Do you often conjecture regarding the true physical condition of your digestive system?  How will you tell if you have excellent colon heatlh, or could it be that your mild colorectal issues a mark of a far more severe medical issue?

The colorectal cancer symptoms are often general in presentation that they may mimic other medical conditions. In fact, these symptoms can be erroneously recognized as mere manifestations of gastrointestinal upset during the early stage of cancer. Being tolerable and mild, these symptoms are usually taken for granted by individuals experiencing them. Consequently, majority of the diagnosed cases of colorectal malignancy are already at the late stage, which is incurable and highly fatal. The symptoms alone are insufficient to confirm the presence of colorectal cancer but being asymptomatic does not give an assurance of freedom from malignancy.

The colorectal cancer symptoms might be ambiguous at first, yet they become severe as the disease progresses. The presenting symptoms of malignancy usually have relationship to the site where the tissue overgrowth (tumor) is located. The initial sign that will be felt with colorectal cancer is pain at the area where the tumor grows. This is a result of the compression of the nerves and erosion of the blood vessels in the said region. As the tumor increases in size, the intensity of pain also elevates. Often times, this pain is manifested as simple abdominal cramps at earlier stage.

Furthermore, since the colon is part of the gastrointestinal tract, the rest of the symptoms also pertain to GI system disturbance. The affected individual may manifest the following:

1. alteration or changes in bowel movement either diarrhea or constipation;

2. feeling of abdominal fullness or incomplete bowel emptying;

3. narrow or slim width of stool;

4. Decreased desire for eating or alteration in eating habit

5. poor or decrease appetite;

6. Frequently nauseated or even frequent vomiting

7. nausea and vomiting; and

8. weight loss

Other colorectal cancer symptoms are associated with gastrointestinal bleeding such as fatigue and pallor, which are manifestations of anemia. These are due to the reduced circulating erythrocytes (red blood cells) as an outcome of the hemorrhagic condition. Another cause of anemia among colorectal cancer patients is lack of iron as the tumor scrounges iron and other essential nutrients from the body. On the other hand, the abrupt decrease in body weight is linked to poor body nutrition secondary to the tumor’s utilization of various nutrients aside from iron to supplement cancer cells’ metabolic requirements.

Furthermore, the progress of colorectal cancer would lead to metastasis (spread) of the malignancy into the nearby tissues, lymph nodes and even distant organs in the body. At times, the colon gets perforated by the cancer cells and the GI contents spill out into the peritoneum and pelvic region resulting to infection of the tissues in the said area. As a result, the abdominal pain becomes severe that it is usually accompanied by persistent nausea and vomiting. Fever is also common as part of the infection and inflammatory process.

Therefore, regular medical check-up is essential for prompt diagnosis and treatment of various illnesses including colorectal cancer. Individuals who have predisposition to malignant diseases must consider enlisting annual health assessment into their priority list. Never wait for colorectal cancer symptoms to worsen and immediately attend all health requirements accordingly. In the presence of colorectal malignancy symptoms, never fail to seek for the expertise and advice of medical/health professionals. Moreover, diagnostic tests are necessary as confirmatory examinations like biopsy, aside from considering the disease symptoms.

The resources furnished through this item is NOT a substitute to licensed care and shouldn’t be used for testing or providing treatment for a medical issue or sickness. I suggest you talk to your health care provider should you have or have an idea that you could have a medical issue.

The term “cyborg” was coined by NASA scientists Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline in 1960 when discussing the hypothetical advantages of human-machines in space. Although such cybernetic organisms became the realm of science fiction, efforts to create real-life cyborgs began even before the term was conceived and continue to this day.

In 1950 Jos Delgado of Yale University inserted electrodes onto a bull’s brain to gain crude control over its movements. He successfully demonstrated this control in Crdoba, Spain in 1963 when he stood in the path of a charging cyborg bull and steered it away at the last moment.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) attempted to create its own cyborg in 1961 in Operation Acoustic Kitty, in which a cat was cut open and fitted with an array of wires (one to override feelings such as hunger) and a listening device that utilized its tail as an antenna. The project was disbanded as a failure in 1967 when the cat on its first mission (to eavesdrop on the Soviet compound in Washington, D.C.) was killed by a moving taxi sending more than five years of intensive training and $15 million down the drain.

