in our approach toward climate change. While countries have been slower than expected in taking action, there is optimism with the upcoming COP28 meeting.

Life Is Defined by Biology, Not Physics

Until recently, scientists who study animal metabolism believed that biological processes are determined by physical laws. However, new research shows they might actually be more closely related to evolution, with worrying consequences for the replenishment of future human populations.

Secrets of Evolution in the Wings of Fruit Flies

Although fruit flies possess a surprisingly limited repertoire of wing shapes, these tiny creatures still manage to adapt to diverse environments. Scientists can now measure a complex interplay of genetics and environmental constraints with accuracy, holding significant potential to expand our understanding of genetics and its technology.

Mega-trees: The Critical Role and Vulnerabilities of Nature’s Giants in Forest Ecosystems and Climate Change Mitigation

We discover the crucial importance of mega-trees to forest ecosystems and their role in mitigating climate change, and learn about the paradoxical vulnerabilities of these giant trees in the face of human activity and climate change.

Editorial Perspectives

Crystal ball on nature

Let’s Create a Natural Futures Market and Trade on the Value that Sustains Us

We call for the establishment of a Natural Futures Market, trading in the environmental value of securities already exchanged in financial markets. We suggest 5 bases of general agreement for the operation of the market to provide clear signals to investors, and a trading rent for the benefit of a Natural Guardianship Trust.

Financing Climate Change and Abolishing the Obsolete Zero-Cost Assumption for Natural Resources

A full accounting for the cost of depleting Nature's resources and remediating environmental damage could lead to more sustainable investment decisions. Surely, human ingenuity can devise generally accepted standards to measure the value of Nature, and apply the standards to green financing and cost-sharing goals.

A Technological Proposal for Trust and Transparency in Environmental Standard-Setting and Monitoring

Criticized for trustworthiness and lack of transparency, climate standard-setter and monitor SBTi aims to help business remain within the agreed global 1.5 degree temperature increase limit. Could greater use of technology engage global citizens and researchers in a two-way dialogue to establish trust in SBTi's crucial objectives?

In Focus

Amazing Evolutionary Leaps: Observing the Rapid Evolution of Single Cell Organisms into Complex Lifeforms

Observation of the rapid evolution of single-celled organisms into multicellular forms sheds new light on one of the most significant evolutionary leaps in the history of life on Earth. What opportunities will emerge from this new understanding of life’s processes over time?

New Light on Nature’s Technology Connects Plant-Microbe Interactions and Climate Change

Scientists reveal that the intricate relationships between plants and microbes may hold the key to understanding how life on Earth will change in response to climate change.

Berlin Golden Ceremonial Hat

Ancient Astronomy: The Technology of the Golden Hats

With four Golden Hats now unearthed, dating back over 3,000 years, the mysteries remain. What was the purpose of this ancient technology? What was the source of the knowledge, and how was it used? Were they astronomical time calculators, or more?

Podcasts and Webcasts

Yuval Noah Harari on AI’s Emergence, the Ecological Crisis, and the Future of Humanity

Economist Kate Raworth Reimagines the Shape of Sustainable Growth: Doughnut Beats Straight-Line

Plato’s Pod: On Differentiating Truth from Lie, in General and in Generative AI

The Quantum Record is a non-profit journal of philosophy, science, technology, and time.

The potential of the future is in the human mind and heart, and in the common ground that we all share on the road to tomorrow. Promoting reflection, discussion, and imagination, The Quantum Record highlights the good work of good people and aims to join many perspectives in shaping the best possible time to come.

We would love to stay in touch and add your voice to the dialogue. Add your name and email below to be notified of updates to the publication:

Latest Quantum Accounting

Quantum computer

Major Advances in Quantum Computing Revolution

A quantum computer has just been used to simulate a wormhole, holding potential for future space travel. With recent advances in powerful computing capacity, and the rapid growth of the quantum computing industry, the technology promises many benefits including reduction of pollution and conflict.

