Ivan recently left iRobot in Boston, where he worked as a software engineer for their Government & Industrial Division, to found Tipjoy. Tipjoy is a micropayment tipping sys that enables content creators to monetize what otherwise would have been free content.

How will micropayment systems change the way content creators are compensated? And how will the Web continue to transform our thinking about how value is created and transferred?

Click "Continue Reading" for the show notes:

The topics:

• Stephen recommended two software programs:
  • Avex DVD to iPod Video. Stephen was incorrect on the price, its cheaper - $29. He uses this to rip DVD's for watching on his iPod touch.
  • Dopdf. This allows him to print to pdf from Microsoft Word (or any other word processor).
  • Michael recommended Handbrake for ripping DVD's for the iPod. Stephen had trouble with that program but recommends that you try it because its free.
• Michael found his cell phone. He thinks everything in our lives should be phonable. No more lost car keys if they ring when you call. He's also looking forward to living in a smart home.

• Then we brought out our special guest Ivan Kirigan. Ivan visitied with us about his new venture Tipjoy. Tipjoy allows Internet content consumers to tip stuff they like - a dime or a quarter or other "micropayment" that they choose. And they can do it with one click.

  Paypal has a per-transaction charge that keeps it from being the right model for micropayments. A user can set up an account with Tipjoy, fund it with $5.00 (or more) via Paypal (and pay that one transaction charge for that macropayment), and then one-click a quarter or whatever (with no transaction charge) whenever they read something they like.

  Tipjoy will make money when the blog owners cash out a large accumulation of tips. They will pay one transaction charge for that macropayment.

  Ivan also envisions this as a social network - like Digg, except with Tipjoy the users have the added cred of having their money on the line - even if its just a dime.

  Phil and Stephen welcome you to try out the Tipjoy system by hitting the Tipjoy button below.

• Ivan quoted from the Clay Shirkyon speech "Gin, Television, and Social Surplus."

• Phil discussed with Ivan a prediction made in the C|Net article "Imagining the Tech World in 2050."

• Ivan mentioned the sci-fi book "Down and Out in the Magin Kingdom." The novel imagines a world with very little scarcity. Goods are manufactured by robots and everone has most everything they need. "Whuffie" replaces money and is a constantly updated rating that measures how much esteem and respect other people have for you. This rating system determines who gets the few scarce items, like the best housing, a table in a crowded restaurant, or a good place in a queue for a theme park attraction.

  The novel's author practices what he preaches. This novel is available for free here.

• After Ivan signed off, Phil and Stephen discussed the latest version of The Speculist Manifesto that was introduced during last week's FastForward Radio show.

• Stephen quoted Paypal founder Peter Thiel regarding Bill Joy's prediction that the future doesn't need us.

  reason: Bill Joy, the former chief scientist at Sun Microsystems, declared in his famous article “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us” that we have to relinquish artificial intelligence, biotech, and nanotechnology because they’re just too dangerous for human beings to handle. Is there some truth to that?

  Thiel: I think it’s not even wrong. It’s one of those things that’s so far off the mark that it is not even wrong.

  There are obviously dangers in these technologies. But I think Joy’s approach would actually lead to the future he fears. If the virtuous people relinquish these things, it means that they will be developed by the evil people, and that seems to me to be a recipe for these technologies going wrong.

  The only way for something like Joy’s approach to work would be basically a totalitarian world-state in which we control the technologies worldwide. It is incredibly arrogant to say that the only smart people in the world exist in the United States and that if you can stop it in the U.S., you’ll stop it everywhere. Maybe it’s going to be developed by the Chinese military. Maybe it’ll be developed by people working for Islamic terrorist groups.

  The anti-Joy view that I would articulate is that what we need to be doing is to be pushing the accelerator further and harder. What I fear is that people working in free countries, where I think these technologies are likely to be developed in a more benign way, are being blocked by bureaucratic regulation and by cultural ideas that we shouldn’t be doing this. We are on this technological arc. We don’t know where it’s going to go, but I think the best trajectory is for us to just hit the accelerator really hard."

