Human bioenhancement technologies fall into three main categories: pharmaceuticals, bioelectronics, and genetics.
Through the use of pharmaceuticals, we are learning how to control our moods, boost our physical and mental performance, increase our longevity and vitality, Professor Michael Bess from Vanderbilt University says.
Through prostheses, implants, and other bioelectronic devices, we are not only healing the blind and the paralyzed, but beginning to reconfigure our bodies, enhance our memories, and generate entirely new ways of interacting with machines.
Through genetic […]
The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research recently surveyed people from Japan ages 18 to 34 and found that a large percentage of people who were unmarried were not in a relationship. About 60 percent of unmarried women and 70 percent of unmarried men were not in any kind of relationship, Japan Times reported Thursday. Of those surveyed, 44.2 percent of women revealed they were virgins, while 42 percent of men revealed they, too, had never had sexual intercourse. The study conducted in June 2015 included 6,598 married couples and 8,754 singles. (emphasis added)
The study’s findings are not exactly surprising. The birthrate has dropped significantly in Japan, prompting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to encourage more couples to “boost the birthrate,” according to Japan Times. The Japanese government has also added services that it hopes will encourage families to reproduce, like increasing availability at nursery schools.
Japan’s census recently released numbers from 2015 that revealed a staggering population drop largely attributed to its sinking birthrate and its aging population. In 2010, the census showed the population at 128 million. By 2015, it had dropped to 127 million, the Washington Post reported.
Japan’s […]
A grim new study led by a UCLA geography professor revealed that the current 5-year drought in California could last indefinitely, with the resulting arid conditions becoming “the new normal” for the state.
The study, which looked at prolonged periods of dryness in California over the past 10,000 years, was published Thursday in the Nature.com journal Scientific Reports.
It noted that the state’s drought in the 21st century has been the most intense ever recorded, with drier than normal conditions in 10 of the past 14 years; the last three years have also been the hottest and driest in about 120 years.
The study investigated how natural climatic forces such as sun spots, a slightly different earth orbit and decreased volcanic activity intermittently warmed the region through radiative forcing, contributing to historic periods of dryness that lasted for hundreds and even thousands of years. It also looked at the presence and impact of greenhouse gases, another more recent warming force.
The radiative forcing that results from warming forces have the potential to extend drought-like conditions indefinitely, according to UCLA Professor Glen MacDonald, the study’s lead […]
Fewer people are using opioids in states that have legalized medical marijuana, according to a study published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health that bolsters advocates’ claims that marijuana can substitute for more deadly drugs. (emphasis added)
The study, which examined data from 1999 to 2013, found an association between a state legalizing medical marijuana and a reduction in testing positive for opioids after dying in a car accident, particularly among drivers ages 21 to 40.
Previous studies have found that opioid overdoses went down after medical marijuana laws were enacted, but this study was geared at opioids use more generally. Researchers noted that those who tested positive may have been taking opioids as a doctor prescribed, and the use of the drug was not necessarily a contributing factor to the vehicle crash.
The study used a sample of 68,394 people who died in a car crash drawing from federal traffic safety data in 18 states. It found people were slightly less likely to test positive for […]
Study: Scientists That Won’t Link Pesticides To Bee Deaths Are Often Funded By Agrochemical Industry
A bumble bee perches on rape blossoms near Munich, southern Germany. A new study shows that scientists funded by pesticide makers downplayed the role pesticides had in decimating worldwide bee populations.
MINNEAPOLIS — Pesticide manufacturers have spent millions influencing researchers who are investigating the role of neonicotinoids, a nicotine-like chemical found in many major pesticides, in bee die-offs, according to a recent analysis by Greenpeace.
The analysis arrives just weeks after scientists released the results of a long-term study that shows neonicotinoids are extremely dangerous to wild bees in the United Kingdom.
Bayer and Syngenta, two of the world’s top manufacturers of neonicotinoid-based pesticides, gave over £2 million (over $2.6 million) to British universities engaged in research on pesticides and plant sciences between 2011 and the start of 2016, reported Joe Sandler Clarke, a journalist for Greenpeace’s Energydesk, on Aug. 29.
“Syngenta and […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
