Extinction is a natural process. Over 99% of all species that ever existed on planet earth are now extinct. The problem, is that never before, has only one species been the cause for the death of so many others, and not in such a small space of time. As a result, potentially 50,000 species will go extinct in the next 30 - 50 years. The researchers and scientists behind The Frozen Ark are attempting the seemingly impossible; to find a cure for extinction.

The concept is fairly simple. The team want to collect the DNA samples from plant, fungi and animal tissue on the planet, particularly the endangered ones, and to freeze the DNA samples in liquid nitrogen so that we have effectively a DNA snapshot of life on the planet. This can then be used as technology advances as a last resort for preserving the natural beauty of the world. It is not quite clear how this will be done yet, but with controversial attempts to clone animals making headlines, the idea of reproducing a living creature from well preserved DNA is not unbelievable. So far, 48,000 samples of over 5,000 species have been collected and added to The Frozen Ark DNA banks, in conditions that can endure low or unreliable power supplies with a mind towards conservation of the project, as well as the planet.

The idea of preserving animal tissue and DNA is not particularly new, but The Frozen Ark is the first attempt that has really made progress on a worldwide scale. As the planet warms up and more species are threatening extinction, the pressure is growing, and unfortunately, as fast as the team can collect DNA samples to store in their banks, more species are being added to the list of impending extinction. It has not been decided yet exactly how the DNA will be used, but we do know that it can be potentially helpful if not vital to the future of our planet.

One of the problems that the team face is that the planet is undergoing a considerable amount of climate change, and even if a perfect clone of a species from a DNA sample were already possible, there is no guarantee that the clone would be able to survive against the climate it is introduced to as the climate is was existing in before was somewhat different. It is possible that the scientists will put less weight on collecting DNA samples from species that are unable to cope with climate change because of this reason, and to focus on the species they believe can better endure the shift.

Another similar problem that we face that is being tackled by scientists in The Netherlands is our booming meat consumption rates. Humans consume over 250,000 million tonnes of meat every year, and our demand for edible flesh is constantly growing. Livestock animals take a lot of food, space and resources to produce and maintain, and the idea of growing animals with the sole purpose of killing upsets a lot of people and quickly divides up the population into meat lovers, vegetarians and animal rights activists.

Scientists have found a way that they can potentially produce substitutes for meat in a laboratory. The technology exists to make edible "meat" from minuscule damaged muscle fibres extracted from a living organism, each cell of which can multiply roughly a million times. This is done by breaking apart the muscle fibres both physically and with the introduction of an enzyme and allowing the stem cells to reproduce the damaged muscle. A collagen gel is then added to align the cells into something that, scientifically speaking, resembles meat.

This means that we can produce edible meat without the need for killing animals, but the problem is that humankind has a craving for the particular tastes we have acquired, and the researchers are still trying to discover what gives meat it's meaty flavour. The team wish to experiment by adding iron and fat into the mixture to see if it makes their artificially produced meat taste more like actual meat, and even have the goal to produce an artificially prepared burger that resembles the product on the market today. The challenges they face are the price of production, the controversial ideology, and then induction into a difficult market.

Black Mirror is a British television series, originally aired by Channel 4 in 2011 and purchased by Netflix in in 2015. The creator, Charlie Brooker, looks at how technology is advancing and, in standalone episodes, creates stories about the unanticipated consequences. The show is critically acclaimed and has won many awards, and has got many people asking if the often dark and dire storylines are a possibility. Here is a comparison between some of the ideas and our own reality of technology.

Season 3 Episode 1 "Nosedive" - In this episode, the characters possess a handheld device, not so different from a smartphone device, which closely monitors a person's popularity based on online activity. Every social interaction is rated and contributes to a user's overall rating as a human, and those with higher ratings have benefits such as exclusive invitations, better car rental service, and higher chances of promotion. The episode follows one character, Lacie, who makes some brave and risky decisions that ultimately lead to her demise as her rating plummets.

