Security experts warn that as supply chains become more global and more opaque, no one can be sure what parts are going into the computers that run, well, everything--from air traffic control towers to banks to weapons systems. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff raised the issue recently at a briefing attended by Popular Mechanics and others. "Increasingly when you buy computers they have components that originate ... all around the world," he said. "We need to look at ... how we assure that people are not embedding in very small components ... that can be triggered remotely."

"It's certainly possible for the world's major espionage services to secretly plant vulnerabilities in our microprocessors, but the threat is overblown," says Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer of the data security company BT Counterpane. "Why would anyone go through the effort and take the risk, when there are thousands of vulnerabilities in our computers, networks and operating systems waiting to be discovered with only a few hours' work?"

"I was singing in the church choir, and I would often put little pieces of paper into the music on Wednesday night to mark where we were singing. Sometimes, before Sunday morning, that little paper would fall out. It was during the sermon that Sunday morning that I thought, 'What I really need is a little bookmark that will stick to the paper but will not tear the paper when I remove it.' I thought about a colleague in 3M's central research department who had been looking at these acrylated adhesives that we used in things like Magic Tape. He had come up with a batch of little sticky spheres. I got samples of those and set about trying to make a bookmark. I thought it was going to be a little niche market. I discovered they weren't just a bookmark but were wonderfully useful for notes and labels -- because it's a paper world out there and we need to stick things to paper."

And so we are about to enter a fractured, chaotic world of news, characterized by superior community conversation but a decidedly diminished level of first-rate journalism. The transformation of newspapers from enterprises devoted to objective reporting to a cluster of communities, each engaged in its own kind of "news"--and each with its own set of "truths" upon which to base debate and discussion--will mean the loss of a single national narrative and agreed-upon set of "facts" by which to conduct our politics. News will become increasingly "red" or "blue."

The risks are there, but the benefits of these devices are much greater. The point of this research isn't to help people hack into pacemakers and commit murder, but to enable medical device companies to design better implantable equipment in the future. I think it's great work.

Extropians believe that advances in science and technology will some day let people live indefinitely and further that humans alive today have a good chance of seeing that day.