We’re still at a very early stage of network evolution, although people like Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf and John Perry Barlow have been living the story for years. The internet itself, although a global phenomenon, has only penetrated about one billion users, but there’s another five-and-a-half billion people on Earth. Right now, the net is strongly focused on people-oriented activities, whether it’s email or social network, soon there could be as many as seventeen billion devices on the internet, which is approximately 3 times the amount of people living on the planet. So, for instance, all of our devices, PDA’s, mobiles, computers, televisions, refrigerators, air conditioners, security systems, could all potentially be online. In a device-rich environment, the business opportunity to manage these devices will occur, and subsequently, these devices will begin to interact with each other. The emergence of the “internet of things” is also interpreted and dubbed “spimes” by science fiction author Bruce Sterling to describe a future where all manufactured objects are digitally tagged and linked to extensive information systems to be forever trackable, findable, uniquely identifiable, and generate histories. As objects become aware or “things that think,” waste management will not only become hyper-efficient, but sensory systems and mobile communications will also begin to rely upon shared data and build dynamic meshes, a system where everybody helps everybody else, allowing for devices to communicate locally, ending our dependency upon telecommunications infrastructure or the ubiquitous grid. As networks become a metagesture of expression, where it’s the interaction and aggregate of billions of little gestures that serves to create and maintain whole systems in motion, it’s interesting to see that those ’60s prime green vibes of communal spirit and fellowship have survived. And perhaps, as we move forward in creating our net-centric world, reinventing not only our economy but education and perception, we will begin to see networks and their interrelations everywhere: whether it’s String Theory, dark matter, neurons, or even found, curiously inside, that hippiedrome magical mushroom mycellium.

Shocking as it may sound, even the mainstream environmental movement will reverse its opinion and activism in the area of GMO. Although the benefits of organic farming are plentiful, the acknowledgment that land-based management will serve to preserve our wilderness while giving higher yield with less use of pesticides can’t be ignored. Joined is the fact that the horrors of factory farming can no longer be stomached. There’s mad cow disease, swine flu, e-coli, the global warming effect of animal methane waste, the allegations of slave labor, and the prison treatment of helpless animals unable to ruffle their feathers as our society moves forward obese-starving for nutrients. Linked to this pitiful scenario is corn. Although not apparent, corn is abundant and cheap and in everything we eat, with high fructose corn syrup being the essential ingredient to every value-added processed food and beverage in the market. In fact, since our diabetes epidemic continues to loom, studies are underway at institutions such as John Hopkins to stop this children-of-the-corn feedback loop and measure the actual percentage of HFCS in the human body. Now that agbiotech can harness the power of the sun and manipulate the biochemical processes of plants to grow super crops, we will not only be able to genetically engineer plants that could grow silicon plates turning sunlight into chemical fuels directly, but design crops that will never require pesticides at all. Likewise, with the advent of “cultured meat,” the molecular artistry of food may stop today’s unhealthy, unethical people-creature-planet times. Dubbed “carniculture,” the movement calls to stop farming animals and start growing meat, and is so enticing that even PETA is offering one million dollars to the first organization that can launch commercial quantities of in vitro meat by 2012. What’s next? The only possible scenario: Laughing robots skipping through gardens pulling muscle meat off trees.

While the dream of jet packs and flying cars hasn’t gone away, our desire for novel ways to bop around the planet is now aligned to the technological prowess and environmental sensitivity of our times. As smart grids are generated by companies such as GE and IBM, and plug-in hybrids, electric and fuel cell vehicles cruise into the mainstream, the transition to distributive, intelligent energy networks is soon to be joined by vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology, signaling the beginning of 21st century transportation designed with future cities in mind. Showmanship of the self-parking Lexus is just the beginning, as urban designer Mitchell Joachim foresees a range of eco-networked, shape-shifting, transological vehicles ahead: Omnidirectional cars that can stand-up, interlock and charge via electromagnetic street induction; Festo-infused vehicles that fit the body’s muscular motion like a baseball glove; and safe, soft-to-the-touch, bump-friendly vehicles that are destined to schmooze. Motility, the ability to move spontaneously and independently, is essential to our species, and like our predecessors in the bacterial and animal worlds, we are born speedsters, inextricably linked to the devices that make us mobile. And while we step onto this magnetic-propelled Maglev train of innovation, it’s certain that our perception of time will move at the speed of an electron, as each one of us glide into the galaxy to explore where no man has gone before.

