The Airphibian
You're going to Florida for vacation, but you live in a small town and there's no airport close by. So you hop in your car, drive to the nearest cornfield and with the push of a button, wings non out of the sides
of your car. Voial You're ready for take-off. According to Yesterday's Tomorrows, by Joseph J. Corn and Brian Horrigan, by the 1930s and 40s people expected to see "an airplane in every garage" because of its popularity during World War II. A 1946 advertisement for an airphibian prototype announced that even a woman could convert a car to a plane in five minutes, says Kathleen
McGovern, media contact for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition's Yesterday's Tomorrows exhibit.
Human Cloning
Are your children obnoxious? Unintelligent? Or just plain lazy? It's probably because of your spouse's genetic material. Imagine if you had a child that was made exactly in your image. You could raise yourself and erase all your mistakes.
Since cloning was first conceptualized by German scientist Hans Spermann in 1938, it has been a hotly debated topic. Over the past 60 years people have come forward numerous times claiming to have cloned the first human. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in 1932 provided a bleak and ominous view of mass conception, but today's public opinions on cloning have been greatly affected by those who have bent the truth.
Journalist David Rorvik sparked a controversy when his book In His Image: The Cloning of a Man was released. Though it turned out the story was a hoax, Rorvik's account caught the front page of many newspapers and put cloning in the public limelight. Written in 1978, Rorvik's book was based on the work of previous scientists, like John Gurdon, who cloned frogs in 1962.
Since then several people have claimed to have cloned humans, from the Raeleian sect (a religious cult that believes humans are the clones of alien lifeforms that visited Earth millions of years ago) to geneticists in South Korea to US-based scientist Panos Zavos. Most of these claims are shot down by other scientists. While this futuristic approach to reproducing and medical treatment seems to be on the horizon it's hard to say when if it will ever reach fruition.
Everybody agrees work sucks, so does analytical thinking. But within the wonderful world of robots no one will ever have to work, or even think hard again. At least that would be the case if you believed scientists from the 50s and 60s or popular works of fiction, such as sci-fi guru Arthur C. Clarke's Profiles of the Future and 2001.
A.I. (Artificial Intelligence, not the disappointing Spielberg Movie)
The debate about computers that could think for themselves began at a 1956 meeting at Dartmouth College, says Arvin Agah, associate professor of the department of electrical engineering and computer sciences.
Scientists became overexcited and made predictions about robots that were off by a factor of four, meaning if scientists said a project would take 10 years to develop, than it would really take 40 years, Agah says. The delays occurred once scientists moved on from making the robots solve simple problems, like stacking blocks, to trying to the robots real life problems, like how to clean up a room.
More misconceptions flourished once filmmakers and writers got a hold of the
idea. People watch movies like Terminator 3 and expect robotics to be at that level, but it's not, Agah says.
- Creek can be reached at creek@kansan.com.
Marriott can be reached at amarriott@kansan.com.
Massey can be reached at jmassey@kansan.com.
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