Upon re-reading some of my articles today I'm beginning to
realise that this blog is beginning to take a somewhat pessimistic tone, and so
I've decided that amongst my usual grumpy rantings I'm going to stick several
recurring themes to show that it isn't all doom and gloom. So I give you the
first of many, the totally geek-orientated; God I Love Living in the Future!
Because, in many respects, it is the future now! Or at least
it is according to virtually all of the Sci-fi shows and films that I used to
watch (and occasionally still do! X^D) Take Terminator, for example. We've
survived Judgement Day! August 29, 1997 came and went. We even got through the
revised 2003, 2004 and 2011 Judgement Days! Wooo! We should really start
digging on the moon for that Black Block, because both 2001 and 2010 are now in
the history books, and I'm yet to see anyone having a Space Odyssey. Although
my email account does tell me good morning. Smarmy little bastard.
And that's kinda my point. We don't have phasers and force
fields quite yet, but we're getting close. So in each God I Love Living in the
Future! I'm going to list three awesome
things that are real now. And I'm not even going to include the obvious stuff,
like how mobiles work a lot like communicators. You can even call your mum by
saying "Kirk to Enterprise" into the mouthpiece. Or how the thing
that Picard got handed by various Ensigns looks a lot like an iPad. Or even how
fond Picard is of Skype. I think it's a bit odd that they never put the two
together. Now you can actually video-call someone on a hand-held pad. Which is
a little bit awesome when you think about it.
Anyway, enough Star Trek references and onto the good stuff.
I've put them in reverse order of awesomeness.
3. Graphene
Graphene is a new nano-material that was discovered
recently. It's 2-dimensional, and superconductive at room temperature. The
smaller it gets the more efficient it gets, the reverse of silicon. This lets
you have very small computer chips. As in atoms big. And best of all, it's not
even rare. It's made of pure carbon. Graphite, the stuff that's in pencils.
This, my friends, is the start of nanotechnology. Computers the size of cells.
When Intel start making graphene processors, then computers are gonna get hella
fast hella quick.
2.Brain-Computer
Interface
A Brain-Computer Interface is pretty self-explanatory. Its
an interface between a human brain and a computer. It lets the machine read
your thoughts. This has many applications, such as getting James May around in
a thought-controlled wheelchair, to the exo-skeleton that let a woman paralysed
from the waist down run the London Marathon this year, to the robotic arm that
is plugged directly into the mind of a totally paralysed woman, allowing her to
feed herself coffee for the first time.
Ladies and Gentlemen, We are the Borg. Resistance is Futile.
1. Synthia
This is the big one. This still gets me excited and I'm a
little embarrassed to say a bit emotional when I think about it. I'm a geneticist
after all. I'll try not to embellish too much, and just say it plain and
simple.
We have created synthetic life. We have written a life form
on a computer, and then created it in a laboratory. A species exists now that
did not exist before. Not through divine will, but by our scientific knowledge,
by our human innovation, by our insatiable curiosity to understand the very
nature of what we are, the nature of life itself. And now we do.
We are the Engineers from Prometheus.
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