Time Travel discussion

Not all of us want to live forever, but most of us would like to at least prolong life. We keep looking for cures for those health issues that plague us.

Here's an interesting hope for the future of medicine:
A cure for broken hearts (a sprayed on solution of beating cells to repair heart damage after a heart attack)

What health advances might we see in our future? And what changes might they mean for society?

Amy, the big thing now is growing replacement organs on a cartilage frame, out of your own generated cells that therefore wouldn't be rejected.

Working & long lasting artificial organs would not be rejected either, of course.

Sticky sprays are & have been used for awhile now, after trauma to soft tissue organs like the liver & even kidneys, so that they can hold together long enough to heal.

My bet though would be drugs specific to exact treatment areas (tumors, etc.) delevered by mini-robots injected into the body.

Experts are saying we are close to this now, so in the future it may be commonplace.

Let's hope.

In UK, there was news about injecting auto prescriptive medicine in our bodies. Medicine contained in...I think some kind of micro valves or something. Howard might know. In fact I go along with what Howard predicts of the future because I think he's been there! ;)

Its remarkable technology but at the same time its a bit frightening. There was talk of NHS making it compulsary. This leads to a little paranoia that we can be controlled.

A few future based sci fi books I've read had Nano robotic science (Ben Bova's Voyager series and I think Arthur C Clark Rama series have that too?). Sounded incredible when I read them at the time and I didnt think I would see such technology but now I can see it happening in my own lifetime.

Effects on society? Um...a lot more grumpy old folks :D Seriously, one obvious effect will be an increase average of lifespans and that will just make our overpopulation challenges even more difficult to solve. It appears (according to some frightening documentaries and articles I have watched/read, and um science fiction books) that we are heading into dire straits very soon if we dont come up with feasible food and energy resources and even if we do, we have to solve the issue of fairly sharing and trading energy/food resources.

Tej, very nice, heartfelt & well thought out but I fear you're over-wrought, take a breath.

Every living thing runs on energy converted from other sources, it's basic chemestry.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed, that's basic physics & a good thing for humanity's future.

For in the future consumable energy (food) will be converted from other sources, abundant sources like the sun or energy trapped in the oceans.

Then it becomes an issue of appeal (taste) & throught out history that's just been a question of alchemy, or at the very least, given the mixing of ingredient & the application of heat, again, only basic chemestry.

Pollution is a different matter but humans do adapt & grow from their mistakes, that's just a learning curve & we have time to change things yet.

And while it's true that every generation says 'It's never been this bad' it's also true that such has always been the case, no matter when in time you look.

Humans are nothing if not adaptive & as a species I think we'll never say never.

So have a little faith & relax some.

The future looks good.