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Transhuman 2.0
Transhuman, or trans-human, is the concept of an intermediary form between human and posthuman. In other words, a transhuman is a being that resembles a human in most respects but who has powers and abilities beyond those of standard humans. These abilities might include improved intelligence, awareness, strength, or durability. Transhumans appear in science-fiction, sometimes as cyborgs or genetically-enhanced humans. History of hypotheses In his Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri coined the word "trasumanar" meaning "to transcend human nature, to pass beyond human nature" in the first canto of Paradiso. The use of the term "transhuman" goes back to French philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who wrote in his 1949 book ''The Future of Mankind''. And in a 1951 unpublished revision of the same book: In 1957 book ''New Bottles for New Wine'', English evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley wrote: One of the first professors of futurology, FM-2030, who taught "new ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, and language. Humans are highly social and tend to live in complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from families and kinship networks to political states. Social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms, and rituals, which bolster human society. Its intelligence and its desire to understand and influence the environment and to explain and manipulate phenomena have motivated humanity's development of science, philosophy, mythology, religion, and other fields of study. Although some scientists equate the term ''humans'' with all members of the genus ''Homo'', in common usage, it generally refers to ''Homo sapiens'', the only extant member. Anatomically moder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reconstructive Surgery
Reconstructive surgery is surgery performed to restore normal appearance and function to body parts malformed by a disease or medical condition. Description Reconstructive surgery is a term with training, clinical, and reimbursement implications. It has historically been referred to as synonymous with plastic surgery. In regard to training, Plastic Surgery is a recognized medical specialty and a surgeon can be a "board-certified" plastic surgeon by the American Board of Plastic Surgery. However, reconstructive surgery is not a specialty and there are no board-certified reconstructive surgeons. More accurately, reconstructive surgery should be contrasted with cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery is performed to # Improve/restore to normal function. # Restore to a normal appearance of "abnormal" or "malformed" body parts caused by the disease or condition and/or # Improve the patient's quality of life. Separately, the patient must be healthy enough so that the benefits ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gregory Cochran
Gregory M. Cochran (born 1953) is an American anthropologist and author who argues that cultural innovation resulted in new and constantly shifting selection pressures for genetic change, thereby accelerating human evolution and divergence between human races. From 2004 to 2015, he was a research associate at the anthropology department at the University of Utah. He is co-author of the book ''The 10,000 Year Explosion''. Human evolution In opposition to what he sees as the conventional wisdom that civilization has been a static environment which imposed stabilizing selection on humans, Cochran, along with like-minded anthropologists such as John D. Hawks, contends that haplotype and other data indicate the selection of genes has been strongest since the advent of farming and civilization. Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence Cochran and co-authors Jason Hardy and Henry Harpending suggest that the high average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews may be attributed to natural selection for intellige ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques Attali
Jacques José Mardoché Attali (; born 1 November 1943) is a French economic and social theorist, writer, political adviser and senior civil servant, who served as a counselor to President François Mitterrand from 1981 to 1991, and was the first head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development from 1991 to 1993. In 1997, upon the request of education minister Claude Allègre, he proposed a reform of the higher education degrees system. From 2008 to 2010, he led the government committee on how to ignite the growth of the French economy, under President Nicolas Sarkozy. Attali co-founded the European program EUREKA, dedicated to the development of new technologies. He also founded the non-profit organization PlaNet Finance, now called Positive Planet, and is the head of Attali & Associates (A&A), an international consultancy firm on strategy, corporate finance and venture capital. Interested in the arts, he has been nominated to serve on the board of the Musée d’O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natasha Vita-More
Natasha Vita-More (born February 23, 1950) is a strategic designer, author, speaker and innovator within the scientific and technological framework of human enhancement and life extension. Her interests are located within the ethical uses of science and technology and socio-political implications of revolutionary advances impacting humanity's future. Early life and education Vita-More was born in Bronxville, New York. Vita-More studied at Accademia di Belle Arti in Ravenna, Italy (1977) after graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Art (1973). Returning to the United States, she started a commercial design firm in Telluride, Colorado (1972-1980). She completed Paralegal Certification from Blackstone School of Law in 1992. She earned a Master of Science in Future Studies at the University of Houston (2006) and a Master of Philosophy from University of Plymouth, UK. Faculty of Technology, School of Computers, Communications and Electronics, School of Communications and Media Studies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Ettinger
Robert Chester Wilson Ettinger (December 4, 1918 – July 23, 2011) was an American academic, known as "the father of cryonics" because of the impact of his 1962 book ''The Prospect of Immortality''. Ettinger founded the Cryonics Institute and the related Immortalist Society and until 2003 served as the groups' president. His body has been cryopreserved, like the bodies of his first and second wives, and his mother. Personal background Ettinger was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. Raised Jewish, he later attended Protestant Unitarian church services before becoming an atheist. He served as a second lieutenant infantryman in the United States Army during World War II. Severely wounded in battle in Germany, he received the Purple Heart and recovered after several years spent in a Michigan hospital. He earned two master's degrees from Wayne State University (one in physics, one in mathematics) and spent his working career teaching phys ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryonics
