Steroids. Ritalin. Modafinil. Prozac. EPO. These are just a selection of drugs that could be described as boosting the cognitive or physical performance of human beings. (Wired)

This week an Australian woman had some of her vision restored thanks to a retinal implant. Some transhumanists believe that as technology improves, people might replace their healthy retinas for implants if it meant gaining added functionality such as night vision. (Wired)

The London 2012 Paralympic Games have drawn attention to the role that technology and science can play in overcoming human limitations. From wind tunnel-tested wheelchairs to running blades and other prosthetics, technology has been used to adapt or enhance the human body for sporting success. (Wired)

Technology and Human Flourishing
2012 Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture
October 25-27, 2012

Baylor University Institute for Faith and Learning
http://www.baylor.edu/ifl/index.php?id=88447

As you weigh whether to spend $1,500 on a Google Glass prototype, consider the less obvious downsides to the technology. French McDonald’s employees, for instance, may spontaneously attempt to strip it off your head while you’re eating a Chicken Ranch Wrap. (Forbes)

Can we give ourselves super vision, super strength and super speed? Science fiction is littered with the theme of upgrading the human body with machinery. (BBC News)

By enhancing ourselves with technology, do we throw away a part of our humanity? That’s the question at the heart of a new video game, Deus Ex: Human revolution. (Wired)

Many of the things that transhumanism aspires to, like greatly extended life or special abilities, are not really new; expressing dissatisfaction with the human condition by rejecting some of its limits seems to be a perennial human possibility. So it is possible that something like transhumanism at least will never die, so long as there are people in the world who can imagine things being different from what they are.  (The New Atlantis)

Instead of practicing for hours, a device can now teach you a tune by taking control of your hand.  (New Scientist)

People have always dreamed of living for eternity, but it has always been a dream filled with Faustian bargains. Deep down, we want to believe that it’s possible to live forever, and many of us are willing to pay the price.  (The Washington Post)

Primal transhumanism. Oxymoron? Maybe. Burgeoning lifestyle choice for a growing number of futurists? Most definitely.  (IEET)

Human technology is an incredible phenomenon. It’s something that grows exponentially: for every advance we make, our next advances are more varied and easier to attain.  (TNW)

When “X-Men: First Class,” a prequel to the popular series of comic-book adaptations, hits theaters this weekend, moviegoers will find themselves immersed in yet another superhero origin story, the fourth opening this summer, along with “Thor,” “Green Lantern,” and “Captain America: The First Avenger.” (Washington Times)

Imagine you know everything on Wikipedia, in the Oxford English Dictionary, and the contents of every book in digital form. When someone asks you what you did 20 years ago, on demand you recall with perfect accuracy every sensation and thought from that moment.  (Institute for Emerging Ethics and Technologies)

Will we become cyborgs? Will we be disease free? And what have vacuum cleaners got to do with it? John Holden asks scientists how humans might change over the next 50 years (IrishTimes.com)

The last symposium in M.I.T.’s 150-day celebration of its 150th anniversary (who ever said that geeks don’t like ritual?) is devoted to the question: “Whatever happened to AI?” Of course, that is a particularly appropriate self-introspection for M.I.T. because a lot of artificial intelligence action occurred there during the past 50 years. The symposium began Tuesday night with M.I.T. neuroscientist Tomaso A. Poggio setting the tone by declaring that the problem of making an intelligent machine is still “wide open.” (Scientific American)

A  robot must protect its own existence. This mid-20th-century from science fiction author and biochemist Isaac Asimov seems cleanly in step with Darwinian theory and the biological world of survival of the fittest. (Scientific American)

A fundamental principle of bioethics requires the consent of a patient to any medical procedure performed upon them. A new patient will exist the moment a conscious mindclone arises in some academic’s laboratory or hacker’s garage. At that moment, ethical rules will be challenged, for the mindclone has not consented to the work being done on eir mind. Does this situation create a catch-22 ethical embargo against developing cyber-consciousness? (IEET)

As 20-year-old Hailey Daniswicz flexes muscles in her thigh, electrodes attached to her leg instruct a computer avatar to flex its knee and ankle — parts of Hailey’s leg that have been missing since 2005. (Reuters)

Technology to be launched tomorrow will allow film viewers to control key plot developments using the power of emotion. The Myndplay system uses a headset to pick up the patterns of brain waves associated with different states of mind, and based on the readings takes film stories in different directions to various possible endings.  (One Per Cent)

While it seemed the rest of London was out soaking up the springtime sun this past Saturday, roughly 100 people opted instead to pass their time in a basement lecture theatre at Birkbeck College - discussing the possibilities of human immortality, and alternatively, of total human extinction.  (Culture Lab)