NEWS, COMMENTARY, DEBATE AND ACCESS TO FUTUREWORLD'S COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE BASE
We wrote the MindBullet alongside back in 2012, and targeted 2017 as the possible date something similar could happen. Not bad, when you read the story attached!
The WHO (World Health Organization) predicts an increase in illegal surgeries and black-market organ transplants because of the increasing capability of medical microbots. They are designed for patients to swallow, as if it were a pill made out of digestible enzymes. Fitted with tiny microblades or needles, they quickly move to clean blocked arteries, detect disease and treat cancer. Microbots are also useful for delivering medication to specific parts of the body and addressing hormone or metabolic ...
I would hope this could happen even sooner.
Millions of people around the globe suffer from deafness and blindness - but that will soon end; and when it comes to helping the deaf, we have to thank Siri, Apple's digital assistant! Early experiments showed that transplanting stem cells into the eyes of rats with damaged retinas cured blindness. Now scientists are using the same technology to repair diseases which commonly cause deteriorating sight in humans, namely glaucoma, retinal detachment and macular degeneration. In fact, thanks to ...
Years ago - 13 years to be specific, I wrote a MindBullet about a computer virus making the leap to a biological system, and infecting a human. Well, scientists have already demonstrated how one part of that loop could be accomplished. They edited a strand of DNA, coding it with malware that infected the machine designed to decode DNA!DNA is just software, after all... ...
Yes, creating edible protein from electricity just became a reality. Although this was done in the lab, it could be scaled up to produce food for livestock or say, refugees from a shipping container sized 'factory'.
CRISPR, the revolutionary gene editing technique that makes the science of altering genetic structures as easy as cut-and-paste, is screaming ahead .New trials are about to start in China to alter the genome in cells inside the body, aimed at eliminating cancer before it starts.But there is concern as the long-term effects of this technique have not been explored. Nonetheless, as many as 20 ...
Well, it's not really fake - it's blood cultured in a lab from your own stem cells. Why go to all the trouble and expense of getting blood safely donated when you can "grow your own"? Biotech advances will revolutionise healthcare and extend human longevity. The future potential is amazing.
"UNSW researchers have made a discovery that could lead to a revolutionary drug that actually reverses ageing, improves DNA repair and could even help NASA get its astronauts to Mars.In a paper published in Science today, the team identifies a critical step in the molecular process that allows cells to repair damaged DNA.Their experiments in mice suggest a treatment is possible for DNA damage ...
"For two years, Impossible Foods founder and CEO Patrick Brown managed to keep a pretty good secret.While food industry analysts guessed at when innovative meat-alternative companies would be able to scale their production, Brown and his team quietly continued tinkering away at the taste of their faux-beef product—made of wheat, coconut oil, potatoes, and heme, an iron-containing compound ...
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, an ingestible nanobot called 'Nanoboy', which I found wrapped up under the tree. It used to be that an apple a day kept the doctor away, but now it will be Nanoboy who keeps me out of the GP's office (or off his iPhone screen, if you're a fan of telehealth). This little wonder is so intelligent, it will alert me on my phone if my organs need help or any cells are going mad. Instead of having to go for my annual check-up, I will be pinged the ...
To boost the brain, or not to boost the brain? That's the latest differentiating factor that is dividing clients and determining their choice of service providers. No one is sure exactly how the nut should be cracked, but in the most progressive markets some executives are already taking a stand. The German engineering firm AUB has implemented pioneering policies relating to the (non)-use of brain enhancing drugs at work. Their belief? Increased productivity and innovation is necessary and very ...
"If you thought the pseudo-scientific anti-GMO movement was annoying now, just you wait and hear what they have to say about this! Located in a garden just outside of Umeå, Sweden, there is a special kind of cabbage plant. So special that, despite guaranteed push back by certain neo-luddite activists, we could very well be witnessing the future of food production as we know it."
Genomics entrepreneur Craig Venter has created a synthetic cell that contains the smallest genome of any known, independent organism. Functioning with 473 genes, the cell is a milestone in his team’s 20-year quest to reduce life to its bare essentials and, by extension, to design life from scratch.How long will it be before genes can be simply 'printed' out on a bio-printer from digital ...
Of course we can make synthetic food, and increasingly we can make synthetic food that tastes like the real thing. But is it affordable, and when it becomes cheap enough, should we do it on a mass scale?There's a big debate brewing over the future of lab meat; an interesting aspect though, is that it's pretty natural - real organic cells that are cultured with nutrients. What's your stand on ...
As computer power, machine learning and artificial intelligence continue to grow in power exponentially, we ask...what is the future of humans? Given how we are destroying the planet, why should we even survive?
A new method from Stanford researchers paves the way for preventing and reversing the effects of aging on human cells. Perhaps the elixir of youth is closer than we think?
The year 2015 was packed with breakthroughs in biotechnology. This roundup by MIT Technology Review provides fascinating reading.
It's a sobering thought to consider what exponential advances in biotech could bring in the coming decades. Ray Kurzweil says that genetic manipulation will be a million times more powerful in twenty years - that's 20 exponential steps.So if you're in your 50s today, by the time you are in your 70s, the ability to prolong average life will be vastly increased, and by the time you're 100, it ...
An American association for aging research has managed to get approval for trials of an existing drug to see if it helps not to 'cure' aging, but improve 'healthspan' which in turn can increase lifespan.http://singularityhub.com/2015/12/06/longer-life-in-a-pill-may-already-be-available-at-your-local-drug-store/ ...