  
  

Our front bumper is a sample of Marginal Prophets' "The Difficult Song."

Our exit music this week is from Brother Love. The song is "Summertime."

You can subscribe to FastForward Radio for free with any podcast receiver software. Just copy and paste the following URL into your software's subscribe window:

Click here to download iTunes, or here to find other podcast receivers.

We love audience participation. If you'd like to call in to the show, or get in on the FastForward Radio text chat, listen live! FastForward Radio goes live again next Sunday night:

Get all the details at Blog Talk Radio. While there, check out the past shows in the archive.

We want your comments! Please leave your questions, suggestions, corrections, praise, or criticism in the comments section below.

Meanwhile, Harvey recommends this YouTube snippet concerning a shocking display from a recent college girl's softball game:

That's right -- a shocking display of decency and sportsmanship. What is the world coming to, folks? Oh, wait -- I think I have the answer to that. More on the story here.

We'll try this out as a regular feature every Friday. If you have video recommendations, let me know.

One of the reasons I don't lose sleep over Peak Oil is that there is such a broad range of alternative energy sources under development. The list includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Nuclear Fission
Solar
Concentrated Solar
Ethanol -- from switchgrass, cornstalks, etc.
Ethanol -- from waste
Methanol -- from coal
Synthfuel -- from coal
Synthfuel -- from shale
Synthfuel -- from tar sands
Biodiesel -- from waste
Biodiesel -- from algae
Nuclear Fusion

Progress is being made on all of these fronts. And if oil shoots up to $200, $300, $400 per barrel over the next couple of years, we can expect interest in these (as well as funding applied to them) to skyrocket.

Let's look at just the second and third items on the list, the two major forms of harnessing energy from the sun. What we normally think of as "solar energy" is the application of photovoltaic technology -- turning the sun's power directly into electricity. "Concentrated solar" power, AKA solar thermal energy, involves concentrating and capturing heat from the sun, which is then used to create steam and move an electricity-producing turbine.

We wrote about the tremendous promise of concentrated solar power just a few weeks ago, so I won't rehash all that here. Suffice it to say that, even if photovoltaic technology had hit some kind of peak of its own, meaning that we wouldn't expect much more from it than what we're getting now, concentrated solar would remain as a major potential energy source that we have barely even begun to exploit.

But the truth is that photovoltaic solar energy is far from any peak. Ray Kurzweil has repeatedly stated his assessment that solar energy is on a Moore's-Law-style trajectory of its own, and that all the worlds energy could be supplied by solar in as little as 20 years. So if Moore's Law is leading us to The Singularity, is this acceleration of solar power capability leading us to a solar singularity?

Some probably wouldn't like that term, seeing as it could make the whole question as to what exactly we mean by "singularity" even murkier than it currently is. But it has a ring to it, doesn't it?

Solar Singularity.

Anyhow, if we are going to get to the point where solar really does (or even could) supply all the world's power within a couple of decades, we are obviously going to have to see:

Accelerating progress in solar energy technology culminating in a fundamental shift in how the world's energy needs are met.

And that, then, can be how we define the solar singularity. It seems unlikely that it could be confused with any other kind of singularity, doesn't it?

We talked briefly on the most recent FastForward Radio about how we would know when we've reached the solar singularity. One suggestion was "when solar is cheaper than anything else." Another was "when they don't even bother to drill any more." Those are both good candidates. But how could we ever get to that point?

Washington D.C., USA--A new patents pending solar energy system will soon make it possible to produce electricity at a wholesale cost of 5 cents per kWh (kilowatt hour). This price is competitive with the wholesale cost of producing electricity using fossil fuels and a fraction of the current cost of solar energy.

