Blog

Should we be thankful for the anti-ageing movement?

8 Comments

ageing stencilHuman life expectancy keeps increasing steadily, thanks not only to medicine and technology but to social and cultural progress, too. Potential next steps on the ladder could well come from both camps: an example from the med-tech side might be custom-grown replacement organs from pigs; whereas a change in dietary habits could probably be classified as a cultural change informed by science (although drinking ‘heavy water’ sounds a bit too much like snake-oil to me). [image by r000pert]

But the question is: how far should we go? Outspoken longevity evangelists like Aubrey de Gray claim a millennium-long life is not only possible but within our grasp, but such ideas have their opponents as well – some arguing from faith-based perspectives, others not. [via grinding.be]

Would you choose to extend your life-span, and if so how far?

Blog

Big blue publishes big five innovations list

IBM has published it’s third annual Next Five in Five list of innovations that they believe are going to change the way people work, live, and play over the next five years. They are:

  • Energy saving solar technology will be built into asphalt, paint and windows
  • You will have a crystal ball for your health
  • You will talk to the Web . . . and the Web will talk back
  • You will have your own digital shopping assistants
  • Forgetting will become a distant memory

Read the full lowdown on each entry here.

[via Physorg][image from Looking Glass on flickr]

Blog

Strange squid caught on video: This is what ETs should look like

National Geographic News got the footage from Shell Oil, which was running a remote-operated vehicle about 200 miles off the coast of Houston, Texas.

In a few seconds of jerky camerawork, the squid appears with its huge fins waving like elephant ears and its remarkable arms and tentacles trailing from elbow-like appendages.

Despite the squid’s apparent unflappability on camera, Magnapinna, or “big fin,” squid remain largely a mystery to science.

Four species of Magnapinna have been discovered since 1998. They live about 4,000 feet (1,129 meters) deep. (BBC posted a video of one some years ago, but I can’t seem to find the link. They called it a “batsquid,” a term which seems to have been appropriated by H.P. Lovecraft fans)

[Photo: National Geographic via Shell Oil]

Blog

Spain’s solar graveyard

When they perfect that spinach-based solar power, maybe they’ll use it to landscape cemetaries:

Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a gritty, working-class town outside Barcelona, has placed a sea of solar panels atop mausoleums at its cemetery, transforming a place of perpetual rest into one buzzing with renewable energy.

The town doesn’t have a lot of room for solar, so the cemetary was the only place for 462 panels that can light up 60 homes. The panels are arranged above mausoleum niches, and the town’s residents seem to appreciate the respect for the dead shown by the placement.

[Image: Wikimedia Commons]

Presenting the fact and fiction of tomorrow since 2001