Blockbuster Science

by David Siegel Bernstein

  In 2016, Zurich, Switzerland, hosted the first cyber Olympics called the Cybathlon. Disabled participants from all over the world competed using the most advanced prostheses.2 It was a testing ground to determine how competitors coped performing typical daily tasks using the latest technologies. The events included bicycle races powered by brainpower and competitive bread cutting.

  Science (as well as science fiction) needs to address the question of how accumulated improvements will change societies. If society gets in the habit of replacing its organics because of easier upkeep and regular upgrades, then you could end up with the Cybermen in Doctor Who or, yes, you got it, the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation. From these examples, I hope you see the potential for cyborgs as soldiers.

  And video games are crazy with cyborgs. They typically can be found throwing cars around or converting their arms into laser cannons to prevent alien invaders from stealing children. Consider the characters in Halo, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, and Half-Life 2. And let's not forget about comic book superheroes like the aptly named half-human, half-machine hero called Cyborg in the DC Comics universe.

  Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow started out as manga before being adapted for anime (the word anime comes from the pronunciation of the Japanese abbreviation for animation) and ultimately into a live-action movie. Manga is a Japanese style of comic book writing and cartooning. It is created for all ages, so for adults the themes can sometimes get dark or sexual.

  Ghost in the Shell is about cyborgs with brain implants that can interface with technology. The only problem is that the brains can be hacked and all their memories replaced with false ones. Who can you trust when your perception of reality can be changed on demand?

  CELEBRITY FICTIONAL CYBORGS

  Steve Austin (the bionic man from The Six Million Dollar Man)

  Jaime Sommers (the bionic woman from The Bionic Woman)

  Alex Murphy (law enforcer in the Robocop series of movies)

  Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker (a random father and son in the Star Wars franchise)

  Victor “Vic” Stone (from DC Comics)

  Nathan Summers (aka Cable from Marvel Comics)

  Metallo (the man with a kryptonite heart who battles Superman in DC Comics)

  Otto Octavius (aka Doctor Octopus, the man of many arms who wants to give Spider-Man a hug in Marvel Comics)

  Cyberman and Daleks (Doctor Who baddies)

  The Borg (living the life in a box in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager)

  Tony Stark (the man without a heart; he sometimes dresses up as Iron Man, but the artificial heart makes him a cyborg)

  THE TRANSHUMAN BRAIN

  The human brain evolved to manage about eighty years of memories. What happens if genetically modified humans are able to live up to two hundred years? Ask any high school student, and if he is honest (of course he is), he just might confess that sometimes it is a struggle to remember recently learned concepts. How about you? Have you ever forgotten where you put your house keys?

  Recent research seems to show that these memories are not lost but rather are stored somewhere that isn't easily accessed. Scientists at MIT are studying early-stage Alzheimer's disease in mice to show how memories aren't necessarily lost, but the ability to retrieve them might be faulty. Using light to manipulate neurons (a technique called optogenetics), researchers were able to bring back memories of being shocked to mice suffering from the disease. This shows that by directly activating memory cells, a memory can be recalled.3

  And now comes the time for some tech speculation. How about simply adding a brain implant to store our memories instead of trying to manipulate neurons? In William Gibson's “Johnny Mnemonic” (Omni magazine, 1981), Johnny's implant system could hold hundreds of megabytes of data (considered a lot back in the 1980s). For this to be practical for patients with dementia, researchers would first have to find a way to transfer stored memories into active memories.

  Why stop with memories? Perhaps someday brain chips could be used to improve cognitive function and reverse the aging process. Or instead of only internal improvements, a chip could enhance your external experiences. Someday it might be possible for you to control various devices in your house or, even better, use Wi-Fi to connect with someone else's chip for communication.

  If we could do this now, then someone who traveled in a time machine from H. G. Wells's Victorian England to the present might think this looks like telepathy. This example gives me the perfect opportunity to invoke Arthur C. Clarke's third rule of prediction that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”4 Telepathy is magic. Soon, we might all be magicians.

  SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO GO SMALL

  Nanotechnology is technology manipulation at the nanoscale (one to one hundred nanometers). A nanometer is a millionth of a millimeter or a billionth of a meter. This technology can be used to manipulate molecular structures. So instead of the big add-ons like an arm blaster, you could fill up with the smallest of nonbiological tech, the nanite. These nanomachines are so small they measure less than one hundred nanometers (one-thousandth the thickness of a dollar bill).

  Once fully developed, these little guys might be used in nanomedicine. They could be programmed to seek and destroy cancer cells, or they could hang around inside your body until needed to fix damaged tissue. Nanotech could ferry drugs directly to tumors, magnetically pull toxins from patients, replicate human organs for drug testing, or break up blood clots.

  As long as I'm compiling a wish list, how about nanites that drive bacteria as a vehicle to transport molecules to damaged areas? Or use them as tiny missiles to destroy waxy plaque in blood vessels? All of this is possible. Fiction is not required.

