Artist
Nikolay Lamm collaborated with computational geneticist Alan Kwan of
Washington University to come up with the sketch of what us humans may
look like 100,000 years in the future:
As our
understanding of the universe increases, I predict that the human head
will trend larger to accommodate a larger brain. But instead of some
orthogonal evolutionary path that ends up with the 210th century human a
la Futurama’s Morbo the anchor-alien, the rule of viable human biology
will still apply and so the entire head will trend larger, though with a
bias for a greater cranium growth than facial growth; the human 20,000
years from now would look to us like someone today except we would
notice the forehead is subtly too large. [...]
While evolution in
space is only beginning to be explored today, I would hazard a guess
that millennia of human space colonization of Earth-orbit and other
solar system space colonies will also select for…
1. Larger eyes in response to the dimmer environment of colonies further from the Sun than Earth.
2.
More pigmented skin to alleviate the damaging impact of much more
harmful UV radiation outside of the Earth’s protective ozone.
3.
Thicker eyelids or a more pronounced superciliary arch to alleviate the
effects low or no gravity that disrupt and disorient the eyesight of
today’s astronauts on the ISS.
Read the rest over at Lamm's blog:
Here.
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