Science or just plain scary?
The future of computer chips and glowing kittens
February 20, 2008
Kristin Ramsak
As I unthaw under my flannel blanket in one of the green armchairs in Northwest, I nibble away at my prebiotic bread and wonder, “What the heck is prebiotic bread?” I search the internet and find the handy prebiotic.ca website which says, “Prebiotics are a healthy non-digestible food ingredient… [they] are heat resistant,” and they “stimulate the growth of healthy bacteria” in the large intestine.
So basically, I’m eating a dirty flame retardant rock. Why produce a food that is indigestible, equipped to accompany Smokey the Bear on his firefighting ventures, and able to multiply the presence of things I could ingest by licking the flowerbed outside RNT? That, my friend, does not make sense.
But what does make sense in science news today? With articles in science magazines entitled, “When Incest is Best,” and, “When it Comes to Color, Women Have Pink Eye” I can’t help but question the mental stability of some “experts.”
I was scanning the news recently and found several articles on three cats cloned by South Korean scientist Kong Il-Keun. By day, these cats are ordinary Turkish Angoras that look like they belong to a villain from a James Bond movie. By night, however, these captivating kittens become incandescent mutants of macabre. They glow. Scientists were able to modify the animals’ genes so that their noses, mouths and the rims around their eyes radiate red under ultra-violet light.
Though scientists take the success of this project as a step toward the treatment of genetic diseases, all I see is overflowing animal shelters the week after Halloween and a new movie by Al Gore.
I appreciate the innovative reflections of Sean Fallon of gizmodo.com who says,
“If you ask me, cats that could truly glow-in-the-dark would make for a unique and stylish night-light. And, much like the new Litrospheres, they last for about 12 years. The only downside is that the latter requires no power source while cats require a steady diet. Still, the crazy cat lady down the street could have the most power efficient house in town.”
But there are more frightening things than luminous pets developing in the science scene. “Overriding everything, at the expense of a normal life, is Kevin’s all encompassing scientific quest and desire to be a cyborg.” Read that quotation again, only hear it from the throat of James Earl Jones (Star Wars, The Lion King). Sounds like a movie preview, hey? It’s not. Kevin Warwick, professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading in England, believes the next stage of evolution is the cyborg: part human, part machine. In fact he is already well on his way to becoming one after having surgery to hook up his central nervous system with technological implants. These implants allow him to, “operate doors, lights, heaters and other computers without lifting a finger.”
In the future, this technology could allow us to carry our so-called “identities” (defined by our DNA, not because we are unique creations of God) in a computer in our forearms. There is also an expectation that cybernetics could enable us “to communicate in a much richer way, using thought alone.”
What a utopia these advances would create! Imagine an average day with such a tool: Your alarm goes off, but instead of pressing the snooze button you merely think of pressing the snooze button and presto! You sleep through your first three classes. Finally, the ring of the phone wakes you, and you answer while still comfortably under the covers. It’s a campus security guard and he is wondering why you were on the roof of Fraser at 3:47 this morning with peons numbers 467582 and 463801 (parents no longer name their children, but the government issues them an implant number much like a social security number). You adamantly claim you were not involved, but the lie detector implanted in the security guard’s brain has already analyzed you and the printer (wirelessly attached to his nervous system) is printing off a fine for $350.
Paradise.
Now you go...
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