Elf life

It’s All Going On

Have you noticed? We are in the future already. Stem-cell research, prosthetic limbs for running which are actually more energy efficient than the limbs nature gave us, heart-transplants; about the only thing we can’t do yet, it seems, is the personality transplant—but I’m sure it won’t be long until that happens (I mean, have you seen the increase in popularity of Botox Manchester lately?) Yes, over-night that boring mate you had will become the most interesting person you’ve ever known.

Or is all the sci-fi stuff a bit of a myth? After all, what evidence is there of any of this in our day-to-day lives?

Thinking about it there’s actually quite a lot; take your dog, for example, he or she will probably have a chip implanted under their skin, just in case of a dog-knapping, and tat identity will likely be recorded somewhere. And what about your car and its computer-controlled A.B.S—alright, it’s not exactly Back To The Future stuff but still. Chances are high that if that was to be suddenly removed you’d notice a substantial difference. And so would the person in front of you and the person in front of them, too. As a result your insurance premium would go through the roof. We simply can’t live without these small but significant inventions.

Then we have laser-eye surgery—correcting the vision of people who have always been dogged with the name ‘Speccy’. Thinking about it, almost every aspect of our lives has been changed by science-fiction in the last few years; want more proof? Easy. Science-fiction films have played a major part, for one example, in influencing the work of scientists the world over. Is it really just a coincidence that the U.S. government have been working on invisibility suits for some time a la the movie Predator? The concept is almost identical to that in the film—a special suit mimics its surroundings, even when the soldier is on the move, making them difficult to detect in jungle combat situations.

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