Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition: Science Slightly Over the Edge

A survey of the scientific frontier from the serious to the bizarre--such as research on enclosing the solar system, dismantling the sun, and head freezing

Author of the delightful Who Got Einstein's Office? , Regis here presents a hilarious but nevertheless sympathetic look at practitioners of "fin-de-siecle hubristic mania." These are the scientific visionaries who are plotting "post-biological man," scheming to build giant space colony/stations to orbit around the Earth, use microscopic robots (nanotechnology) to resurrect humans frozen in liquid nitrogen, raise chickens in higher gravity fields and project human minds via energy beams to distant galaxies. Readers learn about artificial life, bioinfomatic bumblebees, human minds instilled in "bush robots" and how to enclose the Sun within a man-made sphere. In the future everything will be possible and humans will be able to redesign themselves and the universe to meet higher technical standards than mere nature has achieved. This is a wonderful romp on the cutting edge of science.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

After reading this book, you will regard tabloid-style headlines such as "Super Chicken Bred in Double Gravity" or "Human Heads Frozen for Future Revival" with far less skepticism. These, as well as other seemingly bizarre technological feats, are being done or planned today by scientists who are either brilliant and visionary or dangerous and eccentric, depending on your point of view. Regis, a frequent contributor to Omni, writes with wit and humor as he describes the off-the-wall exploits of several scientists and engineers whose credentials are solid but whose objectives are, to say the least, a bit odd. Downloading a human mind into a computer? It's not only possible, it's the subject of Hans Moravec's Mind Children (Harvard Univ. Pr., 1988). Molecular robots capable of re-creating matter? It's on the drawing board now. Some scientists are even brazen enough to suggest that humankind can arrest the expansion of the universe. This delightful book reveals that the cutting edge is not far from the lunatic fringe. Recommended.
- Gregg Sapp, Montana State Univ. Lib., Bozeman
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.