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‘Altered Carbon’ and TV’s New Wave of Transhumanism

But Altered Carbon is only the latest bit of transhumanism to hit TV recently. From Black Mirror’s cookies and Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams’ mind-invading telepaths and alien bodysnatchers to Star Trek: Discovery’s surgical espionage and Travelers’ time-jumping consciousness, the classic tropes of body-hopping, body-swapping, and otherwise commandeering has exploded in an era on the brink, one in which longevity technology is accelerating more rapidly than ever, all while most people still trying to survive regular threats to basic corporeal health and safety.


Nobody wants these dumb meat-sack bodies anymore. Now TV is asking if what replaces them will be any better.

How a hungry, hardy bacteria eats toxic metals and excretes gold nuggets

If the goose that laid the golden egg had a real-life counterpart, it would be C. metallidurans. This hardy little bacterium consumes toxic metals and excretes tiny gold nuggets, but how and why it does so has never been fully understood. Now, German and Australian researchers have peered inside the microorganism and figured out that mechanism.

C. metallidurans has carved out a nice little niche for itself, usually living in soils full of heavy metals, which are toxic to most other microorganisms. But this bacteria has evolved a defense mechanism to help it not only survive but thrive under those conditions, and its ability to turn toxic compounds into gold is well known enough to once earn it a place in an alchemy art installation.

“Apart from the toxic heavy metals, living conditions in these soils are not bad,” says Dietrich H. Nies, an author on the new study. “There is enough hydrogen to conserve energy and nearly no competition. If an organism chooses to survive here, it has to find a way to protect itself from these toxic substances.”

Why Are These People Eating Pills of Poop? (Medical Fecal Transplants)

The straight poop on fecal transplants. Scientists think fecal transplants help us live longer, healthier lives.

Quote: “Seres Therapeutics is one of the more promising names in poop.”


Here’s the straight poop on fecal transplants, a new medical procedure which physicians use to treat infections. Geroscientists suspect that fecal transplants could help us live longer, healthier lives by giving us a microbiome upgrade. [This report was originally published on LongevityFacts.com. Author: Brady Hartman]

The human microbiome is an invisible world that is only recently coming into focus. The collection of bacteria that inhabit your body is a delicate ecosystem that can crash as you age, travel, or even take a new medication. When it collapses, it can lead to all sorts of distress.

The Business End Of The Poop Industry

Seres Therapeutics is one of the more promising names in poop. The Cambridge biotech company has been trying to transform medicine by harnessing the billions of bacteria in our intestines.