XCPV (Xtreme Concentrated Photovoltaics), a system that concentrates the equivalent of more than 1,600 times the sun’s energy onto the world’s most efficient solar cells, was announced today by Sunrgi, a solar energy system designer and developer, at the National Energy Marketers Association’s 11th Annual Global Energy Forum in Washington, DC. The technology will enable power companies, businesses, and residents to produce electricity from solar energy at a lower cost than ever before.

“Solar Power at 5 cents per kWh would be a world-changing breakthrough,” said Craig Goodman, president, National Energy Marketers Association. “It would make solar generation of electricity as affordable as generation from coal, natural gas or other non-renewable sources, without requiring a subsidy.”

“In a little more than a year we were able to develop and successfully test XCPV,” said Robert S. (Bob) Block, co-founder and Sunrgi principal. “We expect the Sunrgi system to become available for both on- and off-grid power applications, worldwide, in twelve to fifteen months.”

If they can get the cost of electricity production down to the level they're talking about -- and that's an enormous if -- then oil doesn't have to get any more expensive for people to start adopting this technology. The singularity could be very near, indeed.

All we have to do is figure out a good way to run cars off solar power. It could be time to start thinking about a battery or hydrogen fuel cell singularity.

Bring 'em on!

UPDATE: Meanwhile, some students at MIT claim they can concentrate the sun's power 1000 times using inexpensive and easily-available components. This CSP / thermal approach could bring heated water and electricity to remote -- and even not-so-remote -- communities in the developing world. For the people who may eventually be on the receiving end of such technology, the sudden availability of electricity may be singularity enough.

Hmmm, this is pretty pro-transhumanist. The hero has an awesome robot suit, an interesting gadget built in his chest, and a friendly AI. He also has an intriguing collection of modern and near future technology. All of this is portrayed in a mostly positive light.

One of the played-to-death tropes of future disappointment is the lack of flying cars. I used to trade in that one myself, but I got tired of it. Part of what we do at The Speculist is attempt to develop new future-related tropes. I like to think of myself as a memetician, but I will quickly admit that I don't have any academic credentials in the field. Anyhow, one trope that Stephen and I have been developing for some time is that, in the future, we will all be super-heroes. This started way back in '05 with our second FastForward Radio, wherein I suggested that -- in the future, we will all be Batman.

But it doesn't stop there. As we noted in our most recent FFR, a Japanese company is now working to make us all Iron Man -- or at least make those of us who want or need to be...

Nice! Now some will be happy to start at having a few gadgets (Batman) or maybe access to equipment that gives the impression of having advanced powers (Iron Man), but for others that won't be enough. One of the more obscure comics that I enjoyed in my youth was OMAC: the One-Man Army Corps. Set in the "world thats coming," OMAC definitely played with some transhumanist ideas, as detailed by Wikipedia:

One-Man Army Corps (OMAC) is a superhero comic book created by Jack Kirby and published by DC Comics. Set in the near future ("the world that's coming"), OMAC is a corporate nobody named Buddy Blank who is changed by an A.I. satellite called Brother Eye into the super-powered OMAC.

OMAC works for the Global Peace Agency, a group of faceless people who police the entire world using pacifistic weapons. The world balance is too dangerous for large armies, so OMAC is used as the main field enforcement agent for the Global Peace Agency.

All kinda dumb, and it didn't last, but one thing I remember Kirby writing in an editorial he provided in the first issue of OMAC was the idea that these kinds of things might really be on their way, that one day OMAC might be "just another Joe" and that Superman might be our ultimate dream come true.

So in the future, will we all wear a cape with matching boots? Probably not. I'm not even sure I can see the path forward that would get us to OMAC (much less Superman-level) abilities. I mean, we could probably do some astounding stuff with utility fog, but that would make us more like Green Lantern and his power ring than it would Superman...not that there's anything wrong with that! GL is very cool! But ultimately even the power ring is just an extension of Bruce Wayne's gadgets or Tony Stark's exoskeleton. It is technology external to the individual using it, not a reflection of innate physical ability.