Cryonics (from el, κρύος ''kryos'' meaning 'cold') is the low-temperature freezing (usually at ) and storage of human remains, with the speculative hope that resurrection may be possible in the future. Cryonics is regarded with skepticism within the mainstream scientific community. It is generally viewed as a pseudoscience, and its practice has been characterized as quackery. Cryonics procedures can begin only after the "patients" are clinically and legally dead. Cryonics procedures may begin within minutes of death, and use cryoprotectants to prevent ice formation during cryopreservation. It is, however, not possible for a corpse to be reanimated after undergoing vitrification, as this causes damage to the brain including its neural circuits. The first corpse to be frozen was that of James Bedford in 1967. As of 2014, about 250 dead bodies had been cryopreserved in the United States, and 1,500 people had made arrangements for cryopreservation of their corpses. Critics ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Family Values
Family values, sometimes referred to as familial values, are traditional or cultural values that pertain to the family's structure, function, roles, beliefs, attitudes, and ideals. In the social sciences and U.S. political discourse, the conventional term " traditional family" describes an imagined nuclear family—a child-rearing environment composed of a breadwinning father, a homemaking mother, and their nominally biological children. A family deviating from this model is considered a nontraditional family. However, in most cultures at most times, the extended family model has been most common, not the nuclear family, and the " nuclear family" became the most common form in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s. Definition Several online dictionaries define "family values" as the following: * "the moral and ethical principles traditionally upheld and passed on within a family, as fidelity, honesty, truth, and faith." * "values especially of a traditional or conservative kind w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eupraxsophy
Paul Kurtz (December 21, 1925 – October 20, 2012) was an American scientific skeptic and secular humanist. He has been called "the father of secular humanism". He was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, having previously also taught at Vassar, Trinity, and Union colleges, and the New School for Social Research. Kurtz founded the publishing house Prometheus Books in 1969. He was also the founder and past chairman of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI, formerly the ''Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal'', CSICOP), the Council for Secular Humanism, and the Center for Inquiry. He was editor in chief of ''Free Inquiry'' magazine, a publication of the Council for Secular Humanism. He was co-chair of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) from 1986 to 1994. He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Humanist Laureate, president of the International Acad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
In Vitro Fertilisation
In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process of fertilisation where an egg is combined with sperm in vitro ("in glass"). The process involves monitoring and stimulating an individual's ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova (egg or eggs) from their ovaries and letting sperm fertilise them in a culture medium in a laboratory. After the fertilised egg (zygote) undergoes embryo culture for 2–6 days, it is transferred by catheter into the uterus, with the intention of establishing a successful pregnancy. IVF is a type of assisted reproductive technology used for infertility treatment, gestational surrogacy, and, in combination with pre-implantation genetic testing, avoiding transmission of genetic conditions. A fertilised egg from a donor may implant into a surrogate's uterus, and the resulting child is genetically unrelated to the surrogate. Some countries have banned or otherwise regulate the availability of IVF treatment, giving rise to fertility tourism. Restrictions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reproductive Technology
Reproductive technology encompasses all current and anticipated uses of technology in human and animal reproduction, including assisted reproductive technology, contraception and others. It is also termed Assisted Reproductive Technology, where it entails an array of appliances and procedures that enable the realization of safe, improved and healthier reproduction. While this is not true of all men and women, for an array of married couples, the ability to have children is vital. But through the technology, infertile couples have been provided with options that would allow them to conceive children. Overview Assisted reproductive technology Assisted reproductive technology (ART) is the use of reproductive technology to treat low fertility or infertility. Modern technology can provide infertile coupled with assisted reproductive technologies. The natural method of reproduction has become only one of many new techniques used today. There are millions of couples that do not have the a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Androgyny
Androgyny is the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics. Androgyny may be expressed with regard to biological sex, gender identity, or gender expression. When ''androgyny'' refers to mixed biological sex characteristics in humans, it often refers to intersex people, who are born with congenital variations that complicate assigning their sex at birth. In comparison, hermaphroditism is the possession of both male and female reproductive organs. Regarding gender identity, androgynous individuals may identify with non-binary identities. Others may identify as transgender. As a form of gender expression, androgyny has fluctuated in popularity in different cultures and throughout history. Physically, an androgynous appearance may be achieved through personal grooming, fashion, or hormone treatment. Etymology The term derives from grc, ἀνδρόγυνος, from , stem - (''anér, andro-'', meaning man) and (''gunē, gyné'', meaning woman) through the la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
