Post by praying4usall on Nov 13, 2007 16:28:41 GMT -5
Human body 2.0: smarter, stronger, with amazing abilities
By Futuretalk
Futurists Ray Kurzweil and Nanorex Chief Scientist Robert Freitas believe that tiny medical nanorobots expected by late 2020s will provide radical upgrades to our bodies. “We won’t reengineer our bodies all at once”, Kurzweil says, “It will be an incremental process accomplished one benign step at a time over the next four decades”.
Today we prevent many diseases through nutrition and supplements, and we look forward to biotech and nanotech breakthroughs expected in the 2010s and 2020s that will replace defective and aging organs with stem cell therapies, genetic engineering, and advanced nanomaterials.
Kurzweil also predicts that in the coming decades, progress in cognitive sciences will enable non-biological intelligence to merge with our biological brains.
As we learn more about our body, experts say we can engineer new systems with dramatic improvements. Freitas believes that by the 2030s, we could create artificial respirocytes that would allow us to hold our breath for 4 hours and sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath.
Even more radical, with respirocytes providing extended access to oxygen, nanobots could remove carbon dioxide from our cells, which would eliminate the need for lungs. Without lungs, we would no longer require breathable air! This will give us incredible abilities. We could live in space and on other planets with little technology help.
In his book, Fantastic Voyage, Kurzweil describes how we could reengineer our digestive system, enabling nanobots to deliver nutrients directly into our cells, eliminating the need for food. To implement this technology, we would wear a ‘nutrient belt’ loaded with millions of nutrient-bearing ‘bots, which would enter and leave the body through our skin.
However, many may want to hang on to their food-eating pleasures, so scientists propose a special digestive tract to receive real food, but bar those nutrients from entering the blood stream. ‘Bots would convert this food into molecules and route it into the ‘nutrient belt’. This would allow us to eat anything we want – no harm, no foul.
The next organ on our hit list is the heart, a remarkable machine, but one that is too often subject to failure. Freitas has designed a revolutionary nano-robotic blood cell system that he believes could eliminate the need for a heart.
This configuration would also eliminate need for kidneys, bladder, liver, lower esophagus, stomach, intestines, bowel, and skeleton. We will need to keep our skin, sex organs, mouth and upper esophagus for touching, talking and eating, but scientists believe we could also replace these parts with an exotic ‘nano-skin’, which offers greater protection from physical force and extreme temperatures, and may even provide more enjoyable sex and touch.
The most amazing application of this future includes replacing the brain. IBM hopes to reverse-engineer the brain by 2030, and with efforts to capture thought at moment of creation underway at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, forward-thinkers believe we can one day replace neurons with materials that process information at supercomputer speeds.
Will this ‘magical future’ happen? Forward-thinkers see human body 2.0 as our next evolutionary step which could become reality by 2050. Living in maintenance-free bodies will enable us to direct priorities towards saving the environment and scattering our populations to the stars.
This article will appear in various print media and blogs; comments welcome. See other published work by Futuretalk at www.positivefuturist.com/archive.html
By Futuretalk
Futurists Ray Kurzweil and Nanorex Chief Scientist Robert Freitas believe that tiny medical nanorobots expected by late 2020s will provide radical upgrades to our bodies. “We won’t reengineer our bodies all at once”, Kurzweil says, “It will be an incremental process accomplished one benign step at a time over the next four decades”.
Today we prevent many diseases through nutrition and supplements, and we look forward to biotech and nanotech breakthroughs expected in the 2010s and 2020s that will replace defective and aging organs with stem cell therapies, genetic engineering, and advanced nanomaterials.
Kurzweil also predicts that in the coming decades, progress in cognitive sciences will enable non-biological intelligence to merge with our biological brains.
As we learn more about our body, experts say we can engineer new systems with dramatic improvements. Freitas believes that by the 2030s, we could create artificial respirocytes that would allow us to hold our breath for 4 hours and sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath.
Even more radical, with respirocytes providing extended access to oxygen, nanobots could remove carbon dioxide from our cells, which would eliminate the need for lungs. Without lungs, we would no longer require breathable air! This will give us incredible abilities. We could live in space and on other planets with little technology help.
In his book, Fantastic Voyage, Kurzweil describes how we could reengineer our digestive system, enabling nanobots to deliver nutrients directly into our cells, eliminating the need for food. To implement this technology, we would wear a ‘nutrient belt’ loaded with millions of nutrient-bearing ‘bots, which would enter and leave the body through our skin.
However, many may want to hang on to their food-eating pleasures, so scientists propose a special digestive tract to receive real food, but bar those nutrients from entering the blood stream. ‘Bots would convert this food into molecules and route it into the ‘nutrient belt’. This would allow us to eat anything we want – no harm, no foul.
The next organ on our hit list is the heart, a remarkable machine, but one that is too often subject to failure. Freitas has designed a revolutionary nano-robotic blood cell system that he believes could eliminate the need for a heart.
This configuration would also eliminate need for kidneys, bladder, liver, lower esophagus, stomach, intestines, bowel, and skeleton. We will need to keep our skin, sex organs, mouth and upper esophagus for touching, talking and eating, but scientists believe we could also replace these parts with an exotic ‘nano-skin’, which offers greater protection from physical force and extreme temperatures, and may even provide more enjoyable sex and touch.
The most amazing application of this future includes replacing the brain. IBM hopes to reverse-engineer the brain by 2030, and with efforts to capture thought at moment of creation underway at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, forward-thinkers believe we can one day replace neurons with materials that process information at supercomputer speeds.
Will this ‘magical future’ happen? Forward-thinkers see human body 2.0 as our next evolutionary step which could become reality by 2050. Living in maintenance-free bodies will enable us to direct priorities towards saving the environment and scattering our populations to the stars.
This article will appear in various print media and blogs; comments welcome. See other published work by Futuretalk at www.positivefuturist.com/archive.html