Repurposed Biology

For sci-fi fans, this Rudy Rucker commentary in Newsweek on repurposing biology for our own needs is nothing out of the ordinary. But for the rest of us, it is a bizarre picture of the future :

Why would starlets settle for breast implants when they can grow supplementary mammaries? Hipsters will install living tattoo colonies of algae under their skin. Punk rockers can get a shocking dog-collar effect by grafting on a spiky necklace of extra fingers with colored nails.

And why be hung up on having your body all in one piece? Be like the state of Michigan; abandon contiguity. Who wouldn’t like a free-ranging extra hand that scuttles under the bed or out to the garbage shed? And it’d be great to have an extra eyeball that flaps around on hummingbird wings.

I sure hope I don't live long enough to see any of this and worse. It is for a reason that the Chinese used "May you live in interesting times" as a curse.

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