The cost of sequencing of the human genome is now down to around $48,000. I find that to be revolutionary when it's not been terribly long since the Dawn of the Human Genome Project itself.

This is a dramatic fall. James Watson's Genome was sequenced in 2007, at the cost of $2,000,000. There are also services only for academics for sequencing of the genome at $5,000.

Find more about this, and more links at this website.

I loved the Long Now Foundation since I first heard of it. I almost think of it with the authority and reverence of "The Church of the Long Now". ;) Well, they are working on several major projects. One: To build a ten thousand year clock that will remain accurate for ten thousand years. Two: To build spheres that can be viewed with microscopes to view the Chapters 1-3 of Genesis (The Bible). Three: To add 0 to the beginning of all 4-digit years (ex: 02009). This is to allow for the bug that will be in future computers that are not ready for the decamillinium. Check them out. And keep your eyes out for the future.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is putting out its newest version (DSM-V) by May 2012. I am a mental health consumer, and I think this could finally bring some resolution to many of the problems that are going on in Mental Health at the moment. A paradigm change, if you will. Is homosexuality nature or nurture? Or a disease? It was in the DSM at one version or the other. This is a very important book and will define many of our buzzwords for the next 20 years or so. It may not be a big change, but the Talking Heads and the Newspapers will have to change their tunes. This is very exciting and could lead to more (or less) disabiity payouts. More or less medication perscriptions. And more or less people called "jerks" instead of "ill".
You can find out more at http://www.psych.org/dsmv.asp

I found Ten Forecasts by the World Future Society and thought I'd add a bit of commentary to them. Here goes nothing:

1. The world will have a billion millionaires by 2025. According to FORBES magazine, there are 691 Billionaires in the world. With inflation driving down the value of the Dollar and the Euro in the future, I could fully see this happening. The WFS also points out that Globalization and Technological innovation (such as the internet) are making this possible. This aligns with my thoughts, such as e-commerce being some 75% of total business by 2025.

2. Fashion will go wired as technologies and tastes converge to revolutionize the textile industry. While researching for this project, I ran into glow-in-the-dark paints in crayola-16 colors. Also, there is Make Magazine inspiring wearable computers and Arduino Microcontrollers that sew into shirts and other fabrics. With the Arduino-Ethernet Shield this is entirely possible as well. The Arduino is open source and open source will take over the electronics market in the wearable field.

3. The threat of another cold war with China, Russia, or both could replace terrorism as the chief foreign-policy concern of the United States. The War on Terror is hardly talked about under the Obama Administration. The threats in between the US and North Korea and China and their "Hacker State" will lead us ino a Cold War with China. Russia is a wild card. It could go either way, but Russia will be innovating and leading the way in technology soon.

4. Counterfeiting of currency will proliferate, driving the move toward a cashless society. I believe the counterfeiting of money will lead us to Japanese style Credit-Over-Cellphone systems. Either that, or we will use Credit styl cards entirely.

5. The earth is on the verge of a significant extinction event. I don't know about this one. Possibly a mass genocidal event in terms of flu. But that goes against technology and number 7.

6. Water will be in the twenty-first century what oil was in the twentieth century. If they mean costing 1.27 a quart at Wal-Mart and being 50bucks a barrel, it probably already is.

7. World population by 2050 may grow larger than previously expected, due in part to healthier, longer-living people. Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that by 2040 or so, we'll have figured out vast long-life or immortality. He also says that the first millenarian is already about 60.

8. The number of Africans imperiled by floods will grow 70-fold by 2080. With the Rainforests being cut down, we're on the way to this in South America as well.

9. Rising prices for natural resources could lead to a full-scale rush to develop the Arctic. This could also lead to us developing other worlds as fast as possible. Or at least two way rovers to bring back as much resources as possible.

10. More decisions will be made by nonhuman entities. Game theory will vastly control our lives. Supercomputers will be commercially available to me and you at a desktop size once quantum computers are properly developed, so I can see this happening by 2030.