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Author Archives: jrenstro
The Apes Shall Inherit The Earth (Or At Least A Little Piece)
One of the reasons Planet of the Apes resonates so deeply with viewers is the plausibility of its premise. Have you ever seen monkeys up close? Their profound intelligence is clear, and there’s no question we evolved from them. Their … Continue reading
Posted in Could this Happen?
Tagged animal rights, apes, buenos aires zoo, monkeys, orangutan, PETA, planet of the apes, sentience
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Wake Me Up Before You Go Go
British neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote Awakenings in 1973, detailing his experiences giving a drug called L-Dopa (Levodopa, now commonly used to treat the symptoms of Parkinson’s by increasing the brain’s supply of dopamine) to catatonic patients. The book was later … Continue reading
Posted in Could this Happen?, medicine
Tagged awakenings, catatonia, consciousness, l-dopa, midazolam, oliver sacks, vegetative state
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Am I Only Dreaming?
Ever since I first saw Nightmare on Elm Street as a kid (and watched Johnny Depp get blended by his bed and splattered on the ceiling), I’ve been fascinated and a little scared by dreams. If you die in your … Continue reading
Posted in Could this Happen?, dreaming
Tagged inception, lucid dreaming, matrix, sleep, waking life
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Back To The Future Part II: How Far Off Are We?
Where we’re going, we don’t need roads. Except we do. But flying cars do exist, such as the Terrafugia and the AeroMobil, aircraft-car hybrids that can fly, and then fold in their wings and drive around. There’s also the Florida-based … Continue reading
Posted in Could this Happen?
Tagged back to the future, cinematic reality, dehydrated pizza, hoverboard, power lace sneakers, terrafugia, virtual reality
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Going Out For a Jaunt? Try Teleportation
I’ve long said that if I could have any superpower, it would be teleportation. To be liberated from airports, airplanes and tickets would be amazing. I wouldn’t mind leaving behind my passport and never suffering another border crossing again, although … Continue reading
Posted in Could this Happen?
Tagged alfred bester, jaunting, quantum teleportation, star trek, stars my destination, teleportation
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Double Take: NASA’s Twin Study
In the sci-fi novel Time for the Stars, Robert Heinlein explores something called the “twin paradox,” an Einstein-inspired thought experiment involving the splitting up of identical twins. One rockets off into space while the other remains on Earth. Even though … Continue reading
Posted in Could this Happen?
Tagged NASA, space, twins
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New Man’s War
In John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, the home planet’s military consists of old folks who join the fight because they have nothing left to lose. Of course, they can’t just battle as is—they need some pretty serious upgrades first. They … Continue reading
Posted in Could this Happen?
Tagged avatar, captain america, DARPA, old man's war, super soldiers, synthetic organisms, transhumanism
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Cop A Feelie
In Brave New World, there’s all kinds of fun to be had. There’s Centrifugal Bumble Puppy, rudimentary sexual games for the young ones in school, and, of course, there’s the feelies. The feelies aren’t exactly virtual reality—based on Huxley’s descriptions, … Continue reading
Posted in Could this Happen?
Tagged brave new world, haptic jacket, huxley, sensory fiction, technology, virtual reality, wearable technology
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Robots Can Get Themselves Together
Replication, including molecular assemblers and nanofactories, while impressive in and of itself, is also the first step to self-replication, an often apocalyptic trope in science fiction. Grey goo is perhaps the most dramatic end-of-days self-replication scenario, involving robots that consume … Continue reading
Posted in Could this Happen?
Tagged Distributed Flight Array, M-Block, MIT, replication, robots, self-assembly, self-replication
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