Afterwards, cyborg research remained dormant until the late 1980s, picking up steam a decade later. By this time, science and technology had advanced significantly, especially with the miniaturization of devices and components.

As cybernetic technology is further developed and refined, the seamless synthesis of organic and artificial parts is likely to become widespread requiring modification of basic definitions of life and its associated rights, creation of applicable international protocols and an adjustment in thought perceptions. Cybernetic technology is likely to have three major applications:

Military/Intelligence/Law Enforcement:

Early efforts involving animal experiments were primarily aimed towards military/intelligence/law enforcement applications. A few of the notable experiments are listed below:

Per an article by Bill Christensen of Technovelgy.com (Jack Into A Cat’s Brain) scientists successfully produced a video of a recognizable moving scene as observed through a cat’s eyes in 1999. This was accomplished through the use of electrodes that simultaneously recorded and catalogued responses in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and 177 selected brain cells of a sharp-eyed cat. Though the images were not as sharp as those seen by human eyes and recorded by camcorders, technology continues to improve. In the near future adjustments will likely enhance clarity and quality of feline vision and cats selected for surveillance operations may even have their natural eyes replaced with cybernetic devices equipped with miniature cameras (a moral concern).

In 2002, a team led by John Chapin at the State University of New York (SUNY) created cyborg rats by implanting electrodes on their brains. They were then trained to move in accordance to impulses delivered via the electrodes and to seek specific scents (e.g. human, explosives, exploding dye, etc.). When tested, each cyborg rat was fitted with a tiny camera to provide indication of mission success. The rats were then successfully guided to a specific location via radio-controlled impulses. Afterwards, the implants were powered down and as soon as the rats realized they were free of their control, they went into a sniffing mode and successfully identified the source of a target odor. The process took only a few minutes and was successfully duplicated in additional tests.

In 2005, a team of scientists led by Su Xuecheng at the Shandong University of Science and Technology in Qingdao, China, successfully controlled pigeon flight (direction and ascent/descent) via wireless signal transmitted to electrodes implanted onto their brains from a laptop computer. Similarly, in 2006, Jelle Atema of Boston University controlled directional movement of a spring dogfish (a small type of shark) via a neural implant that stimulated the left or right olfactory area of its brain.

In light of such success, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and U.S. Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA), the latter which has been disbanded, have also made significant progress. The latest phase of the DoD’s efforts – the development of Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro Mechanical Systems (HI-MEMS) – is focused on “small” (to create inconspicuous cyborgs) and reliance on insect flight, which is unmatched with regard to agility. Experiments have been conducted on beetles, flies and moths.

Since 2008 several milestones have been accomplished:

Tobacco hornworms fitted with miniature electronic implants survived and grew into adult Manduca moths with no complications. X-rays unveiled at the 2008 Micro-Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) conference held in Tucson, Arizona showed good tissue growth around probes that had been implanted where abdominal segments would have grown during the larval stage after a portion of their thorax was removed to make room for the implants. Hookworms fitted with cybernetic devices showed no signs of complications, adverse impairments or rejection during metamorphosis.

A video, created at the Boyce Thompson Institute in Ithaca, New York documenting successful control of moth flight was also shown during the 2008 MEMS conference. Moth movement was controlled by a series of 5-volt shocks that stimulated their wing muscles delivered via tethered wires. Uniform stimuli determined wing-speed resulting in ascent/descent while stimuli applied to wing muscles on one side or the other determined direction.

A similar process used by a team of researchers led by Michel Maharbiz of the University of California (UNC) Berkeley succeeded with Green June Beetles. Negative impulses from neural implants (transmitted via tethered wires) activated the beetles’ wings resulting in ascent; positive impulses halted their wing movement resulting in descent. Lift and descent were controlled by rapid switching between the two types of impulses. At the same time, directional control of beetle flight was achieved in two ways – via a mounted LED in front of their eyes and by impulses to either its left or right basilar muscle.

The same UNC Berkeley team unveiled a wireless system that successfully controlled Rhinoceros Beetle flight during the 2009 MEMS conference held in Sorrento, Italy.

The present objective of the DoD funded research is to create insect cyborgs that can be remotely controlled from at least 100 meters away, directed to land within a maximum of 5 meters from a target subject, and remain there until directed to leave. When this is successfully mastered (overcoming barriers such as high winds), miniature cameras can be implanted for surveillance, sensors to detect biological, chemical, or radiological agents, and tiny weapons (utilizing potent poisons and hallucinogenic drugs) to attack potential targets.

Medical:

The second major application of cybernetic research is to develop technology to medically restore or enhance human capabilities (e.g. vision – limited with regard to distance, viewing and small objects, etc.; communication – limited to speech and writing).

In 2002, Kevin Warwick, a leading expert on cybernetic technology became the world’s first human cyborg (documented in I, Cyborg, University of Illinois Press, Chicago, IL, 2004) in an effort to facilitate research aimed at these objectives. A 3-millimeter-wide silicon square with 100 electrodes was implanted into his wrist to enable scientists to interpret nerve signals arising from movement and sensation with the hope of providing breakthroughs for the paralyzed.

Cybernetic technology is, at a minimum, from a medical standpoint, being directed at several areas. A summary of progress and future aspirations for these areas is listed below:

Sight:

In February 2007 Gingersnap, a 4-year-old Abyssinian cat suffering from a condition similar to retinitis pigmentosa (an incurable genetic disease that attacks the eye’s photoreceptor cells leading to blindness) was implanted with 2-millimeter-wide artificial silicon retina (ASR) chips (each covered by 5,000 microphotodiodes that react to light. When these microphotodiodes react, electric signals are sent through the eye’s optic nerve to the brain allowing it to detect light impulses) manufactured by Optobionics to preserve her vision. As technology improves, additional data will likely be able to be transmitted enabling the brain to decipher complete images.

Retinal implants are currently in use to combat macular degeneration (a disorder that results in loss of vision in the macula located at the center of the eye, which makes it difficult to see fine details).

Contact lenses called “I, Contact” that interface with a computer mouse, in which eyeball movement controls cursor movement, have been developed to assist the disabled.

Researchers at the University of Washington, having developed contact lenses with electronic circuits and red-LEDs, are working on lenses (ultimately to be powered by human neural electrical activity) that could one day provide tele/microscopic vision, enable people to view the infrared portion of the light spectrum, take pictures, make videos, and even superimpose images accessed from the Internet via WiFi.

Hearing:

More than 100,000 profoundly deaf people currently use a bionic ear (cochlear implants that rely on a direct neural connection) that stimulates hearing nerves in the inner ear to understand speech and other sounds. Research is currently focused on enabling cochlear implant users to differentiate between speech and other background sounds.

Mind-Controlled Mobility:

Although research to provide mobility to and the ability for quadriplegics (that make up about 1.25 million of the world’s population) to operate major appliances such as a television and computer is still in its infancy, significant progress is being made.

o In 2008 a monkey successfully moved a robotic arm via neural implants. In another instance, a rhesus monkey (Idoya) located in North Carolina operated a robot in Japan through thought alone as part of the Computational Brain Project led by neuroscientist Miguel A.L. Nicolelis with researchers at Duke University Medical Center and Japan Science and Technology Agency.

o Researchers at Osaka University in Japan are currently working with four human test subjects, each of whom has had an electrode sheet placed directly on their brain so that they can determine the brain wave activity associated with arm, elbow, and finger movement to discern intended activity to allow mind-controlled movement of future prosthetics. Currently the researchers can determine intended activity with greater than 80% activity.

o At the same time, European scientists have created a non-intrusive brain-computer interface (BCI) (though still in the research and development stage), that utilizes human brain activity and imbedded artificial intelligence to operate devices (e.g. computers, wheelchairs, artificial limbs). BCIs will eventually afford quadriplegics mobility and skills once unimaginable.

Cybernetic Limbs:

Synthetic parts are routinely used for hip and knee replacements. With regard to the latter, a newly developed knee (presently under limited release in the United States and the Netherlands) that synchronizes motion with a user’s natural leg is so effective that its recipients can easily get up, climb stairs and even engage in extreme sports.

An arm, dubbed the “Luke Arm” after Luke Skywalker’s character in Star Wars, was developed in which movement can be controlled by nerves, muscles, and Bluetooth-activated shoe pads enabling armless users to eat, pick up tiny objects and utilize their prosthetic arms and hands in the same way people use natural arms and hands.

An Australian woman was fitted in 2009 with the world’s first fully functioning artificial finger that can curl and grip like a natural finger through utilization of nerve endings.

