Everything Won't Become Free at Once

Maybe the coolest technology could get very good and cheap, while at the same time crucial fundamentals for survival could become expensive. The calculi of digital utopias and man-made disasters don’t contradict each other. They can coexist. This is the heading of the darkest and funniest science fiction, such as the work of Philip K. Dick. Basics like water and food could soar in cost even as intensely sophisticated gadgets, like automated nanorobotic heart surgeons, float about as dust i...

 The Species Missing from Islands

Native Missing Plants Land mammals Birds Reptiles Insects and other Amphibians arthropods (e.g., spiders)    Freshwater fish [...] Further, when you look at the type of insects and plants native to oceanic islands, they are from groups that are the best colonizers. Most of the insects are small, precisely those that would be easily picked up by wind. Compared to weedy plants, trees are relatively rare on oceanic islands, almost certainly because many trees have heavy seeds that neither fl...