The term morphogenesis arises in biology. The term is derived from “morpho” from the word morphology, which is the study of structure and form, and “genesis” which means to generate or create. Morphogenesis or “the coming into being of form” is typically the study of embryology, but has now been extended to fields such as architecture, sociology, organizations and plate tectonics due to society’s interest and understanding of how complex, dynamic systems give rise to particular forms of geometry and structure. The view that the creation of form is a dynamic, emergent process stems from new biology. According to biologist Brian Goodwin, morphogenesis is the emergence of meaning from a conversation that is taking place through the signaling and receiving process between genes and the networks that are controlling them. Another contemporary view, presented by biologist Rupert Sheldrake, says that morphogenetic fields generate form, whereby organisms and systems are formed by “tuning into” previous and similar organisms and systems whose data resides within invisible information fields that exist in nature. Overall, what’s suggested is that form is not gene-centric but, rather, a creative process where network-thinking and ambiguity allow for possibilities to emerge. And, if there is a creative intelligence at work in the evolutionary process, then form could be seen as merely nature’s expression of itself.

The atom used to be the iconic symbol of our world. Now it’s about going inside the atom to experience the world at the nanoscale, where everything is in motion. Because the aesthetic at the nanoscale is like sticking your head inside a pixel. In fact, if you use a scanning electron microscope, as did artists AE Lab, you can travel from 200 magnification to about 500 nanometers in real-time, so fast it’ll trigger a zooming sensation. And, since you’re watching quantum dynamic interactions occur at the molecular level, you’ll never see the same thing twice. This is the land of the infinitely small, it’s the burgeoning field of nanoart and what science has hailed as the next big thing. And whether it’s nanomedicine or self-assembly in material science, many of tomorrow’s advancements will happen at the phenomenon of scale. Even the architecture of the future will be one of making tiny moves. Dubbed micro-environmental design, the drive is to replace today’s single grid mentality where everything is networked together with systems that are democratic, allowing technologies to operate and connect independently so that spaces, for instance, don’t have to be determined by the same temperature, lighting or ventilation constraints, but rather offer micro-climatic conditions for a field of choice. One aim, in particular, being led by architect and engineer Michelle Addington, is the desire to control thermal behavior. Addington’s great hope is to allow energies to maintain their autonomous thermal boundary layers so that designers can completely control what’s going on in any surface, no matter what the material or circumstance so, for instance, a thin piece of glass can behave like a thick wall. In tomorrow’s lifestyles of the tiny, whether its micronutrients that are absorbed by copper bracelets or the hope of self-organizing nano-computers that can shapeshift on the fly, the key phrase is: Welcome to microworld, Na-Nu, Na-Nu.

We are not made of jelly. Our cells are not formless blobs. Now that the dynamic information processes of biology are being viewed as solutions for engineering problems, the study of mechanobiology, how mechanical forces affect biological behavior, has emerged to suggest revolutionary possibilities. According to Don Ingber, biologist at Harvard Medical School Children’s Hospital, tensegrity, the shape-stabilizing structures made famous by Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome that balances compression with tension and yields to forces without breaking, is the guiding force of evolution, the architecture of life. Tensegrity gives cells their shape, as each cell has an inner-scaffolding or cytoskeleton, and what Ingber’s research has shown is that if you change the shape of the cell, you also change its biochemistry and genetic expression. This discovery, fundamental to medicine, is said to possibly cure diseases such as cancer considering that unlike normal cells, cancer cells don’t physically feel their neighbors and therefore keep growing. Instead of drugs, the aim of mechanobiology, with the interplay of physical and chemical sciences, is that medicine will be able to send the right set of signals that will revert the behavior of cancerous cells and form normal tissues. Moreover, considering that all cells, whether nerve, muscle, bone, etc., have distinct shapes, it’s believed that stem cells will no longer have to be grown in the lab, but given the right signal, those already in the body will come to the site and multiply to transform the damaged cell into the right pattern or structure. And, of course, there’s aging, considering wrinkles are old cells that can no longer hold shape-stability when the cytoskeleton loses its elasticity and becomes stiff. In the world of objects, we find that mechanobiology and the 1912 book by biologist and mathematician D’Arcy Thompson, “On Growth and Form,” that illustrates physical deformations such as the tensegral nature of bone cells subjected to forces over time, is the inspiration behind the now-leading trend of parametric design that uses generative computation enabling architectural “cells” to change shape to improve performance by creating structures that are natural and responsive. In fact, it’s been suggested that moving forward we will discover that tensegrity is all around us, present in the organic world for millions of years before there was any life at all, even the structure of black holes, galaxies and the universe itself.