Research is ongoing to find a way to graft metal to bone so that skin can be grown around it creating combination synthetic/biological parts.
Efforts are also being made to give prosthetic devices artificial intelligence in which micro-implants into muscles and nerves will enable users to move their new limbs solely by thought (consistent with human control of natural limbs).

Cardiac Treatment:

Ventricular Assist Devices (VAD) are currently in use by patients who although they have some heart function, require artificial assistance to sustain their lives.

Artificial hearts have been developed with the CardioWest temporary Total Artificial Heart (TAH-t) and AbioCor Replacement Heart having been approved for human use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, research and development is ongoing for a permanent device. Presently artificial hearts have been generally used on a temporary basis (until a donor heart could be found) with a few exceptions. In one such exception, a patient survived 512 days with an AbioCor device.

Alzheimer’s/Parkinson’s Disease and Epilepsy:

Per the BBC (13 August 2008) researchers (in 2008) at the University of Reading, in Reading, UK created a multi-electrode array consisting of about 300,000 neurons extracted from a rat fetus to control robotic movement. The cells, kept separate from the robot in a temperature-controlled container (filled with a pink broth solution) fitted with electrodes communicated via Bluetooth short-wave radio. The objective is to gain a better understanding of neurons with the hope of discovering effective treatments for Alzheimers’s, Parkinson’s Disease (both debilitating neurological disorders; Alzheimer’s adversely impacts memory while Parkinson’s disease is characterized by muscle rigidity, tremors, slowed physical movement, and impaired speech and involuntary functions), and epilepsy (a common neurological disorder characterized by repeated, spontaneous seizures).

Robotics/Computer Technology:

Future robots and computers are likely to utilize living and non-living components alike. Potentially, this could be extremely problematic if such technology is applied in a malevolent or unethical way since it could lead to a new generation of slaves. Accordingly, international protocols (including those pertaining to the ethical treatment of animals) and other safeguards will be required to address these issues as cybernetic technology evolves.

In the meantime, a team of scientists led by Charles Higgins of the University of Arizona Tucson is seeking to transform insects into “high-level sensory robotic controllers [since] artificial vision (which is costly) [currently] can’t beat living systems, which are honed to recognize objects or detect motion”[1]

At the same time, scientists at IBM’s Almaden Research Center and the California Institute of Technology are in the process of developing a new generation of microprocessors that utilize living DNA with the objective of creating smaller, faster, and cheaper devices.

Conclusion:

Cyborgs, once relegated to science fiction have become scientific reality providing vast military/intelligence/law enforcement, medical, and technological prospects. If cybernetic technology is used benevolently and ethically where human thought remains the primary driver in lieu of imposed mind-control, it will open new windows of opportunity – providing greater freedom and improved standards of life, to quadriplegics trapped in their own bodies, to the blind imprisoned in a world of darkness, to the deaf confined in a prison of silence, and to people who with age or injury, will need seamless synthetic replacement parts for those worn down or destroyed. It will also expand human capabilities with regard to speed, sight, communication, and endurance. Finally, when such technology gains widespread acceptance and use, it is likely that the majority of the human race will be cyborg, though not in the way envisioned by science fiction.

“I think, I’ve been told that I was Zulu. When I’m in Africa, I always feel that I look Zulu. I feel connected to the Zulu tribe, so if you tell me I’m not Zulu, it’ll be a big shock.”

In a PBS documentary, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., uses a combination of public historical documents and DNA testing for genealogy testing to connect the chat show queen with her ancestral past. The documentary revealed that this famous talk show host is not Zulu, a fact that took her a moment to come to grips with. Using mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA testing, which tests the X chromosome from her mother, the media dynamo learns that she is part of the Kpelle tribe of Liberia.

DNA testing for ethnicity, was one of the first commercial products to come out of what has been billed the “genetic revolution.” Countless people around the world are using home DNA testing for genealogy to find their ancestral link.

DNA testing for genealogy is a huge technological breakthrough for people who are adopted and can’t find their biological parents. In April 2006, the New York Times ran an article about adopted twins, Matt and Andrew Moldawer who were looking for answers about their genetic ancestry. The twins turned to a home DNA test for answers. From the tests, the twins learned that they are 80% European, 9% Native American and 11% northern African. The Moldawer twins hoped that learning their ethnic makeup would provide assistance with financial aid.

