Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The Three Most Innovative Fields of the 21st Century

By Christopher Stanley


At the dawn of the 21st century humankind has witnessed technological advances the likes of which no one could ever have dreamed. Fields of study once thought impossible, like robotics, genetic engineering, and nano technology, are now used in common dinner table conversation. In one capacity or another, these three fields are working to preserve the lives and health of humankind.

Robots and the field of robotics has been in existence, in one capacity or another, for the past century. Today they are helping to fulfill our most basic of instincts: self preservation. In order to preserve the lives of humans, man created robots. We program them to perform life threatening tasks such as clearing mine fields and, something a little closer to home, going into burning buildings.

Since humankind developed robots to help protect lives from outside threat, scientists saw the need to create a field who's mission was to protect humans from their own genetics. Hence the field of genetic engineering was born. Although a fairly new field it is the hope that eventually scientist will be able to pick out only the desirable traits from genes, allowing couples to create the perfect child.

Until that time, there is another field of science which seeks to fix the physical mistakes that already exist. That is the field of nano technology. Unseen to the human eye, these self-replicating, microscopic robots called nanos are already affecting our lives. In the medical field they are still in the experimental stage. However, in the industrial quadrant they are used to manufacture microchips and the vision is that one day they will even be able to manufacture food.

Whether its ending world hunger or preserving human lives, mankind is continually making advances towards a better and brighter future. Imagine a world where children are always born healthy, and deformities are a thing of the past. A utopia where no one ever goes hungry and human lives are no longer risked in life-threatening, sometimes everyday, situations.




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