Dr. Michio Kaku was last Thursday's Forum speaker. If you missed it, hadn't heard about it, or don't know what the Forum Series is, Dr. Kaku is one of the top physicists in the world, along with about another couple paragraphs of credentials. He gave a presentation on the world of tomorrow predicted by 150 of the world's top physicists (whom he interviewed on this topic for Visions, one of his bestselling books.)

Dr. Kaku started off with a rundown of "the bad news." I found this strange, since, like you, I have not had the bad news told to me in a long time. In any case, Kaku went on to give an overview of the issues he felt are worth worrying about. He described how the Earth's north and south poles are like the canaries once used in coal mining. They are the first indicators, in this case of global warming. From what I gathered, if our bird Polly is the poles, then Polly fainted a long time ago, has begun to crack apart, and really big pieces are melting off him. And also, he is melting faster than he ever has in the 400,000 years we can reliably collect data from.

Kaku said that we must make the transition to alternative energy sources in the near future as a result of this. He said that the consensus among physicists at present is that we must turn to either nuclear or solar power. Nuclear is slightly less safe, he said in a roundabout way, than would be hiring Jeffrey Dahmer as your full-time house chef.

Solar power, he said, could provide a limitless source of free energy without further research. There is one major problem, however, with solar energy. As Dr. Kaku said, "It's free." After the initial sale, a company cannot profit from it as with power plants. However, he pointed out that government subsidiaries and tax breaks to entrepreneurs would allow for the whole-scale production of the technology, and also let us disregard oil when deciding our policies in the Middle East. He was applauded at this time.

The rest of his time Kaku devoted to the good news. He spoke of the technological innovations we would see in the approaching decades, listing the possibilities presented by advancements in nanotechnology, computers, and biotechnology. Kaku compared life in the future to living in a Disney cartoon, citing such examples as how in coming decades you might say to your mirror, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest one of all… No, no--let's go with the Pamela Anderson site tonight…and display the amateur page in the lower right with the XXX banner." Not his exact words, but you get the idea.

Genetic manipulation was described by Kaku as one of the most exciting technologies just beginning to emerge. He spoke of the medical revolution that could come about through a "human body shop," which would stock organs grown in a lab from stem cells. Such technology would allow, in the future, for people like Mickey Mantle not to have to die.

For that matter, dieing might become less of a problem for us all when we cure aging. Yes, aging. According to Kaku, you age as you get older due to a sort of information loss in your cells as they divide. In your lifetime, your cells can only divide (and so lose information) about 60 times. But by genetically modifying tissue in the laboratory, scientists have already created human skin that seems impervious to time. Its cells have divided over 300 times without any sign of decay.

It goes without saying that this technology will not only fundamentally alter life itself should it be made a reality, but will join an exceedingly select group. It will become the only other invention besides the H-bomb that will eventually make every person on Earth come to a violent end.

Another advancement Kaku mentioned in genetics was how scientists recently made a mouse smarter. They injected the mouse with something, and it now can maneuver through mazes faster than other mice, where it had only been very average before. And unless I'm much mistaken, Dr. Kaku then said our nation's top scientists are right now working round the clock to adapt this procedure to raise the intelligence of a bush!

In contrast to the great hopes he and other physicists had for genetics, Dr. Kaku stated that robots would not be a commonplace technology of the future. He said that there are two major problems with making robots: One, they cannot understand common sense things, such as 'dipping things in water makes them wet,' and 'humans feel pain when you hurt them.' Two, they can't really see. They can see with cameras, but they can't understand what they're seeing. Lines, shades, and textures don't add up to them.

At least when the robots inevitably conquer our race they will have to keep us around as seeing-eye dogs.

At the end, Kaku summarized the promise of the future. "When I asked those physicists--those 150 of the top physicists from around the world--what they saw for us in the future, there was one agreement, one accord amongst all those scientists. It was this: That whatever the future may bring, whatever undreamed of accomplishments, destinations, and world of tomorrow lies ahead of us, no invention of mankind's will ever surpass 'Stacy's Mom.' Goddamn, it is the coolest thing eva."

Not his exact words. But you get the idea.