That’s probably true if contemplating intergalactic (between galaxies) space where distances to your nearest galactic neighbour are measured in millions of light years; that’s certainly not true for interplanetary (between planets) space where distances to your nearest neighbour are measured in light minutes to light hours; now that’s leaving a question mark over the middle ground – interstellar (between stars) where distances to your neighbour are measured in several light years.

But while interplanetary travel is plausible in terms of reasonable travel times as witnessed by our own unmanned space probes to the planets and many moons within our solar system, exploration, tourism, or migration where we’re on the receiving end isn’t likely. We can’t expect any interplanetary visitors, those locals within our solar system, with itchy tentacles desiring to explore the local neighbourhood of which we’re a part of, to come calling. The era of the advanced Martian civilization, canals and all, not to mention “The War of the Worlds” scenario, are now long gone, confined to a ‘what if’ history that never eventuated.

Visitors from other galaxies are out of the running as well because as noted above the distances needed to be crossed are many orders of magnitude greater relative to short-hop interplanetary trips. It is one thing to swim several dozen lengths of the pool; quite another to swim across the Atlantic.

With no existing intelligent non-terrestrials of the local kind that can visit us, and extraterrestrials from other galaxies confined to those galaxies, well that still leaves several billion of stars in our own galaxy which E.T. might phone if away from home.

Of course phoning home is going to be a function of where you are within our star-stuttered galaxy. Towards the inner regions of our galaxy (like the inner regions, the CBD, of our cities), stars aren’t as far apart as where we (humans) are out in the suburbs, even perhaps out in the boondocks. It’s cheaper to phone home at local (CBD) distance rates; more expensive when dealing with those boondocks long distance charges.

Regardless, whether you are in our galactic CBD or out in the suburbs or even in the boondocks, I maintain it doesn’t take all that long to get from one (say the CBD) to the other (the boondocks).

I can now hear screams of ‘objection, objection’ to that. Galactic CBD to galactic boondocks; well it’s all obviously way too far and takes way too long to get from there (wherever that is, say the galactic CBD) to here (Planet Earth; location: galactic suburbs if not the boondocks). Well, life wasn’t meant to be easy! Seriously, if you think about it a while, any serious objections fade away. If you don’t want to think about it for yourself, then see below!

Unfortunately for the sceptics, fact number one is that E.T. doesn’t need any wormhole or theoretical ‘warp drive’ or other ‘Star Trek’ type superluminal velocity techno-babble to explore the galaxy and boldly go where no alien has gone before. Sure, space is really BIG but it is also very old. There’s lots of time available to explore and colonize starting a few light years outward at a time. Consolidate, and then expand some more. Repeat as often as required. The time it would take to explore and colonize the Milky Way Galaxy (that is, via interstellar travel) is but a small fraction of the age of that galaxy even if a race of E.T.’s never travelled at more that say 1% to 10% the speed of light. Such velocities, while pretty fast by our current abilities, shouldn’t be beyond the means of a technologically advanced race. I mean to cross 100,000 light years of interstellar space, at 1% the speed of light, requires but 10 million years. Our galaxy is ten billion years old. If you doubt this, consult any elementary astronomy text for the relevant distances and volumes and ages and do the calculations for yourself if you like.

Regardless of that bit of mathematics, UFO sceptics would still have you believe that interstellar space travel is at best highly improbable, and at worst impossible. Therefore, UFOs cannot represent the technology of a space-faring race of extraterrestrials.
Hogwash! I can not believe this old and totally outdated chestnut is still bandied about since there’s terrestrial equivalents and even a human parallel.

Okay, space is really BIG. Planet Earth was really BIG to human society too many centuries ago, but that didn’t stop our planet being explored from pole to pole, even if individual journeys took many years. And bacteria, insects, birds, and other terrestrial life forms preceded us in exploring and colonizing Planet Earth all in pretty quick-smart order.

While it’s proved relatively easy for humans to colonize Planet Earth, humans cannot travel to the stars because we can’t travel fast enough within our short life-spans to make the journey from start to finish, and I assume here that if you start the journey you want to be around to finish the journey.

Now there is no law in biological science that says an intelligent flesh-and-blood entity must kick-the-bucket after roughly three score and ten years. If you recall from mythology, the cosmic and sky ‘gods’ were (at least from a human perspective) as close to immortal as makes no odds. Quasi-immortality makes interstellar travel quite feasible.

