Bozur
Amicus
Posts: 5,515
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Post by Bozur on Feb 6, 2009 20:48:45 GMT -5
We Are Becoming A New Species, We Are Becoming ***** Evolutis
arstechnica.com — At TED 2009, Juan Enriquez talked about the new human species emerging before our eyes. Thanks to an array of biological advances and our growing aptitude in robotics, we now find ourselves in the early days of the deliberate creation of what he called a new species. More… (General Sciences)
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We are becoming a new species, we are becoming Homo Evolutis
At TED 2009, Juan Enriquez talked about the new human species emerging before our eyes. Thanks to an array of biological advances and our growing aptitude in robotics, we now find ourselves in the early days of the deliberate creation of what he called a new species.
By Ken Fisher | Last updated February 5, 2009 5:25
At TED 2009, now halfway through the near-weeklong binge of activities and presentations, Juan Enriquez energized and perhaps terrorized attendees with his brief look into the future of human affairs, and indeed, of the human species. What made Enriquez' presentation so engaging was that his vision wasn't that far off, this sci-fi future that he spoke of; it's the future that is unveiling itself right before us, a future that we will all likely watch arrive, and our children will come to know as reality.
Chairman and CEO of Biotechonomy, Enriquez says that humanity is on the verge of becoming a new and utterly unique species, which he dubs Homo Evolutis. What makes this species so unique is that it "takes direct and deliberate control over the evolution of the species." Calling it the "ultimate reboot," he points to the conflux of DNA manipulation and therapy, tissue generation, and robotics as making this great leap possible.
We are already in the midst of minor improvements to the human body and mind; Enriquez gave examples of growing new tissues for successful transplant, programmable cells, and augmenting our abilities through robotics. As this trend accelerates, more and more aspects of the human experience, of the human life, will be capable of scientific manipulation. While some improvement may come post-birth, our understanding of DNA and biology may lead to something much bigger.
The day may come when we are able to take the best biology of the known animal kingdom and make it part of our own. This isn't just about being a bit stronger, or having perfect eyesight our whole lives. All of our organs and limbs have weaknesses that can be addressed, and there are also opportunities to go beyond basic fixes and perform more elaborate enhancements. At a private lunch on Thursday, Enriquez spoke of a young girl who, after suffering a knee injury, received tendon replacement therapy centered around tendons grown in a lab. It not only fixed her knee, but made it stronger than normal. Later in life as she pursued life as a professional skier, the coach actually asked that she have the same surgery on her other knee to increase her abilities.
The point was clear: one day it will be possible for everyone to have stronger joints, bones, etc., thanks to work being done today, work which may ultimately be delivered into DNA. We would become a species that could, literally, control its own biological destiny.
All TED talks are limited to 18 minutes (in theory), so Enriquez wasn't able to elaborate beyond the basic points, nor was he able to field questions, which would have undoubtedly included essentialist objections to his notion of speciation or evolution. But for those 18 minutes, Enriquez painted the clearest path towards humanity's Borg-like future I've ever had the pleasure of hearing. It is no coincidence that he also mentioned, briefly, the need for ethical dialog around these issues.
All of this, coincidentally, was prefaced by a short discussion about our economic woes as of late, and Enriquez's view of the way out. With the massive growth in mandatory spending, Enriquez called for an end to entitlements, and a return to the acceptance of austerity. Tough times are unavoidable.
He also had comments on the workforce that were more relevant to his presentation. Like many, Enriquez believes that our workforce is going to work later and later in life, to the age of 70 and beyond. This is necessary because we need more production, and also because we must reduce the amount of time seniors spend collecting money from governments. In this way, the dawn of Homo Evolutis will not merely be occasioned by our desire to live longer, but by the necessity of it. arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/02/we-are-becoming-a-new-species-we-are-becoming-homo-evolutis.ars
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Post by hellboy87 on Feb 7, 2009 11:22:33 GMT -5
hopefully its not about changing humans into something else
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Post by Emperor AAdmin on Feb 7, 2009 12:01:09 GMT -5
nothing states the same and same goes for humans. Humans Are Rapidly Evolving and Mutating
By Annalee Newitz, 11:30 AM on Tue Dec 11 2007
Not only are human beings still evolving, but it looks like life in civilization may be pressuring us to evolve faster than ever. A groundbreaking new study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the cultural environment of homo sapiens, including high population density and rapid immigration patterns, is exerting pressure on humans to mutate and evolve. This flies in the face of the accepted evolutionary wisdom that culture protects us from the kind of natural selection that made our ancestor's skull so strange in that picture. Want to know what we're evolving into? After the jump.
Sorry, we're not becoming post-human yet. But that is probably in the cards. One of the authors of the study, John Hawks, is an anthropology professor at the University of Wisconsin and a prolific blogger. He's writing a series of helpful posts to go with the scientific article, explaining everything you might want to know about accelerating evolution.
