Transhumanism – News & Rumors | ExtremeTech

Posts Tagged transhumanism What is tDCS, and is there actually any science behind its brain-boosting powers? December 4, 2014 at 1:02 pm

Transcranial direct brain stimulation, or tDCS, has hit the big time. By big time we mean that zapping the skull with electric current is now a science that garners serious consideration from many neuroscientists. We explore some new developments in the field, and take a closer look at the science alleged to be behind them.

With Christmas and the holiday season fast approaching, weve compiled a list of all the gadgets that we at ExtremeTech have bought or are saving up to buy so that you, or perhaps a friend or loved one, can feel like theyre living in the future, too. Without further ado, I give you ExtremeTechs 2014 Holiday Gift Guide For The Discerning Geek Who Wants To Feel Like Theyre Living In The Future.

While the human hand, with four fingers and opposable thumb, is pretty darn awesome, it still falls woefully short when it comes to some tasks such as opening a soda bottle or peeling a banana. MIT, which is obviously a firm believer that we can and should enhance humans as far as physically possible, has a solution: a wrist-mounted robot that gives you two extra fingers. With the so-called 7 Finger Robot equipped, you can both grasp a soda bottle and turn the cap at the same time. According to the MIT engineer who led the project, Harry Asada, some users might even begin to perceive the robotic helping fingers as part of their body like a tool you have been using for a long time, you feel the robot as an extension of your hand.

An MIT spin-off in Massachusetts, backed by the Gates Foundation, has developed a small, remote-controlled drug-dispensing implant that sits just under your skin. Such an implant could be used to dispense a whole range of useful drugs but in this case, one of the first commercial applications will be the contraceptive hormone levonorgestrel. A single implant can apparently provide enough levonorgestrel to be effective for 16 years; currently, no implanted contraceptive works for more than five years.

Stanford electrical engineer and biological implant mastermind, Ada Poon, has discovered a way of wirelessly transmitting power to tiny, rice-grain-sized implants that are deep within the human body. This could well be the breakthrough that finally allows for the creation of smaller pacemakers, body-wide sensor networks, and a new class of electroceutical devices that sit deep in the human brain and stimulate neurons directly, providing an alternative for drug-based therapies for depression, Alzheimers, and other neurological ailments.

Scientists have succeeded in creating the first organism with alien DNA. In normal DNA, which can be found within the genes of every organism , the twin strands of the double helix are bonded together with four bases, known as T, G, A, and C. In this new organism, the researchers added two new bases, X and Y, creating a new form of DNA that has never occurred in billions of years of evolution on Earth or elsewhere in the universe. Remarkably, the semi-synthetic alien organism continued to reproduce normally, preserving the new alien DNA during reproduction. In the future, this breakthrough should allow for the creation of highly customized organisms bacteria, animals, humans that behave in weird and wonderful ways that mundane four-base DNA would never allow.

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Transhumanism - News & Rumors | ExtremeTech