2021 FIRST 2021 : FUTURE FRAMES

 

Surprising and serious events and trends noted for the first time ever this year :

1.- An African Woman Leads The World Trade Organization.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala made history in March by becoming the first African and the first woman to serve as a director-general of the World Trade Organization.

Ms. Okonjo-Iweala was also the first woman to serve as finance minister in her Native Nigeria, a position she held twice.

2.- A Purely Digital Artwork Sells At Auction For Millions.

''Everydays : The First 5000 Days,'' by the artist Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple was auctioned for $69.3 million at Christie's. The photo collage was the first NFT, or nonfungible token, artwork to be offered by a major auction house. The sale also marked the first time that Christie's accepted cryptocurrency as a form of payment.

3.- An Autonomous Drone Was Deployed To Attack Humans, The U.N. Says.

A drone may have autonomously hunted down and killed human targets in Libya, according to a U.N. report.

A Kargu-2 drone, manufactured by a Turkish military contractor, was deployed in March in an area where the U.N. sanctioned transitional government and soldiers of Khalifa Haftar, the de facto leader of the Libyan National Army, were fighting.

Though remote controlled drone warfare has long been in existence, this would be the first recorded instance of artificial intelligence being given free rein to find and kill human targets.

4.- A Dutch Museum Permanently Features Women Artists.

For the first time in its two-century history, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam hung three 17th century paintings by women artists. Works by Judith Leyster, Gesina ter Borch and Rachel Ruysch are now on permanent display in the area reserved for the museum's most prized Dutch masterpieces, including Rembrandt van Rijn's ''The Night Watch.''

5.- A Human Brain Wirelessly Connects To A Computer.

In a possible breakthrough for those with spinal cord injuries, scientists at Brown University fully connected a human brain to a computer via transmitter device. Trial participants with paralysis were able to move robotic limbs by simply imagining their movements.

6.- NASA'S Perseverance Rover Makes Oxygen On Mars.

An instrument called MOXIE or Mar's Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment - aboard the Perseverance rover successfully converted some of the Martian atmosphere, which is composed mostly of carbon dioxide, into oxygen.

While the technology is still in its early stages, it could help make future human missions to the Red Planet a reality.

7.- The World's Largest Jewelry Brand Releases Its First Lab Created Diamond Collection.

Pandora announced it would stop using mined diamonds in its jewelry and introduced its first synthetic stones.

The Pandora Brilliance collection has already debuted in Britain and is expected to hit other markets in 2022. The company cited affordability and customer demand for ethically sourced and environmentally responsible materials as reasons for the shift.

The Publishing continues to Part 2. The World Students Society thanks author Tricia Tisak.