Introduction to Quantum Accounting Theory, Part 2

Quantum accounting records the order of the quantum computer’s signals that begin in two states simultaneously and output to two points on the spherical limit of the qubit. The first principle of quantum accounting considers the geometry of the sphere, the time order of signals from present to past and future, and the nature of the quantum as the universal medium of the account.

The Two Key Values in Quantum Accounting, Part 2: Where is the Elusive 0?

In Part 2 of our series, we find that to balance the quantum account, zero must remain in the middle of the qubit sphere, but we face the problem and paradox of locating that point. We conclude the only way to pinpoint the middle is to define – simultaneously – the radius of the debit and credit.

Featured Science News

A Job for the Machines: Using Artificial Intelligence to Advance Nuclear Fusion

Nuclear fusion powers stars and holds the potential to deliver practically unlimited amounts of clean energy to humanity. Artificial intelligence is providing the means to control and direct fusion reactions as we make significant advances in developing the technology.

Latest Philosophy of Technology

Saving the Planet: Nobel Prize Recognizes Climate Science, but Will Mindsets Change in Time to Sustain Nature’s Potential and Value?

The scientific research on climate change is robust and presents alarming perspectives for the survival of our species. Several international organizations have been making efforts to encourage a change in our approach toward climate change. While countries have been slower than expected in taking action, there is optimism with the upcoming COP28 meeting.

Minding the Future: The State of Global AI Regulations

Since receiving citizenship from Saudi Arabia in 2017, for over five years Sophia has been the world’s first-ever robot citizen. As the technology of humanoid machines and AI advances, so must our legislation and perhaps even our ethical reasoning. We survey the latest developments in global AI regulations.

What’s In the Middle of Black Holes, and Why Do We Care?

Technology has now taken us to the boundary of the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, where space and time end. Will it lead to new discoveries in quantum mechanics? And if we find what lies beyond, how would that change our understanding of cause and effect in time?

Latest Technology Over Time

Berlin Golden Ceremonial Hat

Ancient Astronomy: The Technology of the Golden Hats

With four Golden Hats now unearthed, dating back over 3,000 years, the mysteries remain. What was the purpose of this ancient technology? What was the source of the knowledge, and how was it used? Were they astronomical time calculators, or more?

What Were They Thinking? Future Technology as Imagined in Sci-fi of the 1950s and 1960s

Our 5-part series on sci-fi films of the 1950s and 1960s wraps up with a look at how life on Mars was imagined, and Jane Fonda in the campy sci-fi sex comedy “Barbarella”.

What Were They Thinking? The Past and Future of Humanity and Technology as Imagined in the 1968 Epic, 2001: A Space Odyssey

What Were They Thinking? The Past and Future of Humanity and Technology as Imagined in the 1968 Epic, 2001: A Space Odyssey

The film classic presents a vision of the future that after 55 years still resonates in the imagination. As the power of today’s computers approaches the movie’s HAL 9000, the message about our relationship with technology is increasingly relevant.

Latest Science News

Life Is Defined by Biology, Not Physics

Until recently, scientists who study animal metabolism believed that biological processes are determined by physical laws. However, new research shows they might actually be more closely related to evolution, with worrying consequences for the replenishment of future human populations.

Secrets of Evolution in the Wings of Fruit Flies

Although fruit flies possess a surprisingly limited repertoire of wing shapes, these tiny creatures still manage to adapt to diverse environments. Scientists can now measure a complex interplay of genetics and environmental constraints with accuracy, holding significant potential to expand our understanding of genetics and its technology.

Mega-trees: The Critical Role and Vulnerabilities of Nature’s Giants in Forest Ecosystems and Climate Change Mitigation

We discover the crucial importance of mega-trees to forest ecosystems and their role in mitigating climate change, and learn about the paradoxical vulnerabilities of these giant trees in the face of human activity and climate change.