Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. GPS News .




ABOUT US
Geneticist speculates humans could have big eyes, foreheads in future
by Staff Writers
New York (UPI) Jun 8, 2013


One possibility for human evolution could be people with much larger eyes and foreheads 100,000 years from now, a computational geneticist speculates.

Forbes magazine reported Friday artist and researcher Nickolay Lamm partnered with Alan Kwan, who holds a doctor in computational genomics from Washington University, to envision "one possible timeline" of what humans could look like 20,000, 60,000 and 100,000 years down the road with technological advances such as Google Glass and genetic engineering possibilities.

Kwan said the human head could trend larger to accommodate a larger brain and genetic engineering could mean "the fate of the human face will be increasingly determined by human tastes."

He said eyes could become larger and nostrils would get bigger to improve breathing as humans travel to distant planets with less light and poorer atmospheres than Earth. Humans' skin would become more pigmented to lessen the damage from harmful UV rays, and we would develop thicker eyelids and a more pronounced superciliary arch (the frontal skull bone under the brow) as we cope with low gravity, Kwan projects.

Kwan foresees a time -- 100,000 years from now -- when the human face will reflect "total mastery over human morphological genetics."

"This human face will be heavily biased towards features that humans find fundamentally appealing: strong, regal lines, straight nose, intense eyes, and placement of facial features that adhere to the golden ratio and left/right perfect symmetry," he said.

In a follow-up communication with another Forbes writer, Kwan said his projections were part of a "thought experiment" and are "purely speculative," not predictions.

"My experience has thus far convinced me that while science and technology may advance at an accelerated rate, legal, social and cultural norms will inevitably temper that pace greatly, as it has in the past," he said.

.


Related Links
All About Human Beings and How We Got To Be Here






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








ABOUT US
Discovery of oldest primate skeleton helps chart early evolution of humans, apes
Washington DC (SPX) Jun 07, 2013
An international team of researchers has announced the discovery of the world's oldest known fossil primate skeleton, an animal that lived about 55 million years ago and was even smaller than today's smallest primate, the pygmy mouse lemur. The new specimen, named Archicebus achilles, was unearthed from an ancient lake bed in central China's Hubei Province, near the course of the modern Yangtze ... read more


ABOUT US
Wild turkey damage to crops and wildlife mostly exaggerated

China, Argentina to increase soybean, corn trade: official

Climate and land use: Europe's floods raise questions

China opens EU wine probe as trade dispute spreads

ABOUT US
Study suggests second life for possible spintronic materials

Spintronics approach enables new quantum technologies

Resistivity switch is window to role of magnetism in iron-based superconductors

'Temporal cloaking' could bring more secure optical communications

ABOUT US
Boeing EMARSS Aircraft Completes First Test Flight

Pilot Completes First F-35 Vertical Landing for Royal Air Force

Egypt report blames balloon crash on pilot, leak

Shun Tak Holdings buys a third of Jetstar Hong Kong

ABOUT US
Los Alamos catalyst could jumpstart e-cars, green energy

Volvo chief acknowledges errors, says to stay in US

Monitoring system can detect dangerous fatigue in mine truck driver

Electric cars slow to gain traction in Germany

ABOUT US
China May trade data highlights growth concerns

Hundreds fall sick in Bangladesh garment factory

Argentina, Brazil head for showdown over rail seizure

France's Hollande pays state visit to Japan

ABOUT US
Brazil police deployed to contain land feud

Brazil grapples with indigenous land protests

Forest, soil carbon important but does not offset fossil fuel emissions

Smithsonian scientists discover that rainforests take the heat

ABOUT US
New maps show how shipping noise spans the globe

Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission Team Assemble Flight Observatory

Elevated carbon dioxide making arid regions greener

Landsat 8 Satellite Begins Watch

ABOUT US
Stretchable, transparent graphene-metal nanowire electrode

Shape-shifting nanoparticles flip from sphere to net in response to tumor signal

Gold nanocrystal vibration captured on billion-frames-per-second film

Understanding freezing behavior of water at the nanoscale




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement