Zombie Apocalypse: Sooner than we think?

As I spent my weekend watching zombie movies, and playing Dead Rising (a zombie apocalypse game) I thought up a major fear. In the game Dead Rising, A Governmental attempt at lowering the cost of breeding cattle, they accidentally create a wasp which then spawns parasitic larvae, leading to a zombie apocalypse. Despite the ridiculousness of this plot, it reminded me of a news article I saw on the Wall Street Journal.

"Heralding a potential new era in biology, scientists for the first time have created a synthetic cell, completely controlled by man-made genetic instructions..."

What I found interesting was that the DNA was programmed using a computer, and was simply injected into a bacterium, taking it over and creating artifical life. It may just be the zombie nerd in me talking, but that sounds to me like the start of what could become a zombie virus.

Bland, By Eric. "It's Alive! Artificial Life Springs From Manmade DNA." Discovery News: Earth, Space, Tech, Animals, Dinosaurs, History. 20 May 2010. Web. 06 Sept. 2010. .

Hotz, Robert Lee. "Scientists Create First Synthetic Cell - WSJ.com." Business News & Financial News - The Wall Street Journal - WSJ.com. 21 May 2010. Web. 06 Sept. 2010. .

Fears

As each days goes by, new technological devices are created and are introduced to the general public. One device that are often getting introduced are Cell phones. Each time that a cellphone is released, the performance and capabilities are most likely more advanced than the previous ones.

Cellphones has made it easier for us to communicate with one and another. My fears are that the use of cellphones can get out of hands with new capabilities that are added, and that we become too attach to it(not that we aren't right now). Not only will it be counter productive to our work ethic, but it can feed on to our bad habits of cellphone usage.

I believe with the amount of information that we have access to through our cell phones, it's making us more busy than we need to be. According to a recent article from the NY times it states'

"The technology makes the tiniest windows of time entertaining, and potentially productive. But scientists point to an unanticipated side effect: when people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas."

With this in mind, should we limit ourselves from the usage of technology ?

"Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime." New York Times. 24 Aug. 2010. Web. 6 Sept. 2010. .

Electronic Learning

Technological developments can be seen as beneficial, detrimental or lost in the land of uncertainty. However, there is less of a debate regarding whether technological developments influence society and the way people interact.

The lifestyle that Americans live today is very different from those living in the 1800's. In two centuries an enormous list of technological developments could be documented.

Currently, in the year 2010 I am concerned about electronic learning. Specifically, at the college level with online classes. While making education accessible is an improvement, what is lost; the in-class interactions, the structure and the role of the live, physically present teacher is detrimental to education (in my opinion of course). The lessons learned within a classroom go beyond the material that is covered in the syllabus.

Lessons of face-to-face respect, how to act within a professional/social academic setting, the ability to understand spoken instructions, to act when called upon and the ability to process unspoken communication with strangers that have a common goal (albeit within the lesson, or about a given subject, or to pass the course) is limited significantly with electronic learning.

The 2014 student projection of "...18.65 million will take some of their classes online..." worries me. I fear that this form of technological development will play a large role in future conflicts all around the world.

We are losing our togetherness, we are losing our focus, we are losing the valuable personal time within the classroom environment that has produced success for centuries.



Nagel, David. "Most College Students To Take Classes Online by 2014 -- Campus Technology." Campus Enterprise Networking & Infrastructure -- Campus Technology. 28 Oct. 2008. Web. 05 Sept. 2010. .

Future Science and technology - Where will it bring us?

As time goes on the human race is continuously making new discoveries that teach us more and more about the world we live in. But where will we end up and how much will we learn? The future is something that no one is sure about. Science is mans only explanation for how the universe and everything in it works, yet there are so many unanswered questions. But is this a bad thing? Can we know too much or will our knowledge always be valuable?