Aliens could have a very long natural lifespan relative to us carbon-based terrestrial bipeds. Again, the point must be emphasised that there’s no natural law that confines intelligent life forms to an existence of just three score and ten terrestrial years.

What if you have an alien race with life-spans way, way surpassing ours? The idiotic assumption by the anti-UFO boldly going skeptics is, in a very anthropological way, that E.T. of necessity must have a lifespan equal to that of humans, or is confined to technologies equivalent to our own 21st Century technologies. E.T. could have, and probably did have, a multi-billion year head start on us since our galaxy was already some 5.5 billion years old before Planet Earth (plus Sun and associated solar system) even formed out of interstellar gas, dust and associated debris.

That 21st Century technological equivalency that aliens must have relative to us is more hogwash: any alien intelligence that can visit us will have technologies far beyond our own. There’s a possible likely alternative to a naturally longer life span relative to humans: what of a bit of the old fashion genetic engineering to increase life expectancy? Or there’s the likelihood of enhanced bioengineering (part flesh; part machine) to accomplish the same goal. What if an exploring race were to adopt those old stand-by sci-fi concepts of suspended animation or a multi-generation interstellar spaceship? Let’s have a look at those in turn.

Genetic or other forms of bioengineering could artificially extend life-spans by many orders of magnitude. Perhaps flesh-and-blood has morphed into nearly all silicon-and-steel; turning an organic body into something that’s more machine than flesh-and-blood, perhaps akin to the Daleks as featured in “Doctor Who”. Given advances in artificial body parts for humans, albeit it hip replacements or dentures or even mundane tooth fillings, that’s certainly a valid possibility if one extrapolates ahead from today to mere decades to centuries ahead.

But why stop there? Send 100% machines – artificial intelligences (AI) in the form of cybernetic ‘organisms’ or robots or androids or tiny nanotechnology machines. One obviously thinks of Data from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, or something akin to the original TV’s “Battlestar Galactica” Cylons. Think of the savings in not having to provide life support and other life essentials for biological organisms. We’ve made a start already down this path. There’s nothing different in principle between a Cylon and our Pioneer 10 & 11; our Voyager 1 & 2 space probes. It’s just that a Cylon is a lot more sophisticated. The day will come when our Pioneers and Voyagers will morph into something approaching a Cylon, or any one of multi-dozens of similar ‘beings’ in the sci-fi literature. Since AI is nearly immortal (relative to flesh-and-blood), that takes care of travel time arguments, and the possible environments fit for relative easy exploration (colonization?) are expanded greatly. Artificial intelligence can boldly go where no man (flesh-and-blood) has gone, or could go.

There’s the standard sci-fi scenarios of the multi-generation starship or hibernation that passes the time away without much additional aging. Even if E.T. has a biological lifespan roughly equivalent to our own, advanced extraterrestrials may have perfected various hibernation techniques. Put your spaceship on autopilot and sleep the long journey away. That sort of scenario has been a staple of science fiction for generations, for example think of the movies “Alien” or “2001: A Space Odyssey” or the original “Star Trek” TV episode that featured Khan.

There’s another sci-fi staple that could get E.T. from there to here. That way is via the old sci-fi chestnut, the multi-generation interstellar spaceship. While I feel that’s an unlikely concept, especially for exploration, it might not be quite so far out if the objective is interstellar colonization.

Then too perhaps a super-civilization of the extraterrestrial type has been able to approach luminal velocities; perhaps they have knowledge of physics and engineering that can even go superluminal. Maybe, just maybe, a sort of warp drive, faster-than-light spaceship is possible. Aliens whose technological science is thousands, tens of thousands, and even beyond that in years more advanced than ours just might have gotten around Einstein’s faster-than-light speed limit. I wouldn’t want to wager any money on it, but I’d be less than open-minded not to admit the possibility, however remote. Add to that theoretical but allowable ‘gateways’ between distant points of our Universe, maybe even to other universes – wormholes and Black Holes. Maybe, just maybe, an advanced alien civilization has the ways and means to manipulate such objects and forces to facilitate easy travel in space (and time travel too maybe). An excellent hardcore science-based sci-fi work that doesn’t rely on pseudo techno-babble that illustrates this is the novel by Carl Sagan, “Contact”.