If it is our destiny to be Superman, it is probably not going to happen in this substrate. It's a lot easier to be Superman in a virtual world than it is in this one. And, in fact, in Second Life, everyone can fly -- it is one of the chief means of transportation. It's also interesting to note that in Second Life, there is a functioning Green Lantern Corps -- acting as a kind of virtual Guardian Angels to protect some virtual activities from being disrupted by virtual bad-guys. Nice!

The problem with being superman in the virtual world -- or even up here in meatspace assuming the technology to get us there shows up eventually -- is that it isn't as big a deal if everyone else is Superman.

So there you have it, in a world of Superpeople, super-powers are obviously not the differentiator. In which case, most people won't bother. In which case, super-powers will be rare. In which case, people will want them. In which case, everyone will become a superhero. In which case, being a superhero won't mean that much...

Okay, once all the way through that loop is plenty. Suffice it to say that I would go for the super-strength and invulnerability in this world, and the ability to fly in any world where it is offered.

Breakthroughs in regenerative medicine have received quite a bit of attention on the web recently, with this particular story making the rounds several times. We linked to it back in March after 60 Minutes did a piece on it, although then (and today) our emphasis is more on Wake Forest University's efforts to grow human tissues and organs than the University of Pittsburgh's use of extracellular matrix to regrow body parts. Both are very exciting lines of research, but it was the latter that caught the attention of the BBC and ultimately the Volokh Conspiracy, who subsequently linked to this piece, wherein a "leading plastic surgeon," apparently after carefully viewing the entire 59-second BBC clip -- possibly more than once! -- declared the entire matter "junk science."

Meanwhile, following up on our original piece on this subject, we recently caught up with Dr. Anthony Atala, the director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and got some more information on his team's efforts to grow human tissues and organs, essentially "replacement parts" for the sick and injured. Here he talks about using inkjet printers to literally "print out" new tissues, and addresses the question of whether his research in regenerative medicine has implications for life extension research.

You've been quoted as saying that it is "just a matter of time" before someone grows a human heart. So let's start with the basic question -- how does one grow a heart? We've read how an artificially grown human bladder was recently implanted into a patient: that it was built using layers of tissue attached to a bladder-shaped scaffolding which eventually dissolved, leaving an intact organ in place. Will a human heart be built by similar means? If so, where do these layers of tissue come from? Are they grown from stem cells?

It’s hard to predict which form of regenerative medicine will eventually be used to help patients with damaged heart muscle. There is the possibility of injecting stem cells that will find their way to the damaged tissue as well as the approach of creating patches of the tissue in the lab that can be used to mend a poorly functioning organ. In many cases, you don’t need an entire new heart to dramatically improve the patient’s life. It may be possible to change a patch of non-functional tissue the same way you change a malfunctioning heart valve. Our interest isn’t specifically to build a human heart, but to make patients better – no matter what strategy is used. Not one technology is going to be best for all patients. I foresee a time when we’ll have a boutique of technologies and will select one based on the patient’s needs. Currently, we are attacking this challenge on multiple fronts, including using a modified ink jet technology to “print” a small two-chamber heart.

In attempting to describe the implications of the research you are doing, I wrote: "If this research leads to the ability to grow new kidneys, patients with severe kidney disease will be able to get replacement kidneys without a healthy person having to give one of theirs up. If this research leads to the ability to grow new hearts, patients with severe heart disease will be able to get replacement hearts without someone having to die." Is that an accurate assessment? And, ultimately, will fully compatible replacement organs grown using these kinds of techniques eliminate the need for organ donation, and all of the logistical, ethical, and immunological difficulties associated with that practice?

There are currently almost 99,000 people on the waiting list for an organ transplant and nowhere near enough donors to meet their needs. Our goal is certainly to develop organs and tissues in the laboratory to help solve this shortage. As you know, we have already created bladders in the laboratory that have been successfully implanted in patients. These are grown from a patient’s own cells, so there were no issues with rejection. Similarly, if organs/tissues are grown from stem cells that are a genetic match to a patient, rejection will not be a problem. It is much too soon to predict whether we’ll be successful growing all organs and whether the need for organ donation can eventually be eliminated.

