‘Tis the season… for stupidity. In one corner we have the legions of believers who hold their beliefs to be sacred (Xmas trees battling Menorahs, etc.). In the other corner we have the atheists that solicit donations to fund the “cause” of debunking the idea that there is a God. It is difficult for a… Read more Atheist ads make headlines – and underscore the immaturity of our species
Imagine you are seventy years old and showing (and feeling) your age. The year is 2017. You have money and/or friends in high places, so you get an appointment at the Return-to-Youth Clinic. After a brief stay in the waiting room, you are taken to the preparation room to lie on a hospital bed. An… Read more Nanobots—Good or Evil?
Humanity has survived, and generally prospered, through various “ages” and “revolutions” over the last 10,000 years. They include the Agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and, most recently, the Information Age. We are now seeing the beginning of the GNR Revolution, standing for Genetics, Nanotechnology and Robotics. The engine that is driving the GNR Revolution is… Read more The Nanobot Attack is coming soon…
About a million years ago, our pre-human ancestors used their fledgling intelligence to conclude that all life, including their own, must eventually face death – and that the world would continue after their lives ended. So far as we know we are the only creatures on earth that have faced this sobering fact. I sometimes… Read more On our planet we own the future. We could even achieve time travel – or not…
Airport security is getting a lot of attention these days but suicide bombers come in many guises and those who program these human weapons are clever. It is time we confronted the root cause of the problem instead of its symptoms. The road that led to religious terrorism began with the dawn of human intelligence.… Read more Religious extremism is killing us – we have to defend ourselves!
Interest in driverless cars began over 30 years ago and was accelerated by the European Prometheus project that put up over 1 billion dollars (in today’s money) for research and development. In 1994 this effort achieved a major milestone with the successful demonstration of two identical vehicles driving more than 1000 km in normal traffic… Read more Driverless cars and the future….
Computers today are omnipresent. They have been an essential component of our work environment for decades and in the developed nations, few households lack a home computer with a high speed internet connection. Less visibly, almost all our appliances (including cameras, automobiles and elevators) incorporate computers that enhance their functionality. It is part of human… Read more The future of man – a choice between cyborg or extinction?
When Mother Nature got life started on Earth, 4.7 billion years ago, her formula was beautifully simple – she made life self-replicating according to a ‘recipe’ encoded within the cell. Her masterstroke was to make the recipe copying process almost error-proof. A very high degree of copying accuracy was needed – otherwise life would forever… Read more Is this the beginning of the end – or the end of the beginning?
We think of ourselves as civilized – but what does that mean? The Romans who entertained themselves by watching Christians being thrown to lions thought that they were civilized. So did the English colonialists who kidnapped Africans to sell as slaves. And are the practitioners of female genital mutilation (partial or total removal of the clitoris… Read more Future Man – and Civilization
Man’s closest relative on Earth is the chimpanzee. Our DNA is 98.5% identical. Small as it is, that difference sets us worlds apart — and evolution is widening the gap at an accelerating pace. From an evolutionary standpoint, the critical difference between us and our primate cousins is that we have achieved a level of… Read more The Future of Man – by Evolution