Isaac Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books

he is best known for his works of science fiction;
among these is his Robot Series -

novels and short story collections such as I, Robot
and The Rest of Robots

in these, Asimov introduced concepts such as the
positronic brain and the Three Laws of Robotics -

conceptions that have been incorporated into hun-
dreds of movies and TV productions, for example,
Star Trek, Star Wars, and Blade Runner;

and they have strongly influenced our notions
of “robots”, “androids”, and “artificial intelligence”

Asimov was also a scientist and educator, earning
a Ph.D. in biochemistry and teaching at Boston
University

given all this, his speculations on the evolution of
robots would hold some weight

below is an interview, conducted in 1965, in which
Asimov speculated on the eventual convergence of
man and robot

the above is an excerpt from BBC’s Horizon

geologists speculate that there have been times
in Earth’s history when the planet experienced a
kind of Greenhouse Effect in reverse

that is, a runaway cycle in which Earth’s snow and
ice reflected progressively more of the Sun’s radia-
tion causing -

- temperatures to drop
- the further expansion of glaciers and snow cover
- the reflection of an even greater percentage of
solar radiation
- further drops in temperature . . . and so on

until the Earth became what Scientific American called a “Cosmic Snowball” hurtling through space

this theory is called Snowball Earth; and BBC Science & Nature describes it in this way,

There is a controversial theory that for millions of years the Earth was entirely smothered in ice, up to one kilometer thick. The temperature hovers around -40ºC everywhere, even in the tropics and the equator. If it did, then virtually nothing could survive this ferocious climate. There are some tantalizing geological clues that show this theory may be true but the problem is, the clues and the Snowball Earth theory defy the laws of nature.

For over fifty years a group of scientists has been trying to prove this incredible period of Earth history. Struggling against scepticism and disbelief, now finally the many mysteries have been solved and the scientific community is slowly coming around to the extraordinary idea not just of the dramatic freeze, but of an equally dramatic thaw. Scientists across the world are starting to believe that in the past the Earth froze over completely for ten million years… then warmed up rapidly about 600 million years ago. Almost all life was wiped out. But out of the freeze emerged the first complex creatures on Earth. Scientists now believe that the so-called Snowball Earth theory could hold the key to the evolution of complex life on this planet.

the video below, an excerpt from BBC Horizon Snow-
ball Earth, describes the theory in greater detail

image credit

how many self-help books are there on the market,
thousands, tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of
thousands?

do they really help us to free ourselves of problems?

it’s doubtful that they do; but what if one did?

what if a publisher stumbled upon THE ultimate self-
help book, one that solved ALL our problems?

one that could stop us from smoking, drinking, over-
eating, and treating each other badly

one that could help us reach our potential, find
meaning, find love, experience fantastic sex, smile
and be happy -

all of the time and forever?

this is the premise of a best selling novel titled
Happiness by Will Ferguson

the premise of Ferguson’s satirical work is a chilling
What If? worth PonderingAbout and a novel worth
checking out

What If the evolution of human language began to
shift radically -

shift in such as a way that meaning becomes -

- less dependent on the actual words we speak, and

- progressively more dependent on HOW we say
those words, on intonation and gesture

that is, language evolves in such a way that
meaning is conveyed by the movements of our
bodies and the pitch of our voices; with our actual
words having little importance

in time, fewer and fewer words would be needed;
and our vocabulary would shrink drastically

long ago, Mandarin Chinese began to evolve in
this manner; and now a single word can convey
multiple meanings -

Mandarin, a tone language.
In tone languages, a single word can differ in meaning depending on pitch patterns called “tones.” For example, the Mandarin word “mi” delivered in a level tone means “to squint,” in a rising tone means “to bewilder,” and in a dipping (falling then rising) tone means “rice.”
-www.edu-cyberpg.com

perhaps in our distant future, the English language
will have evolved into a tone language; a language
so radically different than our own as to be virtually
incomprehensible to 21st century English speakers

perhaps the situation would look something like this

research coming out of the UK has shown that,

Teenagers use just 20 words for a third of everything they say . .
- link

Linguist Tony McEnery of the University of Lancaster
has also found that teens use only half the words of
the average young adult, aged 25 to 34.
- link

when his findings were first reported in 2006,
McEnery cautioned,

Employers are already complaining that first jobbers are lacking basic verbal communication skills and it seems things could be set to get worse.

and today, some three years after the research data
was collected, things have indeed gotten worse

yeah, like you know consider the vid below; check
out the like speech patterns of a like you know
regular young guy