One area of science that many people find worrisome is that of cloning. The ability to clone opens up so many options for science. Scientists hope to be able to clone organs to be used in transplants, something that many people would appreciate immensely. Researchers also hope to be able to clone certain animals to perform research on. These animals would be identical, creating a very stable research specimen. But what about the abuse of cloning? Things like overpopulation are huge fears in the eyes of almost everyone. Thomas W. Clark writes a letter to the editor of the new your times on this issue. He writes:

"Instead of rejecting therapeutic cloning as the first step on a slippery slope to eugenics, Mr. McKibben and other concerned progressives should draw the line where it really belongs: to prohibit applications of biotechnology that serve no curative purpose."

So what is the right move? Do scientists continue to research cloning and potentially discover something that could save countless lives yet also open the doors for disaster or do they halt their research because of the fear of disaster. This controversy is one that is happening in all different fields of science and one that needs to be addressed. Whatever happens, it is sure to be quite the roller coaster ride.




1. Clark, Thomas W. "Fear of Cloning - Letter - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 02 Apr. 2002. Web. 04 Sept. 2010. .

2. "Bennett Cartoon Archive: Human Cloning." The Cartoons of Clay Bennett. Web. 04 Sept. 2010. .

Virtual Reality in Video Games- Fears

I think we've all heard the story before. Humans make machines. Machines get smarter than humans. Machines rule over humans. And someone makes a god awful science fiction story on how a single insignificant person somehow manages to free humanity from the shackles of oppression. Yeah, yeah, we've been here before.
But let's focus on a more realistic present day with a more modern media; let's face it, AI of that intelligence is still a long ways off from now. Right now, the closest example I can think of where machines rule over humans is when people play video games. Now let me explain before I get my head torn off.

11.5 million people, according to wikipedia, play the popular MMORPG World of Warcraft. WoW, is without a doubt one of the most popular games in the gaming market. It doesn't matter if you hate it or not. People play this game for hours at end. HOURS. They commit themselves for sometimes more than half the day, raiding with their buddies or simply killing a poor level 12 tauren hunter in the Barrens with forty other Alliance.

If you know someone who plays WoW, and chances are you do, you know how difficult it is to break these guys away from their beloved drug. I've heard stories of people actually skipping work for a month just to play the newest addition to the genre. The game is grabbing and addicting, to the point where people playing it can literally forget about their real life.

Now that I've made an enemy of probably every WoW fan-boy, let me finish by saying that WoW isn't the only game where people actually lose themselves in the experience. There's a thing in the gaming world called immersion. There's no clear way to describe it, but basically its when the player gets so "into" the game that they block out all distractions of reality and focus on the game play, the world of the game, and the rules within that world. Sometimes the effects are so great they can last even after you've stop playing. You can find yourself forced to walk home and think "Oh, that's okay I'll just use my hearthstone- Oh wait." Heck, you can get Deja vu of playing Grand Theft Auto while driving a car (though hopefully you don't act on it).

The reason for this is actually quite simple. You're so focused on the game that your brain makes reactions a general reflex. Between your brain and the game world is nothing more than a controller, which you can manipulate with a twitch of your fingers. (For more on controllers see Yahtzee)

Virtual Reality in video games is simply removing the controller and any physical reaction from the game, making immersion instantaneous. You think it, it happens. There's no button you have to press in order to make the guy jump. There's no joystick you have to move in just the right direction in order to move your character. Your brain gives the order, the game takes it. It's replacing your body with the game.

At first glance, this seems like a game designer's dream. Immersion can be a make or break thing when designing a triple A game. And if you have it all the time, well, we'd have some pretty amazing games.

But what's the bad? I can think of one big bad thing. How is the player supposed to know what's reality and what's the game? Think about it, our body's feedback in a game with controllers (even if it's just moving your thumbs) is sometimes really the only thing that lets us know its just a game we're playing. For some people even THAT'S not enough and they completely lose their touch in reality.

Science fiction stories like The Matrix seem frighteningly realistic when Virtual Reality is in play. Maybe it's not machines that take over but more realistically corporate businesses that sell people these games for an escape from reality. Maybe video games will really be a new drug if Virtual Reality gets invented, WoW is already showing us people want to escape from reality.Controllers are, right now, the best means of playing a video games for immersion. Personally, no real good can come out of having Virtual Reality, not to sound like a conservatist or anything.