While this is not the strict society that we live in, there are certainly comparable elements. We do control a lot of our life from the smartphone in our hands, and TripAdvisor ratings, the Facebook "like" and reaction system and double tapping on an Instagram photo can all contribute to a person or company's merit and ultimately elate them through the higher stages of society. That said the value of Facebook recently took a hit as it was unearthed that people are posting less and less personal information on their profiles which could have been potentially sold to targeted advertising, so perhaps we are starting to move away from this trend a little. One interesting story that came up was with Alipay; the main form of mobile payment in China, which gave users a rating based on their credit activity, where users with a high rating would receive discounts and benefits, and users with a low rating would often have to pay extra deposits to rent gear, or even get downgraded in travel or in a few cases, banned from certain airlines.

Season 1 Episode 3 - "The Entire History of You" - In this episode, the characters are equipped with a device called "grain" which records everything the user is seeing and can be replayed on a screen. The device is used quite cleverly at airport security so that security personnel can determine what the character did in the last 24 hours to understand if they were a threat to the flight. The episode follows Liam, who begins to suspect that his wife might be cheating on him, and how he uses the technology to unearth the truth.

When you compare our access to digital recording equipment to how it has been in the past, the sheer development of camera equipped smartphones allow us to take photographs and films of anything and everything and immediately access it to the internet, which means that more of our lives are being digitally remembered and stored. This was obviously a lot more difficult before digital technology as film developing was expensive. Snap Inc are potentially developing sunglasses that can snap photographs and upload them to the internet. While it may not be built into our bodies as it is in the episode, perhaps we are unconsciously contributing to a similar reality. Even attaching a GoPro to your head is comparable. The technology is all available in different formats, so it could just be a matter of time.

Season 3 Episode 4 "San Junipero" - This award winning episode is a favourite amongst viewers, perhaps due to it's more positive vibes than most of the other episodes. This shows a reality where dying people can upload their brains into a system to eternally live out their fantasies, and follows the story of two lovers deciding whether to commit to the system or not.

Futurist and professor Robin Hanson predicts that we will be able to digitally capture and to upload brains to a digital system within the next 100 years, though also notes that the episode only focusses on the prospect of retirement and not all the other possible implications of the ability to do this. He claims that the best brains will be cloned and will take many jobs from physical people, as well as creating their own digital civilisation. AI technology is developing fast, and this is just one direction that it might take in the future.

It is hard to stand up against the forces of nature, but as the world becomes more populated, more people are settling in areas prone to natural disasters. As a result, technology is being quickly developed to protect residents and so that life can continue to prosper, and people can relax a little more when living in the shadow and an impending catastrophe.

One of the most unpredictable events to detect in advance is an earthquake, and history has taught us that they can be cataclysmic to infrastructure and even, occasionally, fatal. All over the world, humans in places such as Japan, New Zealand, and anywhere else on a tectonic divide are living in earthquake prone areas and have had to find ways to protect themselves. While the obvious move would be to pack up and to move away, there are often large benefits to tolerating the risk; including land fertility, business opportunities, and just the fact that they call their earthquake riddled country "home".

Research is underway to try and predict when earthquakes are going to strike, but currently it is only possible to see signs of a strike minutes before it happens, giving a very short time frame to react. These early warning systems are in place in countries such as Mexico, Japan and the USA where, currently, in California, the most developed system named ShakeAlert is in use. This is accomplished by detecting P waves which are non-destructive seismic waves that travel faster that the destructive S waves that cause earthquakes. A warning is then sent out via the mobile phone network to tell people to evacuate buildings and to prepare, which currently gives residents a potential five to thirty seconds advance alert, which may not sound like much, but every second can count when escaping a collapsing building, and every single life is spared from every single additional second of warning is an improvement on the losses that would have occurred without the system in place.

Predicting an earthquake is one way to reduce the chances of fatality, but measures can also be taken to create more resistant buildings and to improve the safety ratings of already existing buildings. This is frequently achieved through two different methods. The first involves creating buildings that are designed to deform and flex without breaking. Certain elements of the buildings are designed to bend or crack to protect more fragile elements. The second method is absorption of the shock waves using dampeners which reduce the energy of the destructive seismic waves to the vital structural elements of the building. The idea is not necessarily to protect the building, but to protect the people inside, so if the building suffers a large amount of damage and has to be destroyed, yet all the inhabitants inside escaped without harm, it is still considered a success.