If you could, would you fly? The third industrial revolution is on its way and it will happen in space. It will be comparable to the automobile industry, the electronic industry, and the computer industry all in one. According to Robert Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, there will be no comparison between terrestrial bound technologies and those developed in microgravity because these businesses will not only have the periodical table of 118 elements, but 50 percent more. “Those who have large, robust facilities in microgravity,” says Bigelow, will have built and discovered possibilities that will blow your socks off.” For instance, glass can have a 2 million PSI making it stronger than anything on Earth, and fiber optic materials, such as ZBlan, patented by Boeing and other aerospace companies, will be able to transfer 100 times more information. Considering that the privatization of space offers commercial opportunities, pharmaceutical companies are invested, and according to NASA biologist Thomas Goodwin, infectivity studies are currently underway as 3D tissue models are being developed in vitro enabling researchers to decouple cellular physiological responses for the purpose of genetics and vaccines. Then there’s Google, who has built a headquarters at NASA and whose founder, Sergey Brin, has not only bought his ticket to ride aboard Russia’s Soyuz, but has spearheaded the $30 million Google Lunar XPrize modeled after Peter Diamandis’ successful venture that led Burt Rutan to the edges of the atmosphere in SpaceShipOne. With a board that ranges from Dean Kamen to Dr. Rich Sugden to Arianna Huffington, the organization, funded by  BT Global Services, is now creating prizes in fields such as genomics, automotive, education, medicine, energy and social living. Meanwhile, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic aims to be the world’s first affordable “spaceline” for citizen astronauts, hoping to build a U.S. commercial headquarters, “Spaceport America,” that offer flights through Aurora Borealis. Although the anticipation of gliding inside a glass spaceship into the sky is unbearable, knowing that you too could experience an epiphany like astronaut Edgar Mitchell did which led him to open The Institute of Noetic Sciences for the study of consciousness, let’s all try to remember that Earth already floats in space and we are all astronauts.

Kinematics is the study of how things move. What caused the object to move is no concern, its purpose is to describe motion by tracking an object’s position, velocity and acceleration. There are obviously various types of motions, for instance Earth, galaxies and atomic particles spin, and objects can move forwards, backwards, rotate, or swing like a pendulum. While the origin of kinematics emerged with engineer Franz Reuleaux to demonstrate motion for the assembly of machine, today its principles are being employed to engineer moveable parts in the area of robotics, as well as nanorobotics, as scientists such as Robert A. Freitas hope that kinematic research will lead to the mass manufacture of molecularly-precise, self-replicating machines. Also, motion-based kinematic techniques that simulate the movement of people are currently being embraced by firms such as architecture+vision to engineer responsive architecture, whereas in gaming and 3D animation, inverse kinematics is being used by programmers to generate simulated, character-motion based on accurate life-like anatomical behaviors. Kinematics also allows for the development of novel-shaped structures in space, such as crafts or habitats, and if NASA scientists are successful in employing kinematic dynamo theory, these space systems could be surrounded by a magnetic bubble or plasma shield to ensure safety. Considering kinematics is also interpreted as the geometry of pure motion, it has been suggested that since  2D and 3D shapes dominate in our universe, we are living in a kinematic geometric world. It’s even been suggested that the universe is shaped like a torus or doughnut, or perhaps as R. Buckminster Fuller proposed, a tetrahedron. Now, as to whether this tetrahedron shape is nature’s invisible mechanic, a resonating, motion-activator that keeps life and our universe in constant motion is, well, beyond science. But, like the kinematic acrylic glass images of Vasarely, we all know that movement impressions are created by one’s view. Left spin, everyone!

