nextstepinhumanevolution

Another idea about our evolution is related to how the brain is going to evolve, where to? Studies show that every new generations is increasing the IQ level with 7-9 points. The society, life style, the increasing of day to day complexity force us to evolve, forces us to mutate our brains into understanding more and more complex and abstract concepts. The scientists found out that when a baby is born the brain's neurons are connected through a lot more synapses than after that baby developed into a grown up person. It seems that through learning the brain kills some of those synapses that are not used and leaves alive only those used in the process of learning from the early eages till around 17-18 years of age. The last part of the brain that still develops after 18 years of age until around 21 years of age is the part responsible with ones sense of responsibility; that's why in US 21 is the age when you can be declared as not "underage" anymore, you can buy and consume alcohol, etc. of course you can join the army after 18 and before 21 and eventually shoot and get shot but this is a different debate and I might write about it with a different occasion. Now, going back to what science discovered so far about our brains, that the brain starts with a a number of synapses between neurons and slowly though the process of learning it kills the ones that are not used and keeps only those used in the process of cognitive process. now, it is also well known about the brain ability to find new ways to learn do stuff in case an already implemented path between neurons was affected/destroyed. Let's take the example of those persons that have been in a tragic accident and doctors told them they'll be paralyzed or not functional because some part of the brain is dead/destroyed. There are many cases in which through a lot of hard training those persons learned again to do those things that they were told they'll never be able to. It turns out that if the brain can use an alternate path it will used to transport singnals/information between neurons and re-learn operations that used to be implemented in the paths destroyed. Many times the functions re-learned are not performed with the same accuracy as before but still they can be performed. Now, what if, in our evolution as humans we will activate a gene that can tell the brain not to kill those not used synapses but just set a flag on them as inactive. And then whenever needed, like in the accident cases, they can be re-activated and used instead of the alternate paths destroyed by an unfortunate event. Also, what if, since those synapses are not dead but only de-activated, through different techniques, medidation, we could activate them and use them to performed functions that we only can dream of today? what if?...

Nov 2008, San Francisco

Today, we, the human kind have all the means needed to feed and educate the whole population of the world. We do! I am not talking about caviar on the table of each family of this planet, but basic nutritional meals, and education for whoever wants to learn and grow the knowledge. Today, we, the human kind have Nobel prize winners, recognized geniuses in all life domains, high end technology, trips to space, governments that proclaim democracy, freedom, and peace, yet there are still on this planet children and adults dying of hunger, sick of poor nutrition, or not knowing today what they'll eat tomorrow or if they will eat tomorrow. Think about, 8 billions souls, a basic nutritional meal is about $10 per day that is $80 billions divided by 200 countries $0.4 billions per day to feed the whole world has to be the medium contribution by each country of the world, that is $146 billions per year. Too expensive? Let's have our scientists optimize this and make it cheaper then.

Today, we, the human kind have everything we need to do it, except the desire...

Aug 2010, San Francisco