So You Want To Be A Super Hero? - Laser Vision!
This is the first of an ongoing series about biohacking.
I've always wanted super powers. Who wouldn't?
Biohacking is part of transhumanism.
Figuring out ways to make your biological machinery do things God probably never intended...
Unless your God is Stan Lee...
Cuz yeah, he's totally cool with it!
Laser vision is awesome!
But it's one of those powers that also has severe trade offs.
In almost every case, the hero is rendered blind or unable to control their vision without some prosthesis.
I think I've found a way to make this work without turning us all into lazer pony.
Conventional lasers work by bouncing light around inside of a cavity and then emitting identical photons as a beam.
It might sound like scifi, but bio-organic lasers are real and they're here right now. In fact we've had them since at least 2009. They're practically considered boring at this point. The problem is that the power source has to be much larger than the structure they were in. So at the moment, bio-organic lasers are used for tagging cells.
A group of cells, take up small laser collimator as a bubble of protein. Pulse the area where you inject it, with a strong external light and the collimator bubble will cause the entire cell to emit laser light containing information about what's inside the cell. It's presently used in bio-assay processes to figure out if a cell is really cancerous or not.
This process won't work invivo because you need a powerful coherent light pump to get it to work and that's not something you can easily fit inside a body. Thus far any dreams of using this to acquire a super power have had to wait.
Well the waiting is over!
There is another type of laser that is less well known...
The polariton laser.
Polaritons are particles that are part light, and part matter.
This laser works by tossing polaritons back and forth between excited molecules. Until they synchronize and then "bam!". This approach requires far, far less energy to get it up to lasing energies than cavity lasing approaches.
The reason it hasn't made its way into commercial use, is because it must be cooled to extremely low temperatures to work properly.
Evidently not a problem anymore!
Scientists have found a way to coax cells to produce a polariton laser emitting film that works at room temperature.
It only requires a bit of blue light in order to begin working.
A schematic illustration of a fluorescent protein polariton laser in action. Particles made from a mixture of light and electronic energy are created in a film of green fluorescent protein produced by live cells. The particles can synchronize each other to form a leaky condensate, with the leakage being a bright beam of laser light.
The film was sourced from e. coli that were coaxed into producing a jelly fish protein. However e. coli is just a model organism. Pretty much anything we can do to e. coli we can do to our own cells as well.
We already have a natural film on our eyes, it's called the conjunctiva.
It should be possible to get the initial blue light required for this film to begin lasing, by integrating the bioluminescent photophores from certain kinds of algae.
Thus we just trade the normal conjunctival cells for biolasing conjunctival cells created by splicing in the jelly fish polariton protein and the blue algae photophores.
It won't be long now, especially as biohacking becomes more mainsteam, but don't get your hopes up too high about what you'll be able to do with it.
I know we all want to be able to do this...
But I think I would be satisfied with this...
references:
http://superredundant.com/?comic=meet-the-gang
http://phys.org/news/2016-08-jellyfish-proteins-polariton-laser.html
So what do you think? Would you want laser vision? Also be sure to let me know what other super powers you'd like to have and the power with the highest number of upvotes will be featured in a future post.
I want FLIR vision
That's a good one! Might be doable today too actually. Depends on how integrated you want it into your body. We already have humans who can see UV. IR is the same thing, just the opposite direction. I'll look into it!
There was a project to give human beings IR vision by replacing all the Vitamin A in the body. Look at the forums on biohack.me
I believe I might be one of those UV seers... it's subtle but also in certain neurochemical states it comes out in high saturation.
Possibly. Does it get better or worse with glasses on?
If you don't normally wear glasses just head over to the optician's and try on some plain glasses. See if the light maintains the same consistency.
There is also a form of astigmatism that will cause normal blue light to diverge via prismatic effects.
about 8 years ago i had eye tests done, and i came out 20/15. ie, i can read at 20 what normal is at 15. blue light is a big hassle with vision, always makes everything more fuzzy. so in other words, i don't think i have that type of prismatic aberration in my vision system. i have slight impairment with close vision, i think maybe when i was a kid i could read text at about 4 inches, and now, 6. the optometrist said that a +0.5 lens would help with this but she also said it was so trivial as to be not important. plus i did the test while i was fatigued and zinging out after too many cups of tea.
oh, i do get visual migraines from time to time though. but i think that is purely a visual processing fault not optical.