So what's changed most over the last 40,000 years? Humans' skeletal structures, skin color, teeth, disease resistance, and ability to metabolize certain foods (like milk). So if history is any guide, our entire bodily structures and phenotypes, as well as what we can eat, are still changing. With the help of a little genetic engineering, we might be six-limbed glass-eaters before you know it. Image courtesy of AFP/Getty Images.
Selection Spurred Recent Evolution [New York Times]
Selection Spurred Recent Evolution, Researchers Say
By NICHOLAS WADE Published: December 11, 2007
Researchers analyzing variation in the human genome have concluded that human evolution accelerated enormously in the last 40,000 years under the force of natural selection.
The finding contradicts a widely held assumption that human evolution came to a halt 10,000 years ago or even 50,000 years ago. Some evolutionary psychologists, for example, assume that the mind has not evolved since the Ice Age ended 10,000 years ago.
But other experts expressed reservations about the new report, saying it is interesting but more work needs to be done.
The new survey — led by Robert K. Moyzis of the University of California, Irvine, and Henry C. Harpending of the University of Utah — developed a method of spotting human genes that have become more common through being favored by natural selection. They say that some 7 percent of human genes bear the signature of natural selection.
By dating the time that each of the genes came under selection, they have found that the rate of human evolution was fairly steady until about 50,000 years ago and then accelerated up until 10,000 years ago, they report in the current issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The high rate of selection has probably continued to the present day, Dr. Moyzis said, but current data are not adequate to pick up recent selection.
The brisk rate of human selection occurred for two reasons, Dr. Moyzis’ team says. One was that the population started to grow, first in Africa and then in the rest of the world after the first modern humans left Africa. The larger size of the population meant that there were more mutations for natural selection to work on. The second reason for the accelerated evolution was that the expanding human populations in Africa and Eurasia were encountering climates and diseases to which they had to adapt genetically. The extra mutations in their growing populations allowed them to do so.
Dr. Moyzis said it was widely assumed that once people developed culture, they protected themselves from the environment and from the forces of natural selection. But people also had to adapt to the environments that their culture created, and the new analysis shows that evolution continued even faster than before.
The researchers took their data from the HapMap project, a survey designed by the National Institutes of Health to look at sites of common variation in the human genome and to help identify the genes responsible for common diseases. The HapMap data, generated by analyzing the genomes of people from Africa, East Asia and Europe, has also been a trove for people studying human evolutionary history.
David Reich, a population geneticist at the Harvard Medical School, said the new report was “a very interesting and exciting hypothesis” but that the authors had not ruled out other explanations of the data. The power of their test for selected genes falls off in looking both at more ancient and more recent events, he said, so the overall picture might not be correct.
Similar reservations were expressed by Jonathan Pritchard, a population geneticist at the University of Chicago.
“My feeling is that they haven’t been cautious enough,” he said. “This paper will probably stimulate others to study this question.”
www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/science/11gene.html?ex=1355029200&en=5bc9729b3673ebd1&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
io9.com/332628/humans-are-rapidly-evolving-and-mutating
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Post by Emperor AAdmin on Feb 7, 2009 12:02:11 GMT -5
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Post by Emperor AAdmin on Feb 7, 2009 12:10:41 GMT -5
One interesting movie that touches this subject is Time Mashine (2002). Man who try's to alter the past end up (by mistake) 800,000 ahead in time. Humans have mutates into three groups and one is pray (still look like us) who are as cattle raised to be eaten by the second mutated group of humans who are predators of the 1st group (perhaps do to lack of food source). Third group is tall Nordic looking with immense intelligence in comparison to first two who are far more primitive. That is 800,000 years ahead in time. There there is a far more chocking scenario in the book that inspired the movie for 30 million years from now. The Time Machine - movie The Time Machine (2002 film) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine_(2002_film)The Utopian existence of the Eloi turns out to be deceptive. The Traveller soon discovers that the class structure of his own time has in fact persisted, and the human race has diverged into two branches. The wealthy, leisured classes appear to have devolved into the ineffectual, not very bright Eloi he has already seen; but the downtrodden working classes have evolved into the bestial Morlocks, cannibal hominids resembling human spiders, who toil underground maintaining the machinery that keep the Eloi — their flocks — docile and plentiful. Both species, having adapted to their routines, are of distinctly sub-human intelligence. 800,000 AD The censored text begins with the Traveller waking up in his Time Machine after escaping the Morlocks. He finds himself in the distant future of an Earth that is unrecognizable, seeing rabbit-like hopping herbivores near him. He stuns or kills one with a rock, and upon closer examination realizes they are probably the descendants of humans/Eloi. A gigantic, centipede-like arthropod approaches and the traveller advances ahead in time a day to flee, finding the creature to have apparently eaten the tiny humanoid. This dark ending of humanity was thought too shocking to be published. 30Million AD en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine#Deleted_text------------- Older version of the same movie The Time Machine (1960 film)
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Post by peccafly on Feb 8, 2009 7:47:08 GMT -5
^^^tha graphs aa posted here make me fear of something i dont know.
we are becoming monogenic & population explosion very quiccly @ tha same time... it seems somethin terrible.
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