by Desislava Stankova | Feb 23, 2015 | Biotechnology Law, News and Events
THE ENIGMA OF HUMAN ENHANCEMENT. CAN WE MEET SUPERHEROES ON THE STREET? Imagine being tall, blond, blue-eyed, young, beautiful, always in a good mood, fit, good in science, with strong talent in sports and maybe in music. What if most of the people you knew were just like that, too? Superhuman? Well, probably you had to use some technology to become that perfect (and I do not mean breast augmentation), but obviously not everybody is born flawless. It is becoming and it may become even more possible to extend human capacities beyond their normal healthy state. A movement called transhumanism grows very popular lately. Its goal is to fundamentally transform humans by developing and making widely available technologies to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. Technologies will include the convergence of nano, bio, information and cognitive technologies. Here are the top 5 ways we humans may be enhanced into superhumans (or posthumans as transhumanists refer the person after enhancement) in the future. What do you want to enhance about yourself? Who Wants to Live Forever? Currently the average person would live to about 80 years if in Europe, or 87 if in Japan. Or 50 in Somalia. Anyhow, it is considerably longer compared to 20-34 as in Stone Age, which may be considered the normal life span of our kind. So, obviously life span has been enhanced in the ages to reach its current expectancy. To read the full article, check Chicoverdose where it was originally...
by Desislava Stankova | Jan 30, 2015 | Biotechnology Law, News and Events
Nanotechnology is an umbrella science in which many disciplines converge that focus on the phenomena of materials on the nanometer scale (оne nanometer is one billionth of a meter). An important characteristic of nanomaterials is that they show completely different properties and qualities (surface, chemical reactions, etc.) compared to bigger particles. As promising as it seems, nanotechnology is nowadays a very disputable science that attracts the attention of scholars of all fields. One of the most important application fields of nanotechnology is medicine and pharmaceutics with the promise to revolutionize the way current medicine is viewed and performed. Many futuristic technologies and devices are currently in a process of research and development, such as quantum dots, lab-on-a-chip, targeted drug delivery, automatic monitoring and drug delivery systems, tissue engineering and even smart nanobots. However, since nanotechnology is still in its early age of development, many risks and moral drawbacks need to be evaluated, especially regarding applications in such a globally important field as medicine. Application As mentioned, nanotechnology presents a vast set of opportunities for medical developments that are of significant interest for scientists and practitioners from multidisciplinary fields. Some of the possible nanomed applications have already been implemented in practice, such as nanomaterials in sunscreens and cosmetics, others as nanobots are still way in the future. Since nanotechnology is a convergent science covering many fields and disciplines, nano devices are expected to be applied in multiple fields – military, cosmetics, pharmaceutics, etc. The current article will not try to elaborate a comprehensive list of all possible nano applications, but mostly focus on specific applications and challenges regarding nanomedicine. One...
by Desislava Stankova | Jan 29, 2015 | Biotechnology Law, News and Events
Nanotechnology is a convergence of sciences that study the phenomenon on the nanometer scale (1 nanometer equals 1 billionth of a meter) since nanomaterials have different characteristics compared to the bigger particles of the same material. A couple of decades ago it has been part of science fiction novels and subject of theoretical researches in secret laboratories. Nowadays, nanotechnology is one of the most promising and the most disputable new technologies that exist. Nanotechnologies alone or in convergence with other technologies (NBIC) are expected to have significant application in security, enabling forensic investigators to perform complex analysis or to discover even the smallest traces on the crime scene. However, application and development trends should be also analyzed in order to draw the full picture of possible nano-scenarios applied in forensics, so that no risk or uncertainty is left unexplored. Application and benefits As already mentioned, nanotechnologies are expected to have important application in forensic research. In the field of academic research as well as already in practice, different specific applications with multiple potential benefits have been identified. Forensic research is seen as the process of using specific techniques and methods of gathering and analyzing traces and investigating a crime. It is believed that the introduction of nanotechnologies will greatly change those processes by making them faster, more accurate, more effective, easy to apply and in general will change and mix functional phases, which explains the indisputable significance of those technologies. As nanotechnology is a general term which includes multidisciplinary technologies, this article is not trying to draft a comprehensive list. The focus however is on the possible technologies that...
