Word: talked
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...idea of implanting brain stem cells, while not as dramatic as swapping whole brains, also raises intriguing philosophical questions. "Sometimes at seminars when I talk about my work," says Snyder, "somebody will ask me whether the introduction of these stem cells will alter memory." Do the newly generated cells distort or erase old memories? Or will the transplanted stem cells bring with them memories of their upbringing in a Petri dish...
...Talk about wishful thinking. One might as well ask if there will be a war that will end all wars, or a pill that will make us all good looking. It is also a perfectly understandable question, given that half a million Americans will die this year of a disorder that is often discussed in terms that make it seem less like a disease than an implacable enemy. What tuberculosis was to the 19th century, cancer is to the 20th: an insidious, malevolent force that frightens people beyond all reason--far more than, say, diabetes or high blood pressure...
Biological weapons are a disgrace to biology. Most biologists haven't wanted to talk or even think about them. For years leading U.S. biologists were assuring themselves and the public that bioweapons don't work and aren't anything to worry about. It was a naive dream from the childhood of biology. The physicists lost their innocence when the first nuclear bomb went off in 1945. The biologists will lose their innocence when the first biological weapon spreads through the human species...
...years will also see the demise of the quack-laden Office of Alternative Medicine, which seven years ago was foisted on the reluctant National Institutes of Health, largely at the insistence of Tom Harkin, the otherwise sensible Senator from Iowa who believes in the curative powers of bee pollen. Talk about getting stung. Taxpayers will be incredulous when they become aware that after spending millions of dollars in its first seven years "investigating" highly questionable alternative therapies, the OAM failed to validate or--more significant--invalidate any of them (with the possible exception of acupuncture). And they'll be furious...
Researchers have made headway toward molecule-size transistors and wires and even batteries thousands of times as small as the period at the end of this sentence. These laboratory feats make talk of sugar cube-size computers less speculative than it was a few years ago. Says Lifset: "A lot of the consumer goods and industrial equipment could become dramatically smaller when nanotechnology comes online. That, plus more efficient recovery of the discarded goods, ought to translate into huge reductions in waste...