"Tiger Woods won golf's biggest tournament, The Masters, with the help of super-human eyesight. In 1999, he had laser eye surgery, which gave him 20/15 vision. After the surgery, he won seven of his next 10 events. Other top golfers who have upgraded their vision include England's Lee Westood, Fiji's Vijay Singh, Ireland's Padraig Harrington and America's Tom Kite."
I wear glasses with, thankfully, a small correction today. Tomorrow, perhaps I'll get an upgrade.
2. Turning off my p21 gene.
Back in 2005, Dr. Ellen Heber-Katz noticed that mice that had holes punched in their ears to make it easier to separate control- from non-control-group mice had regrown so quickly she and her staff could no longer tell the mice apart. Upon further investigation, they discovered that MRL mice, the kind that had regenerated their ear-punch injuries, could regenerate damage to any organ, apart from the brain.
Further investigation has led to the following finding:
"A quest that began over a decade ago with a chance observation has reached a milestone: the identification of a gene that may regulate regeneration in mammals. The absence of this single gene, called p21, confers a healing potential in mice long thought to have been lost through evolution and reserved for creatures like flatworms, sponges, and some species of salamander."
It wouldn't be as fast as the healing factor possessed by Wolverine, of the X-Men, but it would be a big improvement over what evolution has gifted me. It could also, however, complicate the installment of my next tech upgrade:
3. An LED tattoo.
Check this out:
I mean, I have a couple of small tats, but they're stationary. An LED tattoo could be animated, colorful, changeable, and come with an off setting (job interviews come to mind). They could even be installed with specific medical functions, such as monitoring vital signs, in mind. And it will run on whatever you're having for dinner; its power source is a fuel cell. A blood vessel is routed over the cell, which then extracts blood sugar for its fuel needs. This isn't, as of this writing, ready for the general public, but Brian Litt, at Litt labs at the University of Pennsylvania, who I've spoken with via e-mail a few times, is working on that. I'm not sure whether turning of my p21 gene would leave my LED tattoo alone, convince my body to try to heal my LED tattoo by pushing it out, or, possibly, to grow around it — something Kevin Warwick experienced with his own cyborg implants.
4. Turning off my Fat Insulin Receptor gene. I first learned about this while watching Ray Kurzweil in "Transcendent Man."
In the article, Ray says:
"There are lots of genes we'd like to inhibit. One exciting example is the fat insulin receptor gene, which basically says 'hold on to every calorie, because the next hunting season may not work out so well.' You have to remember that our genes evolved tens of thousands of years ago, when conditions were very different than they are today. There wasn't any evolutionary reason for people to live very long, because once you were done with child rearing, which was generally maybe age thirty, you were using up the limited resources of the clan. And so longevity was not selected for. But there were genes that were appropriate for the time, like holding on to every calorie, because calories were few and far between — unlike today, with our super-sized meals. Now when scientists inhibited that gene in mice, those mice ate ravenously and remained slim — and they got the health benefits of being slim. They didn't get diabetes; they didn't get heart disease; they lived twenty percent longer. A number of pharmaceutical companies took notice and are now pursuing inhibiting the fat insulin receptor gene in fat cells, which would be quite a blockbuster concept. And that's just one of our twenty-three thousand genes."
As Stephen Hawking says, we are entering a stage of self-directed evolution. Tech and genetic upgrades are already here, expanding our options for modifying body, abilities, and experiences.
5. An external addition: Google's augmented reality glasses!
Yes, I mos def do want more information about the world around me. I remember going to the library and trolling through the card catalogue in the hopes of scraping together enough information for a high-school English paper. Today, information is at my fingertips via the Net, Google, and other means; my phone is no longer of the cord-tethered nature, meaning I can communicate from pretty much anywhere, and I have conversations with friends I have not actually seen in 20 or so years via Facebook. My calendar is online, as are my contact data. I can act in a much more informed manner, much more quickly than I ever could back in the card-catalogue days.
Load me up with new knowledge!
Aaaaannd another external addition to round out this first edition of the list:
6. STAR 1200, the world's leading see-thru augmented reality display system
"The STAR 1200 Augmented Reality System uses a patented quantum optic see-thru technology that enables you to see the real world directly through and around its transparent widescreen video displays. Computer content, such as text, images and video, are overlaid on the displays in full color 2D or stunning 3D."
And only $4999!
I'd take something else like this, but loaded with augmented reality overlays of information, graphics, etc. If they make it connectable to the 'Net, I am soooo there.