Some are already available. In about 50 patients -- a tube made of collagen has been used to repair strictures in the urethra (the tube that releases urine from the body.) Stricture -- which is basically a narrowing of the tube -- can be caused by inflammation or scar tissue from surgery, disease or injury. When surgery is required, the usual procedure is to take tissue grafts from the patient's bladder, rectum, etc. for repair. We have created a collagen-based tube and surgically replaced the restricted part of the urethra. The tube was basically free of cells -- so there were no issues with rejection. These new tubes integrated with the body and became fully functional. In addition, bladders engineered in the laboratory are now being evaluated in clinical trials – the first step to more widespread availability.

In recent years there have been significant developments in the areas of rapid materials fabrication and prototyping via digital technology. There is speculation about 3-D printers that will be able to reproduce virtually any physical object. In using a jet printer to literally "print out" sheets of cells which can become multiple layers of replacement muscle tissue or an entire organ, it seems that you are leveraging these rapid replication techniques for regenerative medicine. Where does this fusion of biological, digital, and materials technology lead us? Will we have a machine that takes in a few sample cells on one end and outputs a healthy new heart or kidney on the other?

You are correct that we are using modified ink-jet technology to “print” tissues and organs. Because the inkjet printer can deliver multiple cell types at a time, and put them in very precise positions, it has the potential to build organs that are composed of many different cells and tissues in a completely novel way. We have utilized inkjet printing technology to build heart, bone, and blood vessel tissues. Currently, in a project for the military, we are working to develop a prototype printer that can “print” skin directly on a burn wound. The technology is remarkable and we look forward to discovering what it can help us accomplish.

Looking ahead, do you have any comments on the implications of this research for extending healthy human life span? Will we be able to maintain our bodies for long periods of time the way we currently maintain vintage automobiles -- replacing worn and broken parts with new and viable ones? Is regenerative medicine the key to longevity?

I do foresee a time when organs will be available off-the-shelf, ready to “plug in” and replace injured or diseased organs. Of course, the primary goal of our work is to help improve the quality of patient’s lives. As far as extending the normal lifespan, regenerative medicine has the potential to help individual patients with diseased organs live longer, but we have to keep in mind that normal aging is a process that affects the entire body.

For a look at some more exciting medical research taking place at Wake Forest University, see our interview with Dr. Zheng Cui, who is developing cancer treatments using the human immune system.

What is at stake? What can we learn by studying possibilities and scenarios? And why do we Speculists spend time blogging and podcasting about this stuff? Do we have a contribution to make?

Click "Continue Reading" for the show notes:

The topics:

• Stephen has been learning and playing the role playing game called, simply, "Instant Game." It's a lot of fun and its available free at the Animalball website.

• Pygmy Marmoset, A.K.A., the "finger monkey:"

• Scientific American published an article about real-life Iron Man suits.

• The other Singularities on Mr. Spock's chessboard.

• The Speculist Manifesto (The Short Version):

  The Human Imperative is improvement of the human condition. Throughout human (and pre-human) history, we have worked to increase human intelligence and capability.

  The Human Imperative is working. We have consistently improved our circumstances, and are making improvements at an accelerating pace.

  With improvements come new problems, but the improvements are outpacing the problems. Moreover, improvements are additive and we can combine them in creative ways to provide unexpected benefits.

  Throughout human history, we have carried out the Human Imperative using two basic strategies:

  1. Solving problems / mitigating risks

  2. Achieving the good

  The first strategy has always taken priority, as the primary ongoing problem we have had to solve is how to achieve our survival (or prevent our extinction.) But we now stand on the threshold of a new era in human history. Improvements and potential improvements are increasing exponentially; we are moving rapidly towards a critical mass of human intelligence and capability. Our achievable future is one that transcends the expectations, hopes, or even dreams of most of humanity.

  We can achieve that future only by recognizing that we are at a transitional point in carrying out the Human Imperative. We must transform our thinking about the future and, for the first time, change the order of our priorities. While survival remains our top priority, we must recognize that focusing on problems and risks is no longer our optimal strategy for achieving our survival. Our survival lies within the realization of our achievable good.

  The Human Imperative is now to recognize that transcendent good as possible, to communicate and share a vision of it, and to work towards its fulfillment.

Our front bumper is a sample of Marginal Prophets' "The Difficult Song."

Our exit music this week is from The Crash Moderns. The song is "This Time."

You can subscribe to FastForward Radio for free with any podcast receiver software. Just copy and paste the following URL into your software's subscribe window:

Click here to download iTunes, or here to find other podcast receivers.

We love audience participation. If you'd like to call in to the show, or get in on the FastForward Radio text chat, listen live! FastForward Radio goes live again next Sunday night:

Get all the details at Blog Talk Radio. While there, check out the past shows in the archive.

We want your comments! Please leave your questions, suggestions, corrections, praise, or criticism in the comments section below.

This is a great movie. Not just a great comic book movie... its a great movie.

I won't spoil it.

Oh, stay through the credits. You'll be glad you did.

NASA credits the images as follows:

1. The Mercury image was taken by Mariner 10,
2. The Venus image by Magellan,
3. T the Earth image by Galileo,
4. The Mars image by Viking, and
5. The Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were taken images by Voyager.

Pluto is not shown as no spacecraft has yet visited it.

That omission will eventually be rectified. At that point, the NASA folks will face the difficult decision to make as to whether to include Pluto in this picture. You know, seeing as it's no longer considered a planet!

Of course, the moon isn't it a planet, and it made the cut...

On this date in 1993, Cern made the Worldwide Web public domain and the rest, as they say, is history. Cern had actually developed the technology in the late 80's.

I remember living in a pre-Web world. I used a Mac with a dial-up Internet connection. The service was called Delphi. I used it mostly for chatting, playing games, and accessing files. Gee, that sounds just like the Web! So what was the difference?

It was all 100% text-based.

Wow, what a difference Cern made in pushing the Web out free. I was an avid HyperCard scripter back in those days, and I knew that eventually the Internet would go in a hypertext direction.

And then this thing showed up:

Nothing was ever the same after that!

Via GeekPress, Nick Bostrom has a fascinating essay at Technology Review in which he lays out his case for hoping that we don't find evidence that life ever existed on Mars or that it exists elsewhere in the universe. Why would we not want to find evidence of life?

According to Bostrom, the apparent silence of our galaxy -- the lack of even one civilization which has advanced to the galactic colonization stage, which we ought to know about if it ever happened, because they would be here -- is evidence either that there is no life out there or that life is in some way blocked from developing to that level. He talks in terms of a "great filter" that evolving life must pass through on the way to the galactic colonization stage. If life is evolving out there in the galaxy, and no aliens have ever shown up here, that suggests that no life anywhere has ever successfully made it through the filter. And if nobody else ever makes it through the filter, we have very little reason to hope that we ever will.

The filter could take many forms. It could be some stage in biological evolution that is just plain difficult to get through. For example, if life rarely makes it to the stage of producing multicellular organisms, and that's the reason nobody is out there, then we've already passed through the filter and it would seem that we are in the clear.

Woo hoo! Let's start colonizing the galaxy.

And there, says Bostrom, lies the problem. Unlike developing flexible body plans or bigger brains, the nuke, grey goo, asteroid, and cosmic blast filters all (potentially) lie in our future. That means we haven't made it through the great filter yet and, seeing as nobody else has managed to do it, there's not much reason to expect that we will.

Say it with me:

Whoa, dude.

Bummer.

