Humans are still evolving, So, where will evolution take us in 1,000 years?
Chances are we’ll be taller. Humans have already seen a boom in height over the last 130 years.
In 1880 the average American male was 5’7’’. Today, he’s 5’10’’.
We may also merge with machines that can enhance our hearing, eyesight, health, and much more. Right now, there are hearing aids that let you record sounds, generate white noise, and even come with a built-in phone.
Another example is a team out of the University of Oregon which is developing bionic eyes that help the blind to see. But it’s not impossible to imagine that this technology could become a tool for seeing what we currently consider invisible, like different energies of light such as infrared and x-rays.
There will eventually be a day where prosthetics are no longer just for the disabled.
However, it’s not just our outside appearance that will change – our genes will also evolve on microscopic levels to aid our survival. For example, an Oxford-led study discovered a group of HIV-infected children in South Africa living healthy lives. It turns out, they have a built-in defense against HIV that prevents the virus from advancing to AIDS.
And with gene-editing tools like CRISPR, we may eventually control our genes and DNA to the point where we make ourselves immune to disease and even reverse the effects of aging.
Another way to jump-start the human evolution on a different path is to move some of us to Mars. Mars receives 66% less sunlight than Earth. Which could mean humans on Mars will evolve larger pupils that can absorb more light in order to see. And since Mars’ gravitational pull is only 38% of Earth’s, people born on Mars might actually be taller than anyone on Earth. In space, the fluid that separates our vertebrae expands, which led American aerospace engineer, Robert Zubrin to suggest that Mars’ low gravity could allow the human spine to elongate enough to add a few extra inches to our height.
However, not even a move to Mars could spark the biggest change in human evolution that we may have coming in the next 1,000 years: immortality. The path to immortality will likely require humans to download their consciousness into a machine. Right now, scientists in Italy and China are performing head transplants on animals to determine if you can transfer consciousness from one body to another. They claim their next big step is to transplant human heads.
Whatever happens in the next 1,000 years — whether we merge with machines or become them — one thing is certain: The human race is always changing — and the faster we change and branch out from Earth, the better chance we have of outrunning extinction.