There are valid arguments for using NEW technology whenever possible. Older technology at whatever level is a mixture of elegance and crudeness, with old questions answered and new questions left unanswered, problems left unsolved. Newer technology answers some of those new questions, solves some of those problems, and so it makes sense to move on from there instead of living and working as though those questions were never answered. It just makes common sense to move beyond early stages of development when the opportunity is there, and especially if the marketplace demands it. Most young people (and a lot of old people, too) tend to take this view, and lace it with scorn for the old.

As a result, some people will avoid mention of older stuff except in a disparaging sentence.

How far should we carry this attitude? Is E = mc (discovered about 80 years ago) out of date? Is c = a + b (determined around 2,500 years ago) old-fashioned? Or are these timeless principles? Granted, these are abstractions (rather than technology), but so is Object-Oriented logic.

Campers sometimes use gaslights on their trips through woods. In a gaslight a piece of material is burned to an ash, and the ash glows brightly as gas burns in it. I saw streetlights on a historic street on Boston’s Beacon Hill that used gas in that way. I remember thinking, “Amazing! We can actually get that much light, without electricity!” I had to catch myself and realize that my thinking was strangely upside-down. A hundred years ago with the introduction of the incandescent bulb people were thinking, “Amazing! That light that can be produced without flame, without oil or gas!” This was considered progress. And I looked at it backwards, with the same sense of wonder!

Though I’d worked in computer programming for years for big companies, my first home computer was a crude second-hand laptop, and my first exposure to the Internet was at a very low baud rate with very limited resources. But I gained a pretty good reputation with some educated people on a few newsgroups because these people considered my postings to be well-reasoned, well-thought-out, and well-expressed. Given the overwhelming number of posts with bad spelling, bad grammar, bad ideas, and good ideas expressed in bad ways with poor communication, these people considered my writing to be a breath of fresh air (I just know that some of my flame-prone colleagues will take issue with that statement). I did what I could using limited resources. We don’t have to look far to see more examples of people doing just that. Old mainframe programs may contain “spaghetti code” and heavy use of language features now considered “verboten,” but the programs also contain creative coding that managed space and run-time economically back in days when those resources were scarce and expensive. Japanese in past generations built thin paper houses to stretch their extremely limited natural resources. When I see people with what I call “Starship” computers with tremendous resources — superfast processors, huge RAM, superhuge capacity hard drives, advanced and versatile programs, and wizardlike peripherals — yet lack basic communication skills, basic historical and cultural knowledge, the essential elements of a classical education, I’m appalled. I actually have more respect and admiration for someone who accomplishes great feats with knowledge, insights, and intuitive leaps using crude, limited resources than I have for semi-literate people with generous resources at their disposal.

To support older ideas, let’s note that Isaac Newton was asked how he’d made his discoveries and accomplishments; despite the nasty things Stephen Hawking says about him, he humbly answered, “I stood on the shoulders of giants.” Even though what he did surpassed the deeds of his predecessors, he regarded them with respect, realizing that he couldn’t have reached so high without their support.

While older technology is relatively crude, it does do the job for which it was designed. There are many long-standing software applications and systems that continue to do useful work. Information technology not as sophisticated as today’s state of the art made it possible for companies to do business on a mega scale unheard of previously. Computer data-gathering and interpreting years ago made it possible to map the ocean floor, produce chromosomal maps, and really primitive computers used in the paleolithic 1960s made it possible for men to go to the moon and come back alive with pieces of it.

In his book “Small is Beautiful,” E. F. Shumacher wrote about the limits of the world’s resources, that not everybody in the world could live like a “little American” because of those limits. He suggested that less developed nations could get along well on intermediate technologies. But Schumacher threw light on a kind of ignorance many of us have, a limiting premise that if a problem can’t be solved using the latest technology, it can’t be solved — it just seems to make common sense that earlier technologies cannot solve problems if later technologies can’t.

We tend to think of technological advancement as an ordinal progression, rather than an expansion in different directions. CD-R burner drives are preferred over zip disks in desktop computers as the compact disks have greater storage capacity, but that doesn’t mean that zip drives are a more primitive technology. (Actually, files can be stored more quickly on a zip disk than on a CD, no special software is required to write the files, and the zip disk is in a sturdy casing that protects it from damage unlike the CD.) Computer pioneers John Mauchley and J. Presper Eckert, inventors of the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), had plans to produce concurrent computer processors, but serial processors took off and concurrent processors fell by the wayside; that doesn’t mean that concurrent processing is an old-fashioned, primitive, or inferior concept (ironically, serial or Von Neumann processor-based programs may PRETEND to be concurrent processors through use of semaphores, mutexes, critical sections, etc.).