Sure, it's possible that others have made it through this filter and decided that they would rather stay home than colonize the galaxy, but what are the chances that everybody who reaches this stage makes that choice? Or maybe they're all out there hiding from us because they're guided by some kind of Prime Directive that protects us from exposure to their advanced awesomeness. But that one seems pretty unlikely. Plus, it's been argued that the Prime Directive is stupid and/or immoral.

So if life is out there, chances are it gets destroyed (or destroys itself) before ever making it to the galactic colonization stage.

Or maybe, just maybe, something else is going on. Let me offer up a few possibilities.

1. Colonizing the galaxy is a dumb idea.

Don't get me wrong. I personally think it would be the single coolest project ever, and hope to have literally billions of uploaded copies of my personality wending their way not just across the galaxy but the entire universe using those very Von Neumann probes that so far have not shown up here from anywhere else. But I have to admit that I come by this fondness for the idea from the standpoint of living in a civilization that is not quite ready to start the project. As we get closer to that goal, we might find that technology is opening up other possibilities for us that are in fact much more appealing. I don't know what those are. But then, let's face it -- I don't really know much. Maybe outlining a project that advanced civilizations must engage in -- if they exist at all -- would be a tad presumptuous on my part, seeing as I don't know what all the options are.

2. They're out there, but we can't see them.

Bostrom deals with this idea, but I want to take a slightly different angle. What if they aren't hiding or invisible, but just really, really small? Our own information technology has been heading in an exponentially smaller direction for some time now. And there are those who suggest that we are bound (sooner or later) to merge with that technology. Maybe by the time we get to the spacefaring stage, we won't be sending out Devil's-Tower-sized motherships, but very compact Von Neumann machines no bigger than a Snicker's bar. There could be millions of those orbiting our sun right now -- how would we ever know? The real population of the solar system might be in the trillions: a paltry six billion on earth and many, many more nano-colonists living lives we can't begin to imagine right here in our neighborhood.

3. Only would-be colonizers self-destruct.

There could be a correlation. Maybe civilizations that go in an information-technology-merger direction survive, but tend to stay more or less in one place, while those who would build the galactic empire inevitably destroy themselves. After all, what are the chances that, say, the Klingons ever would have made it out of hunter-gatherer stage, much less develop Warp Drive? Maybe colonizing the galaxy is a developmentally backward idea. (See possibility #1.) It would appeal to Klingons or to some humans at our current stage of development, but it's a dead end.

4. They stayed home.

Not because they have rejected technological development, but rather because the natural direction of development is in, not out. The miniaturization trend continues, and all the surviving advanced civilizations are now using femto-technology and basically working their way out of this universe altogether. As John Smart once explained it to me:

Fortunately, this perspective is quite falsifiable by future advances with SETI. If I'm right, in just a few more decades as the Moore's law-driven sensitivity of our sensor systems continues its exponential growth, we'll begin discovering "radio fossils" in the night sky, emissions of very weak electromagnetic signals (radio, TV, etc.) unintentionally emitted from the older intelligence-bearing planets whose past developmental record should already be detectable in our galaxy.

Once our antennas are powerful enough to detect unintentional EM emissions from the closest few million stars, something that Frank Drake tells me is almost possible now with the closest of our neighboring stars, we'll begin to discover these unmistakable signatures of nonrandom intelligence. We will also notice that every year, a small fraction (roughly 1/200th) of these radio fossils suddenly stop sending signals. Like us, these will be civilizations whose science invariably discovers that the developmental future of universal intelligence is not outer space, but inner space.

That's the destiny of species.

These possibilities are all variations on that same theme, I suppose. A couple things we ought to keep in mind about advanced aliens is that (if they exist) they are advanced and they are alien. Both of these facts put us at something of a disadvantage when it comes to making definitive statements about where they should be, things they might have done, and decisions they must have made.