I'll look into it. Sadly I'm going blind and quickly too. Seems like every day there is less and less I can see.
I know what you mean about super hearing though. I took a hearing test once a year or so ago and there wasn't a sound they could produce that I couldn't hear. I even find dog whistles to be grating.
Cool it's just way more common in women than men. There is something about the Y chromosome that seems to prevent tetrachromacy and also has an impact on trichromacy. There are lots of women with tetrachromacy though. I read somewhere that might be as high as 1:8.
Men do generally have better night vision though. For instance I see in the dark just fine while most folks are stumbling around looking for a light switch.
ah. yeah, my night vision is pretty exceptional too. so i guess i have tetrachromacy as well. i see more colours, and more detail than most everyone i ever met, and i hear more sounds (just over 17khz). i am a freak of nature. in real terms, already a super hero :) at least, statistically speaking, i am a freak.
but i want MOAR!
I am as blind a a bat driving at night....and I am usually the driver after a few drinks! :)
I would go for super-intelligence,including super-learning abilities, so I can be a super awesome musician,learn 20 languages, understand quantum physics, and memorize wikipedia.
This is a good one too! I'll look into it!
Super Speed... you can't hit what you can't touch...
I think all children may be born with that one and it wears off as they get older.
You ever turn your back on a 2 year old for just a minute and find them halfway down the block?
That one will take some work I think. But I'll look into it!
Ha it's true! I have a 13 month old and I swear she has super speed... it is unbelievable!
Might be teleporting effect too. It's hard to tell because it never happens when you watch them.
I think it's teleporting only because with mine there was some sort of clothing repelling effect involved as well.
I'd turn my back and the child would instantly teleport to a new destination sans clothing.
I want them all, Imagine the fun, imagine getting them mixed up lol
Well some of them are mutually exclusive though, so pick one or two of your favorites.
That's not fair :( lol ok invisibility and mind reading
I'll look into them. Thanks!
I want super healing powers.
I also want to see into the future.
I agree, those are both really cool powers.
I've always wondered why we can remember the past but not the future. Nothing in the laws of physics prohibits us remembering the future.
As for healing powers, I think we can arrange that one pretty easily.
Remember guys, the top voted super power is the one I try to do next.
I don't know. With great power comes great responsibility. You heard that in the movie. Recently, I heard the power responsibility quote came from a philosopher. I did some google but cannot find a definite conclusion but got this that mentions possibly different sources.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stan_Lee
Looks like he is quoting William Lamb (pp. 1125–1229)). The sentiment is also found in Luke 12:48: "from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked" (NIV).
Which is also my major beef with religion ;) If I'm going to be given god like powers, the first thing I'm going to do is use them to win the lotto and take a bath in cash. :)
OK, both you and me bath in cash. :-)
I would like to have the power to get people to be truthful, the power to have people to be unable to lie, without using interrogation drugs.
Like this?
like that or by any other means than physical violence
Did you receive my proposal?
What is the answer?
What proposal. I have go digging to find your replies. Sorry.
This proposal
"Hi William, I have a proposal for you: I'm trying to divert my energy into productive creative activities here in Steemit instead of the Systems Disruption and PsyOps I have habituated myself into,
would you feature an article of mine?"
Depends on the article, but probably.
Ok, tell me what topics are off-limits.
you asked me a favor, I complied,
Im asking you a favor back
Replying here because we hit the comment depth limits.
I would only consider anything that's a direct attack on someone or some group to be offlimits.
As long as it's original content and not particularly offensive, I'll post it.
Roger that
Hi William, This is a song about a marine organism called Noctiluca
This organism sometimes presents adhered symbiotic algae,
those algae have enzymes that when they react with oxygen
produce a flash of bioluminescent light from which the organism receives its name
Noctiluca (nox, noctis, night + lūcēre, shine)
Did you get my proposal?