5 ways to live forever

In about 20 years, scientists claim that they may have the technology to enable humans to live forever. That will make it the year 2032. It may not happen on that exact date, but if you can live long enough to at least see the 2030s, you may never die. Here are 5 ways humans may live forever in the coming future.

How can this be done? Here are 5 of the methods we may use in the future to live forever:

• Replacement of our vital organs:  Scientists can create artificial pancreases so this isn't as crazy as it sounds. It won't be long before this technology is perfected. This means that we will get to replace any organ in our body with a new one. If your heart is failing, you can go to the doctor to order a replacement. It's basically like going to the body mechanic to have parts replaced. We will get to do this over and over again until technology is advanced enough to enable our bodies to live forever on a molecular level.

• Neurological implants: Computer chips that can attach to the human brain is not as far fetched as it sounds. It's already being done in the laboratory to help people with brain disorders like severe terrets and others. These computer chips will help stimulate the brain for people who have had strokes or head injuries, e.c.t. They will also ease the effects of Parkinson's disease and depression. In addition, they can be used as a pathway from brain to computer. In the future you will be able to control machines with your mind. Perhaps you could even control other people, who knows. This technology will most likely ensure that our brains will never degenerate and our memory will never delete or get destroyed. Any brain damage will be automatically repaired (or transferred into a machine). (See: Transferring Human Consciousness)

• 3. Nanobots: These will be used as a supplement to our natural blood cells and they will be thousands of times more effective. For example, oxygen will be supplied much more effectively and you will most likely be able to run at a full sprint for 15 minutes and stay under water for hours without a breath. Also, they will allow healing and repair to be nearly instant and will ensure that the cells in our body never decay, allowing us to never age or maybe we could even grow younger instead of older.

• 4. Cyborg technology: This is pretty self explanatory. In the future instead of replacing body parts with biological copies, we may be able to replace them with mechanical copies. We will then become super human biological cyborgs. We will live forever and be nearly invincible. (See: Dog's Head Kept Alive Without a Body)

• 5. Cryonics: Cryonics is a technology that uses vitrification instead of freezing for the preservation of humans and animals. The idea is you can have yourself preserved until medical technology is available to heal you. So even if you die today, you can be restored at a later date. Currently, around 200 people have had this procedure since 1962. In the United States, only people who are pronounced clinically dead can have cryonics performed. The only problem, the technology does not yet exist to bring these people back to life without killing them. Would you take the risk? I sure would.

I recently watched the movie Zardoz and found it was a compelling take on the effects of living forever. In the movie, people were begging for death. Would life really get that boring?

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Sight, hearing, smell: the differences between dogs and humans

It's been a fact for many years that dogs only see in black and white. I'm here to tell you it's a total myth. Dogs can actually see colors that are equivalent to red-green color blindness in humans. If you were to compare the vision of a human vs. a dog, the dog would win the contest for noticing the most in its surroundings because a dog has much better vision for catching motion, however, dogs can only see about half the brightness level than their human counterparts.

Now that you know dogs can see in color, let's take it sense by sense and compare the sensory systems of dogs and humans, starting with hearing:

Dogs can hear what?
Dogs can hear in frequencies ranging from around 40 Hz to 60 kHz, depending on the breed and age. Dogs have more than 18 muscles that enable them to move their ears so they can more precisely locate a sound. In addition, dogs can hear sound up to four times farther than us humans. So the next time you hear your dog barking at the wind, he/she may be hearing something quite interesting.

Humans can hear what?
Humans can hear in frequencies ranging from 12 Hz to 20 kHz (give or take). As we get older, that range can shrink, depending on the level of hearing loss you experience. Women tend to be more sensitive to higher frequencies than men. This is most likely due to the fact that women have to be more aware of their offspring.

Dogs can smell what?
Dogs have a brain that is built to sense smell. The olfactory cortex is the part of their brain that enables them to have superior smelling capabilities. The olfactory cortex is fourty times bigger in dogs than it is in humans and up to 100 million times more sensitive. Bloodhounds have an extremely superior sense of smell, hence the “100 million times more sensitive” figure. Other breeds don't have quite that capability. Dogs use their wet noses to detect what direction a smell is coming from. Dogs can use each nostril separately to further increase their smelling abilities. The sense of smell is the most highly evolved sense a dog has.

Humans can smell what?
The human nose can sense up to 4,000 to 10,000 different smells (dogs can sense around 30,000 to 100,000). Humans who do not have any sense of smell have a condition called Anosmia. Our sense of taste is largely influenced by our sense of smell. In fact, it can influence our sense of taste by up to 80 percent! Dogs can sense smells that are 100 million times less concentrated than what us humans can smell. So I guess that puts our sense of smell in perspective.

Dogs can see what?
Dogs are not color blind. They can see in ranges that are similar to red-green color blindness in humans. As twilight hunters, they have a section of their eye called the tapetum lucidum, which gives them something like night vision. You can often see the tapetum by shining a light into a dog's eye. It's that reflective eye-shine you can see when light reflects in their eyes in the dark. Dogs don't have the greatest clarity of vision, but they can see motion much better than us humans. For example, dogs have been shown to be able to differentiate between their owners from distances of up to 900m. However, that's only the case if you are moving. If you were to stay in one place, the distance they can differentiate goes down to around 500m. Some researchers believe that dogs may see television as a flickering screen. The visual abilities of a dog varies by breed. Greyhounds have been touted as having the best eyesight compared to other breeds, however, it hasn't been thoroughly proven.

Humans can see what?
Humans can distinguish about 10 million different colors. Dogs on the other hand, cannot see nearly as many colors as humans. The overall visual acuity (clarity) in humans is much better than it is in dogs, however, dogs have a much better ability to notice motion and the ability to see well in the dark. It takes roughly 30 minutes for the human eye to fully adjust to darkness. If we were to compare the sight of humans and dogs, humans would win on the clarity front and dogs would probably win everywhere else. Of course none of this matters if you are blind or have some other unfortunate visual disability.

Chihuahua. Credit: Danielle deLeon

Conclusion
As you can see, there are many differences between humans and dogs. However, with all of our differences, dog is still man's best friend!

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The best images of Mars from Curiosity rover

Here are some of the best images of Mars from the Curiosity rover:

Curiosity's shadow.

The parachute of Curiosity.

After a steering test.

Mount Sharp.

The mohawk guy.

Gale crater.

Obama calling the rover team. Credit: The White House.

Curiosity's heat shield.

Images Credit: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/MSSS/

More great images to come! Stay tuned!

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Researchers developing flying bat robot 'BaTboT'

It's about time science brings technology that would even make Bruce Wayne drool. Meet BaTboT, the flying robot bat being developed by robotics researchers from Spain and the U.S. Bats bring many notable abilities to the table, from their great wing maneuverability to their ability to save energy by folding their wings on upstroke.

“Bats exhibit extraordinary flight capabilities that arise by virtue of a variety of unique mechanical features. These flying mammals have developed powerful muscles that provide the folding and extension of their wing-membrane during flight (morphing). Although observing and gaining inspiration from these animals can provide significant insight into the physical requirements of flapping flight, it remains an engineering challenge to develop equivalently effective morphing wing vehicles," explains a research paper about BaTboT.

The U.S. military partially funded this research so watch out for flying death bats in the future. This news probably does not sit well for the chiroptophobic.

Source: http://www.disam.upm.es/~jdcolorado/BAT/Overview.html

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