Mostly, my blog has recently been biographical in nature, so I was thinking it was time to do something a little fun. I have not been talking much about medical news and advancements but I was inspired a couple of weeks ago by a show I watched on television called "The Prophets of Science Fiction". It peeked my interest as it basically followed the work of some very prominent science fiction writers. Isaac Asimov and his literature on robots, Arthur C Clark talking about the space elevator and Robert Heinlein and his theories on the internet.
So how did it inspire me? Well in keeping with the subject matter of my blog I thought I'd have a go at propheteering some advancements in the field of medicine. After all, through my own health problems and doing research for this blog I have found that ideas swimming around in my head about what one day might be possible.
I also think it is important for people to use their imagination. As Albert Einstein said "Imagination is more important than knowledge". I also disagree with necessity being the mother of invention. It is sometimes true but not always. When the Wright brothers built the first aeroplane the didn't do it out of necessity they did it because they wanted to. Seriously there was not much practical application for that plane made out of plywood and old motorcycle parts but they built it anyway and now it is one of the most famous machines ever built.
So if we do not proceed we do not move forward and even the most outlandish ideas may sometime become fact. I mean some people said man would never fly, we would never break the sound barrier, we will never make it into space, it is impossible to fly to the moon. Need I say more?
I think that probably the best example we have working at the moment is the space elevator. Arthur C Clark prophesied this contraption which basically consists of a 100,000km rope anchored to the ground and used to lift cargo into space. The rope is kept taught and upright by the centrifugal force created by the rotation of the earth. Now will it ever be built? Personally I think so. Arthur C Clarke was once asked the same question and he said it would be built 50 years after everyone stops laughing. Well I think the scientific community has stopped laughing. The science is sound and there are people out there conceptualising how it would work. So fifty years from now I hope I am around to see it.
Anyway I thought that I, Andrew Price in my supreme clairvoyant wisdom would throw this prophetic exercise upon the science of medicine and see where it takes me. I have some ideas and I hope to develop them. But medicine needs to challenge its advancement as does all science. An incurable disease in only incurable until someone has figured out a way to cure it. And if we get stuck with traditional thinking we will have our heads buried so deeply in the sand that we will fail to see any advancement.
A good example is with heart stem cells. Conventional thinking is that it is impossible to grow new heart muscle. Well, it has been done yet there are still experts who refuse to acknowledge the breakthrough. And sure, it is only in trial stages but if I had a cardiac problem I would be busting a gut to get in on the trial. Click here to see what I wrote about earlier.
So from time to time, in among the updates etc I will post my premonitions. Alas, I am not a fortune teller, I will be relying on science and logical progression to point me in the right direction. Until next time, stay well:)
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