At this writing, Visual Studio .NET is a rising technological advancement in increasing demand in companies. It automatically provides the interfaces for modules written in different languages so they can interact, an ability that could otherwise be provided only by COM (Component Object Modeling). It enables people to develop software more quickly than with previous development environments. Yet this wonderful “new” development seems to be based on language principles that have been around for more than three decades and which were introduced over 25 years ago in Digital Equipment Corporation’s VAX computer. Perhaps we ought to call it “primitive”?

And if you don’t mind my getting science-fictionish, an episode of classic “Star Trek” (notice that “classic” is the new euphemism for “old”?) had the Enterprise’s landing party go to an Earth colony where the inhabitants were dying of radiation-induced aging. The landing party too started to age, except for Ensign Pavel Chekov. Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy remembered that Chekov entered a building, saw an extremely aged dead body, and ran out in fright. McCoy made the connection that adrenaline shot through Chekov’s system and made him resistant to radiation. Dr. Janet Wallace said that another medicine, hironaline, was used in radiation treatment instead, but “Bones” said that adrenaline was used in earlier radiation treatment research. A serum containing adrenaline was given to the surviving agers and they were restored to their proper biological ages. A recommendation was made to the Federation scientific community to include adrenaline in further studies on radiation.

The point is that not all old ideas are useless, primitive, nor nave, and not all new ideas are better. Sometimes an idea is abandoned because of economics (greater market share for an idea that’s not as good), and sometimes a good idea just doesn’t have the charm or allure of a lesser idea.

The ancient Greek Parthenon represented a Greek life-science culture, symbolising concepts of political government long lost to modern Western science. The Ottoman military once stored gunpowder in the Parthenon and in1687 a Venetian mortar round blew the building into ruin. Recent restoration techniques using computers revealed that strange illusionary optical engineering principles had been used in the building’s construction. We know that they were associated with the mathematics of the Music of the Spheres that Pythagoras had brought back from the Egyptian Mystery Schools. We also know that Plato considered that any engineer who did not understand about spiritual optical engineering principles was a barbarian.

Harvard University’s Novartis Chair Professor, Amy Edmondson, in her online biography of Buckminster Fuller, The Fuller Explanation, wrote about how Fuller had plagiarised Plato’s spiritual engineering discoveries and used them to derive his life-science synergistic theories. Those theories, which completely challenged the basis of the 20th Century Einsteinian world-view are now the basis of a new medical science instigated by the three 1996 Nobel Laureates in Chemistry. During the 21st Century the complex Fullerene geometrical reasoning has brought about the rebirth of the lost ancient Greek optical science of life. This is now rewriting Western technological culture, so there is a need to know why Buckminster Fuller wrote that this reunification provides a choice between Utopia or Oblivion.

After presenting complex geometrical reasoning, Professor Edmondson wrote, “By now familiar with Fuller’s underlying assumptions, we shall take time out to introduce some background material. The origins of humanity’s fascination with geometry can be traced back four thousand years, to the Babylonian and Egyptian civilisations; two millennia later, geometry flourished in ancient Greece, and its development continues today. Yet most of us know almost nothing about the accumulated findings of this long search. Familiarity with some of these geometric shapes and transformations will ease the rest of the journey into the intricacies of synergetics.”

Human survival now depends upon a more general understanding that ethics is not about how science is used but about what is the ethical form of the spiritual, or holographic structure of science itself. There is no need for the reader to become conversant with the complex geometrical equations suggested by Professor Amy Edmondson, in order to follow the journey of ethical logic from ancient Egypt to the 21st Century Renaissance. However, before undertaking that journey we need to realise the nightmare scenario that the unbalanced 20th Century understanding of science has forced global humanity to endure and which Buckminster Fuller warned about.

In 1903, Lord Bertrand Russell’s book A Freeman’s Worship was published, containing his vision of A Universe in Thermodynamic Ruin. This nightmare mathematical assessment of reality stated that all the most ennobling thoughts of humankind amounted to nothing at all and all life in the universe must be destroyed. Lord Russell wrote that humans must endure, with total despair, the hopelessness of living within a reality that was totally governed by a lifeless energy law that Einstein was to call The Premier law of all science.

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Look for improvements with this one!

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