Upgrade Me

Book excerpt: Biologically, human beings haven’t changed in 100,000 years – but thanks to our amazing brains we can upgrade ourselves to add capabilities that took other creatures millions of years to evolve. Thanks to this “unnatural” evolution we are already Human 2.0. In the effort to stay alive, reproduce and make more of brains, we have transformed ourselves. Now with a better understanding of the mechanisms of the body, cloning, gene therapy, bionics, and other technologies, our rate of change is getting ever faster. This process of upgrading is nothing new. It has been around for millennia, and it raises some provocative questions. What will the future hold? Will our drive to upgrade continue to give positive benefits, or will it result in destruction? Where is our evolutionary survival heading? Sure to cause much debate, UPGRADE ME is science journalist Brian Clegg's ambitious and brilliant account of humanity's need to upgrade