I love technology.  And being that I want to live 800 years, get a degree in Martian soil terraforming at the not-yet-founded University of Kick-Ass Shizzle, and go make Mars a livable planet as my 500 year “mid-life crisis” career switch, I obviously keep up on all the cool new medical breakthroughs.  Well, this past week has been a doozy.

First, Harvard published a study on the compound resveratrol, a chemical found in grapeskins.  This magic bullet not only increases lifespans in mice by 30%, it has now been found to counteract the effects of obesity and turn mice into super-athletic freaks of nature.  Normal mice can run one km before collapsing from exhaustion (what a fun experiment to be a part of, eh?  “Hey Bob!  Let’s see how far this mouse can run before his heart explodes!”).  Mice that received a high dose of resveratrol were able to run twice the distance.

And now I just read a report that scientists have successfully messed with a chicken (not in the rural Arkansas farmer sense) and coaxed it to regenerate a perfect wing.  We’ve long known that a select few animals can regrow missing or damaged limbs, but wondered what the mechanics at work were and whether “higher organisms” have that ability lying dormant in our genetic makeup somewhere.  Well, it seems we probably do.

Can you imagine the possibilities?  Did you just wake up with your arm under the pillow of some stranger that looked sooo much better last night when you were three sheets to the wind?  Well now you can just sever that appendage, make your getaway and grow a new one!  Are you a talented yet misunderstood artist who feels the only way to show your affection to a woman is to cut off your ear and send it to her?  Imagine how short-shrifted his third girlfriend felt.  Not anymore!

Endless possibilities around the corner, readers.  My only (well-justified, I might add) fear is that long before these technologies ever make it to humans, we accidentally let loose a super-race of bionic, immortal super-chickens and “X-Mice” who form an alliance and destroy humanity.  Uh huh, scoff at me now, but don’t come banging on my bomb shelter door when Earth has become an apocalyptic landscape of death and destruction at the hands (yes!  they have hands!) of our 8-foot tall chicken oppressors and I’m the only one on the block with arsenic-laced chicken feed.

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