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Two scientists at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute at the University of Pittsburgh discussed the state of xenotransplantation—the use of cells, organs, or tissue from one animal in another—in a review in The Lancet. In that review, they touch on the history of one particular subject: pig-to-human transplants. Their conclusion? Clinical trials of pig-to-human transplants could begin in just a few years. More »
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Where do you stand on the subject of human enhancement? If recent cultural trends in things like music, movies, and video games are any indication, it's a subject that's been picking at society's collective conscience quite a bit as of late. More »
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Britain's National Archives has created an amazing online collection of "public information films," or what we in the United States call "public service announcements" (PSAs). It's an incredible collection that goes back to the 1950s and continues up through 2006. Some of the movies are just silly, and others are kind of amazing in their complexity and emotional impact. More »
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Futurist Kyle Munkittrick has an interesting essay about Pixar movies over at Discover's Science Not Fiction blog, where he argues that most of the studio's films are offering a message about how non-human creatures (like robots or rats) are just as sentient as humans are, and deserve to be treated like people. He sees this as a distinctly transhuman or posthuman perspective, a sensibility that everyone might share in a future with intelligent robots and uplifted animals. More »
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"Under what conditions can we engage in a meaningful, expressive interaction with an electronic device?" Say, for example, by ‘tickling' a robot? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5683769&view=rss&microfeed=true Just after we linked to the Physics and Cake blog's post about whether there might be a "ceiling" in the level of theoretical physics that humans can understand, Reith Lecturer Martin Rees wrote an essay for the London Times, explaining the first of his Reith Lectures. And Rees does believe that there may be intrinsic limits to human understanding of the cosmos: More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5552803&view=rss&microfeed=true Over at the Physics And Cake blog, there's a great discussion of exactly how machines will replace theoretical physicists, with their only goal being to create a perfect model of the universe, and no ego at stake. More »
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Science fiction is full of stories where our heroes live forever. And some current biological research is aimed at making our lives last centuries. So what's the downside of lasting forever? Here are four reasons to be a mortalist. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5521531&view=rss&microfeed=true Abel Pharmboy, the intrepid medical blogger behind Terra Sigillata, liveblogged his vasectomy last week. I love the idea of this guy sitting there with his laptop in his lap while the surgeon exposes his balls (yes, he goes there). There's even a moment when he can smell burning flesh during the cauterization. I can't figure out which is more futuristic: Timothy Leary liveblogging his own death, or Pharmboy liveblogging the death of his fertility? Either way, this is a must-read for the posthuman set. [Terra Sigillata] More »
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