The Secret Root

This is mesmerizing.  Click the link for the full…um…timeline.

chels:

(via petervidani) 

future-timelines:

The Wiki

• 2035 - A research group in Wales create bacteria in the lab that form crystals which resonate with radio frequency.
• 2041 - The same group demonstrates that they can modify a percentage of the glia in a mouse brain to resonate with RF, opening up the possibility for biological radio receivers.  These glia are dubbed “radiocytes” 
• 2043 - Examining data, the researchers find proof that the mice can respond to RF as a sensory stimulus.
• 2047 - Transgenic mice pass genes for creating radiocytes on to offspring.
• 2059 - Researchers in India announce that they have a “grammar” of radio signals that mouse brains interpret as information.  At the same time they show that these signals are only perceived by the areas of the brain nearest the radio receivers.
• 2060 - Radio transmitters are implanted in some of the mice.  Within 1 week, the implanted mice are communicating with each other using the grammar discovered by the Indian team.
• 2112 - The first humans to be born with radiocytes enter school.
• 2128 - The Wiki, a human exomemory, is born when a radiocytotic teenager discovers how to store and encode knowledge in an external repository.  
• 2131 - Radiocytotic people connected to the Wiki begin spontaneously sleeping only 3 hours a night.  It is found that the presence of unlimited external storage radically improves the brain’s ability to reorganize and consolidate, reducing the need for sleep.
• 2201 - 98% of humanity alive has either been born with radiocytes or has had them implanted through stem cell therapy.  Electronic devices can be controlled by a thought.  Experience, perception, and emotion can now be encoded in The Wiki as humanity refines its new abilities. No-one remembers what it’s like to not have the sum-total of humanity’s knowledge on hand.

Following.

This might be the greatest text-only Tumblr I’ve ever read. 

Okay, now my head really hurts.

Perhaps all of those time travel stories have more to them than meets the eye…

“We see the world as built on copies,” Gerson told me. “We often talk about originality; we don’t believe there’s any such thing. It’s certainly that way with life—most parts of the world, from DNA to manufacturing, are built by copying.” The highest form of worship, he said, is the remix: “You use other people’s works to make something better.”