San Francisco's newest hospital has adapted a Japanese method of dampening which has never been used before in the US. Throughout the skeletal structure of the building, a goo-like substance the consistency of chewing gum called polyisobutylene has been pumped into panels with steel dividers inside. This slows down the violent shaking and also ensures that the structure comes to a rest sooner after the earthquake strikes. It also reduces the need for diagonal braces which can be obstructive when installing windows and doors.

There is always going to be room to improve more. As the population of the world increases, and, especially in restricted spaces such as San Francisco's downtown area, the buildings get taller to cope with the increased number of people, the more they are going to move during seismic activity. There is also a big struggle involving cost, as adopting seismic isolation bases and foundations is extremely expensive in comparison to using standard foundations. While new technology is constantly under development to both predict, warn, and protect people from natural disasters, the unpredictable nature of earthquakes is a hurdle we are still struggling to overcome. It may be a tough problem, but the price of ignoring it is too high to ignore.

Elon Musk is the owner of the two companies Tesla and SpaceX and in February 2018, he elaborately joined the two. SpaceX have developed a rocket called The Falcon Heavy, and during the test flight, Elon decided to launch his own personal Tesla Roadster as the test load, complete with a human scale mannequin wearing a space suit named "Starman" after the David Bowie hit song. The speakers, despite being able to omit sound in space, have Bowie's "Space Oddity" on loop, there is a copy of Douglas Adams' "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in the glovebox, referenced with a towel and a sign reading "Don't Panic!" amongst other objects on board.

Traditionally, the test load for rocket launches comprises of concrete or steel blocks so that engineers can test that a rocket can bear the weight needed for launching satellites or objects that are required in space. In March 2017, Musk stated that he would launch "the silliest thing we can imagine", later announcing that he would launch his own personal roadster which required confirmation due to a skeptical audience. As a result, the Tesla Roadster became the first consumer car sent into space.

The Falcon Heavy test flight took place on the 6th January 2018 at 20:45 UTC. The mission was a success, which concluded that the Falcon Heavy was the most powerful rocket in operation and can lift twice the capacity of the NASA space shuttle launch system. Musk had downplayed the expectations of success in a conference, stating that "There's a real good chance the vehicle won't make it to orbit ... I hope it makes it far enough away from the pad that it does not cause pad damage. I would consider even that a win, to be honest." It was successfully launched with enough velocity to enter an orbit around the sun, crossing the orbit of Mars while sending a video back to earth during the early stages of the flight, becoming the second most watched livestream on YouTube.

The Falcon Heavy was launched in a reusable configuration which was designed to recover the central core and the side boosters of the rocket. The side boosters had been previously used on a CRS-9 mission in July 2016 and the Thaicom 8 Launch in May earlier that year.

Something that shocked engineers was the returning of the side boosters to landing zones 1 and 2 at Cape Canaveral. Video footage of the landing not only shows this happening successfully, but happening with pinpoint synchronisation. While this was the intention, due to complex engineering, mathematics and natural factors, seldom is it possible to make it so accurate. What wasn't quite as successful was the recovery of the landing of the central core which was due to take place on an autonomous spaceport drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. The booster landed in the water about 100m from the ship, and was not successfully recovered. Aside from the landing of the centre core, every other objective was a success.

The purpose of launching the Tesla Roadster as a payload was to demonstrate that Falcon Heavy was capable of sending a heavy payload as far as the orbit of Mars. Some people consider the Tesla Roadster to be space debris, criticising Musk's decision to send his own car into space, while others see it as a clever piece of advertising or even call it art. While the video is no longer streaming, you can track the location of the Tesla Roadster using the website whereisroadster.com. It is not expected to pass near the Earth until 2091.

Whether or not you consider the placing of Musk's Tesla Roadster in space as a form of vandalism, advertising, or art, this huge step in space technology proves that we are venturing further into the depths of the universe and becoming more confident with complex technology. The car will make a relatively random orbit, pushed further or closer from it's original trajectory by the gravity of passing planets, until it is either recovered or enters the atmosphere of a planet and burns up. If it happens to be encountered by other life before then, there is a message on the vehicle's circuit board reading "made by humans" to inform extra-terrestrial life of the origins of the strange satellite.