New Scientist reports:

Red blood cells travel through the bloodstream delivering vital oxygen to body tissues and taking away unwanted carbon dioxide – and they have to squeeze through blood vessels as thin as 3 micrometres across to do it. But in some diseases, such as malaria and sickle cell disease, red blood cells lose this ability to deform.

Because of the small size of red blood cells and the demanding work they do, nobody has succeeded in making artificial versions to help people with such conditions.

Now though Joseph DeSimone, a chemical engineer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US, thinks he knows how.

He has created tiny sacks of the polymer polyethylene glycol just 8 micrometres across – in the range of human red blood cells – that are capable of deforming in a way that allows them to pass through the tiniest capillaries.

Polyethylene glycol is biologically benign, but binds easily with other substances, which makes it ideal for carrying cargo through the blood, says DeSimone.

Artificial blood replacement is likely to be a key biomedical enhancement technology in the near future. Ray Kurzweil frequently talks about the "respirocytes" which will act as supplemental mechanical red blood cells, 1000 times more efficient than their biological counterparts. Those who choose to replace even a small portion of their red blood cells with respiorocytes will be capable of what today could only be viewed as superhuman feats: running at sprinting speed for a quarter of an hour or more without breathing; sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool for hours at a time.

Of course, most of us don't want or need to be able to do such outrageous things. Respirocytes will initially be implemented to address many of the same kinds of conditions that DeSimone's polymer blood-cell substitutes are proposed for.They will also probably be used to give a much-needed boost to those recovering from serious illnesses or who have suffered some kind of major trauma. And speaking of illnesses and trauma, I can imagine respirocytes also serving as a delivery mechanism -- one of many that nanotechnology will provide -- for much more effective, and much less traumatic treatments for diseases such as cancer than anything currently available.

As you might imagine his book, The Universe - Solved, covers a lot of scientific and philosophical ground. A big topic of discussion was whether we live in a computer simulation. If so, are there Easter Eggs in the cosmos?

Click "Continue Reading" for listening options and the show notes:

The topics:

• We reviewed Elvidge's excellent summary of the history and current thinking in physics and cosmology, including string theory, m-theory, brane theory, big bang, the inflationary big-bang, many worlds, inflationary fractal multiverse, Julian Barbour's timeless configuration space, etc. Jim addressed the question of why one of these, or some combination, might not be sufficient to explain the universe.

• We looked at paranormal phenomena -- UFOs, bigfoot, past lives, psychic phenomena -- are these hints of a different level of reality?

• We examined the question of easter eggs -- are "spooky" phenomena and coincidences hints left for us by the software programmers who "wrote"our universe?

• We looked at the four possible explanations for who the programmers are -- Earthlings, AIs, ETs, and "the gods." We also looked at another possibility -- we are intelligent beings, living in a simulation with no "seat of consciousness" other than in the simulation. The "problem of consciousness" remains unsolved -- so FastForward Radio will have to remain on the air for at least another week!

Our front bumper is a sample of Marginal Prophets' "The Difficult Song."

Our exit music this week is from Dan Sehane. The song is "I'm Gonna See Serenity."

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Lighting Science Group says they are. And to back it up, they're introducing a new line of LED-based lightbulbs that plug into a regular light socket. Check out the bulb shown here.

Looks pretty neat. And as we can see from this page, it can be had for a mere $110.

What the...$110???

For a LIGHT BULB?

Well, hang on. LSG has an answer to that:

At $40 to $110 apiece, the LED "in-screw" bulbs may still seem too pricey for a lot of consumers. But Lighting Science Group's pitch is that a 50 cent Edison bulb will last for 750 to 3,000 hours, while an LED has to be replaced only every 50,000 hours (or 10 to 30 years). The company says the cost savings is almost $740 over a lifetime due to much lower energy consumption.

That's the same argument that's made in favor of the compact fluorescents, but these bulbs last longer and are even easier on the old electric bill.

Plus, I think I already mentioned -- no mercury.

Bring 'em on, I say.