Video 2 Evolving our Bodies

And four of the smartest people that I've ever met -- Ed Boyden, Hugh Herr, Joe Jacobson, Bob Lander -- are working on a Center for Extreme Bionics. 

And the interesting thing of what you're seeing here is these prosthetics now get integrated into the bone. They get integrated into the skin. They get integrated into the muscle. 

And one of the other sides of Ed is he's been thinking about how to connect the brain using light or other mechanisms directly to things like these prosthetics. 

And if you can do that, then you can begin changing fundamental aspects of humanity. 

So how quickly you react to something depends on the diameter of a nerve. 

And of course, if you have nerves that are external or prosthetic, say with light or liquid metal, 

then you can increase that diameter and you could even increase it theoretically to the point where, 

as long as you could see the muzzle flash, you could step out of the way of a bullet. 

Those are the order of magnitude of changes you're talking about.

This is a fourth sort of level of prosthetics. These are Phonak hearing aids, 

and the reason why these are so interesting is because they cross the threshold from where prosthetics are something for somebody who is "disabled"

and they become something that somebody who is "normal" might want to actually have, 

because what this prosthetic does, which is really interesting, is not only does it help you hear,

you can focus your hearing, so it can hear the conversation going on over there.

You can have superhearing. You can have hearing in 360 degrees. You can have white noise. You can record, and oh, by the way, they also put a phone into this. 

So this functions as your hearing aid and also as your phone. 

And at that point, somebody might actually want to have a prosthetic voluntarily.

All of these thousands of loosely connected little pieces are coming together,

and it's about time we ask the question, how do we want to evolve human beings over the next century or two?

And for that we turn to a great philosopher 

who was a very smart man despite being a Yankee fan.

And Yogi Berra used to say, of course, that it's very tough to make predictions, especially about the future.

Questions

How does Enriquez discribe the fourth level of prosthetics?

>it could determine how human beings evolve in the future.

How can prosthetic nerves affect help people to react things? They can be designed to optimize human reaction speed.

What role does  Enriquez think prosthetic will have in the future?

> He isn't completely sure about their role.

That is the order of magnitude of changes you're talking about.

If you can do that, then you can begin changing fundamental aspects of humanity.

When prosthetics become this advanced, somebody might actually want to have one voluntarily. 

So instead of making a prediction about the future to begin with, let's take what's happening in the present with people like Tony Atala, 

who is redesigning 30-some-odd organs. 

And maybe the ultimate prosthetic isn't having something external, titanium. Maybe the ultimate prosthetic is take your own gene code, 

remake your own body parts, because that's a whole lot more effective than any kind of a prosthetic. 

But while you're at it, then you can take the work of Craig Venter and Ham Smith. 

And one of the things that we've been doing is trying to figure out how to reprogram cells. 

And if you can reprogram a cell, then you can change the cells in those organs. 

So if you can change the cells in those organs, maybe you make those organs more radiation-resistant. Maybe you make them absorb more oxygen. Maybe you make them more efficient to filter out stuff that you don't want in your body. 

And over the last few weeks, George Church has been in the news a lot 

because he's been talking about taking one of these programmable cells and inserting an entire human genome into that cell. 

And once you can insert an entire human genome into a cell, then you begin to ask the question, would you want to enhance any of that genome? 

Do you want to enhance a human body? 

How would you want to enhance a human body? 

Where is it ethical to enhance a human body and where is it not ethical to enhance a human body? 

And all of a sudden, what we're doing is we've got this multidimensional chess board 

where we can change human genetics by using viruses to attack things like AIDS, 

or we can change the gene code through gene therapy to do away with some hereditary diseases, or we can change the environment, 

and change the expression of those genes in the epigenome and pass that on to the next generations. 

And all of a sudden, it's not just one little bit, it's all these stacked little bits

that allow you to take little portions of it until all the portions coming together lead you to something that's very different.

Questions

Why is Enriquez concerned about genetic prosthetics? 

>They could change the human species radically but unpredictably.

To be fundamental means...

>to be the essential part of something.

What is an example of a cell-based prosthetic? 

>changing an organ to make it resistant radiation