Scientific studies revolving around gender and sexuality often reach dubious conclusions, are rushed, lack proper sampling size, or have the problematic tendency to portray a situation as “natural” when it is more obviously the result of social conditioning. A really simplified version of this tendency would be a study that concluded, “when given a range [...]

My favorite scene in Ratatouille, outside of the ones with Peter O’Toole being creepily demanding about food, is the one where Linguini realizes Remy can talk. It’s one of those moments that could happen ten-thousand different ways, because there is no precedent for people discovering animals have a full command of language. It’s as [...]

Robert Reich has an excellent article over at Salon.com entitled “The Future of Manufacturing: Here Come the Robots.” Read it. Read the whole thing. If you can’t read this chunk, carefully:

We should stop pining after the days when millions of Americans stood along assembly lines and continuously bolted, fit, soldered or clamped [...]

Two quick stories. The first, from Science Daily, covers a procedure in which a patient’s own marrow cells are placed in the heart to improve performance:
The second group was treated with stem cells directly implanted into the coronary artery affected using a catheterization; the third group was treated with a medicine called [...]

Joke’s on You– She’s a Cyborg!

Front row student: Well, I am certain that my mom will always be there when I need her.
Professor: You mean she will always be there (pause) until she dies, which we are all certain of.

–Lecutre, NYU

Ronald Bailey over at Reason parses the hysterical comments of bioethicists regarding the glow-in-the-dark marmosets from yesterday. Three types of arguments crop up: 1) If this works on primates, it’ll work on people, that’s bad. 2) It weirds me out, so it’s bad. 3) Natural change is better than artificial change. These are all [...]

Ray Kurzweil is not known for his reserved opinions or being taken super seriously. He’s somewhat of a Cassandra for technological progress, which is a bummer for him and us. I critique him and am skeptical not because I think he’s a loon or that he’s wrong, but because I hope he’s right. The more [...]

One of the big pitfalls of being a futurist or even one who skirts the edges of the field is that we spend a lot of time waiting for the Next Big Tech (nano, solar, take your pick) and forget how much we have available. VisionCare Inc. has developed a stunningly simple cure for [...]

The battle over evolution fought between evangelical fundamentalists and everybody else is only tangentially related to transhumanism, but I’ve followed it for ages and it’s always interested me. Francis Collins, Mr. Human Genome Project, has set up a website BioLogos, a site designed to aid the goal of being religious and scientific. [...]

There is nothing startling about more reprotech, like IVF, being used as the technology progresses, becomes more accepted, and reaches new markets. What is also encouraging is that the tech is also becoming more refined. From Live Science:
Multiple births resulting from assisted reproductive technologies (ART) have been on the decline, with [...]