In-between the 0′s and 1′s, that’s where the action is. It’s the zone of the unknown. The portal of possibilities. Not many Nobel Prize winners believe in the paranormal, but physicist Brian Josephson does, endorsing both cold fusion and the “memory of water.” Nor are there many of society’s wealthiest who openly admit their belief in unexplained phenomenon, yet it’s been reported that Laurance Rockefeller supported various UFOlogy organizations for years, and currently, entrepreneur Robert Bigelow not only owns The Bigelow Ranch, formerly The Sherman Ranch, where paranormal activities have been documented, but funds the National Institute of Discovery Science (NIDS) dedicated to sponsoring paranormal research. Although many individuals believe in unexplained phenomenon, most keep quiet, cautious of being labeled “out there.” However, according to astrobiologist David Grinspoon, what sounds like magic really just depends on where science is at the time, and if it does sound like magic, maybe everything is magic in some sense anyway. For instance, take synchronicity, those meaningful coincidences that occur in our lives usually when we are experiencing intense periods of creative growth and transformation, such as when we need to break habits and patterns that no longer serve us. According to physicist F. David Peat, synchronicities bridge mind and matter. They are deep connections where your inner world and outer world meet, or when your dreams manifest in reality. Or, as mathematician Ralph Abraham suggests, if you think of thought waves or phenomenon waves as being the underlying mechanism of the world, one can think of synchronicity in terms of resonance, where one event is the consequence of a string being plucked causing another string to synchronously respond, ringing at the same frequency. For cartoonist Scott McCloud, juncture is that landscape in-between the comic strip panels, and it’s his hope that one day cartoonists will expand this interstices so that you and I can leap and fly through the panels and new stories of reality can emerge. So, go ahead, stick your head inside the world of possibilities. Fill in the ____.

There’s no doubt that different species communicate with each other. Plants are interacting via chemicals like isoprenes and other molecules, and their root systems are exchanging chemicals with various fungi in elaborate networking relationships inside the soil. If you begin to think of everything as networking, then everything is communication. The belief that plants can talk to us, by sensing and responding to human thought, which is basically saying that plants are conscious and telepathic, is another matter. But according to National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis, different social belief systems illicit alternative perceptions, and when living with Australian Aborigines they told him, “plants talk to us,” in which he explained that although it may sound like nonsense to our Descartian rationale mind because it doesn’t fit into our paradigm, when “you think about it, well, maybe it’s true.” Another person who has considered the possibility is polygraph expert Cleve Backster who has attached a plant to a lie-detector, burnt its leaves and watched the needle go ballistic, and more importantly, in experiments where a person merely thought about injuring the plant, Backster’s polygraph indicated the same frantic spikes. Although the argument against plant-human communication is based on the fact that plants don’t have complex nervous systems and therefore are incapable of feelings, recent studies indicate that plants do use neuronal-like networks for biocommunication. The signal transmission between living organisms could also simply be the ability to have empathetic relationships. This form of communication is evident by people such as Jane Goodall whose kinship led her to catalogue her study-primates with names such as Gigi, Flo and Frodo, and it’s what drove J. Butterfly Hill to climb 180 feet up an ancient redwood she named Luna to fight for the rights of trees. The Swiss Government has issued a Bill of Rights for Plants; psychoanalyst John Lilly believed he could speak with dolphins; and biologist Rupert Sheldrake has written a book titled, “Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home.” Living in a society that teaches it’s parrots to speak leads to the thought that if we could “talk with the animals—oh, what a lovely place the world would be.”