  A cool proof of concept for a nano drug delivery system already exists. Researchers have developed nanoparticle balls made from a polymer that disintegrates when ultraviolet light is shone on it.5 The idea is that they can be filled with medicine, injected into the bloodstream, and, when the nanoball reaches its target in the body, light is applied and the medicine released.

  In the movie Fantastic Voyage, based on a story by Otto Clemet and Jerome Bixby, a group of doctors are miniaturized and sent into a body to conduct brain surgery. Fiction aside, nano-submarines are real and can be powered by motors that operate much like a bacteria's flagellum (the tail-like filament that allows microbes to swim through fluids).

  When excited by ultraviolet light, the bond that holds the rotor changes states, allowing it to rotate a quarter turn. As it returns to its resting state, it jumps again, rotating another quarter turn. This process continues as long as the light is on. It can achieve speeds up to 2.5 centimeters per second. It can carry cargoes for medical and other purposes.6

  Nanites are the go-to panacea for some science fiction civilizations. The Borg automatons in the Star Trek universe have them flowing through their blood making constant adjustments. In “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances” episodes of Doctor Who, we learn that Captain Jack Harkness's medical supplies include restorative nanites. And as you might expect, the Doctor happens to remember all about them just in time to save the day.7

  Known as replicators in the television series Stargate: Atlantis, nanites were a little less helpful after they achieved sentience. It turns out that they weren't particularly fond of humans.

  AND IN THE END, POSTHUMANISM

  If we follow the path of augmentation, there will come a time when we have upgraded ourselves beyond the point where we might be considered human. I guess this isn't much different than how we stand currently as post-Australopithecus. Only this time instead of natural selection, our mastery of DNA hacking and technological augment is sitting in the driver's seat of evolution.

  Many science fiction authors have written works set in a posthuman future. Let's not forget about the classic H. G. Wells novel The Time Machine. I hope the “post” we become isn't Eloi or Morlock.

  Anyway, posthumans might not resha
pe only themselves but also their environment. In Glasshouse by Charles Stross, minds are uploaded into various bodies. Sometimes not on a voluntary basis, and sometimes not into the gender of their choice, and sometimes not placed in the right virtual time period.8 I'll let you read the book to figure out what I mean by that.

  A universe cohabited by humans and posthumans would have interesting dynamics. In Dan Simmons's novels Illium and Olympos, the posthumans dominate and are worshipped as gods.9 In my short story “Chronology,” published in M-Brane SF, they are godlike but are hardly worshipped. Then there is Hannu Rajaniemi's Jean le Flambeur book series, in which posthumans are a different species from baseline humans, and groups of posthumans are different from each other. Some of them actually get along. The others? I'm not telling.

  How about this for a story? A contagious virus leaves 1 percent of its victims awake and aware but unable to move. This is the plot used by John Scalzi in his novel Lock In. As you might have guessed from the title, these poor people are locked into unresponsive bodies. Thanks to a government program, these victims are provided with robotic transports into which their consciousness can be transferred. They gain mobility while caretakers watch over their bodies.10

  There are also people who can act as integrators, those who can let a locked-in person borrow their bodies for sensual experiences. Finally, a shared cyberspace-like environment allows the locked-ins to meet socially. Some choose never to leave that space. This series provides a good blend of virtual reality, transhumanism, and posthumanism.

  In Star Trek the original television series, a repeating theme is that transcending the human condition leads to disaster (usually for the humans left behind). In season one, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and “Charlie X,” some humans turn posthuman, causing conflict. You also meet aliens who have transcended their original condition such as Trelane from “The Squire of Gothos.”11

  So much posthuman plotting in a single season! Don't even think about getting me started on the Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

  CYBERING (EVERYONE IS DOING IT)

  Although it would be unnecessary, especially when you are able to create your own virtual universe, there might come a time when your posthuman self wants to get social with other human abstracts. A good meeting place is a communal area called cyberspace.

  The word cyberspace is credited to author William Gibson, who first used it in his short story “Burning Chrome.”12 The term doesn't make the leap from science fiction to the mainstream until after his novel Neuromancer, where Gibson describes cyberspace as a hangout where posthumans might live until the end of the universe.

  Although much more mundane (for now), cyberspace is our internet community. We can hang out there socially without the oh-so-retro demands of meeting a person in the physical world.

  PARTING COMMENTS

  Machine efficiency is greater than biological evolution. Transhumanism is not just biological fixes; it is also the upgrading of humans with technology. Posthumanism is when the accumulation of transhuman upgrades has changed our bodies and minds so profoundly that they might no longer be considered bodies and minds.

  Something to ponder: After we have downloaded our minds into a collective intelligence, or into servers that generate virtual realities, we could make copies of our original baseline selves and watch them muddle around Earth for entertainment. Are you a copy?

  CHAPTER 10 BONUS MATERIALS

  BONUS: NANO FOR FOOD

  Nanotech could make those “born on” dates or “best by” dates obsolete. Someday stores will be able to ensure safer and healthier products at your grocers. Nanoparticles could store the nutrients inside food and release them at a fixed time and fixed place in your body.

  Conductive polymers molded into nano-sized sensors could detect the beginnings of molecular spoilage or foodborne pathogens, including those of nefarious (think bio-warfare) origin. Sticking with the theme, we should probably use degradable polymers to create the biosensors for food packaging.13

  This technology exists, but consumers might encounter problems, such as death. Materials at the nanoscale might be harmful if they remain in the body too long. Most of what is being tested today is made of synthetic carbon materials. What if researchers used materials made of natural ingredients that break down in the body?

  Someday sensors might help users analyze their breath to discover food preferences. After all, our breath chemicals correlate with our taste preferences. These same types of sensors could be used by doctors to check to determine whether dietary requirements or restrictions are being met.

  This distant image of our tiny world…underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

  —Carl Sagan

  Your home is more than the dwelling in which you huddle on a cold winter day while streaming Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope and sipping hot cocoa. The entire earth is your home. We are so perfectly adapted to this piece of real estate it would be very hard to live anywhere else in the universe. The earth has changed our species through our need to evolve in order to survive its climate changes.

  A fascinating, and dangerous, detail is that the interaction is not one-way. Humans have also changed the environment. It is possible that sometime in the future, these human-made environmental changes might lead to our extinction.

  As we evolved, our relationship with the environment due to our ever-increasing demand for energy has also changed. For a time, humans were content burning wood for heat, boiling water for steam, and burning calories for labor. Our modern lifestyles demand energy from many more sources. We have renewable ones like wind, water, and solar, but for the most part our current level of technology (proto–type I civilization) is much more suited for burning fossils fuels such as coal and gas.

  Fossil fuels are combustible geologic materials created in the deep geological past from previously living matter (but not dinosaurs; that is a myth). Today we have so many people using up so much energy that we are endangering the environment on which we depend. This chapter focuses on environmental changes due to climate changes caused by our power usage. It offers up a few possible scientific fixes to save our collective butts. Some of them will sound like science fiction.

  CAN CLIMATE OR WEATHER BE PREDICTED?

  The earth's climate has never been constant. The three main drivers are energy from the sun, volcanic eruptions, and gasses trapped in the atmosphere. All three yield their greatest climate impact through their effects on the atmosphere. Remember how the volcanic winter of 1816 led to the story of Frankenstein's monster? Or the volcanic winter seventy-five thousand years ago that almost eliminated the human species? It's all caused by how the sun's energy reacts to what is spewed into the atmosphere.

  Climate is the statistics of weather. Climate is therefore predictable because it is based on averages. We know it is colder in winter than summer. Unfortunately, weather isn't so easily predicted. In this chaotic system, small differences from an initial state can eventually cause large differences in the system. This is the so-called butterfly effect.

  For example, hurricanes get their energy from the moisture of water evaporated off of tropical oceans. Land storms start with temperature differentials. Evaporation and temperature differentials are only two of the many variables used in constructing meteorological predictive models. Because of the chaotic nature of the model's variables, the further out the forecast reaches, the lower the odds are that the model's predictions will be correct.

  That said, weather predictions are pretty good week out. After that, they are marginal at best. For long-term forecasts, the only really useful arrow in a meteorologist's quiver is her understanding of the connection between the atmosphere and the ocean. Tracking El Niño and La Niña, for example, correlates with weather patterns months ahead. Meteorologists can start to build a long-term forecast by tracking what these systems are doing.

 
Quick fact: Oceans have a higher heat capacity than the atmosphere because they are more stable. This means it takes more energy to heat the ocean one degree than to heat the atmosphere one degree.

  WHAT IS THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT?

  To answer this question, I first have to bring our favorite star into the discussion. Without the sun, there would be no point to greenhouses or metaphors about them. The sun is a great provider of energy, but sometimes it likes to mess with us. Not all of its rays are good for us.

  We receive what I call the big three forms of radiation from the sun: the visible light that allows you to see what is going on, ultraviolet (UV) light, and infrared (IR) light. UV rays have the shortest and most energetic wavelength, while IR rays have the longest and weakest wavelength.

  If you aren't already familiar with the greenhouse effect, it is a metaphor popularized by science presenters. Allow me to begin by describing how an actual greenhouse works. This peekaboo structure is designed to house plants and help them grow. The glass walls and roof allow sunlight to pass through, warming the air inside.

  To paraphrase the wise words of a team of great thinkers known as Felder, Henley, and Frey (aka the Eagles), the light can check out any time it likes, but it can never completely leave. The UV rays are gobbled up by the grateful residents. The unused IR rays are reflected back up, but because of their puny wavelength, they have difficulty passing back through the glass and are now trapped inside and further heat the greenhouse.