Indeed, when we look at ourselves now and compare our looks with our Homo-sapiens ancestors, we can conclude we’ve come a long way.
In fact, some 800,000 and 200,000 years ago, the rapid changes in the climate of the Earth coincided with the tripling of the size of the skull and brain of humans, leading to a flatter face.
But, how may our physiological features change in the future, especially with the new and wearable tech like the Google Glass that change how we use our faces and bodies?
Human Beings Continue Evolving
The researcher and artist, Nickolay Lamm, partnered up with a computational geneticist to find out and illustrate how we may look some 20,000 years in the future, as well as 60,000 and 100,000 years out.
Lamm explains that this is one potential timeline.
Thanks to zygotic genome engineering tech, people in the future will be able to control the human biology and evolution in the same way we now control electrons to power the world.
Lamm also talks about the control of the human form from natural evolution and enhancing the biology of humans to suit our needs.
These illustrations sparked conversations with Dr Alan Kwan with PhD in computational genomics from the Washington University.
What Will the Changes in How Humans Look Be?
The predictions of Kwan are based on how the environment may look like in the future, as well as the tech advancements and climate.
He predicts that the biggest change will be a larger forehead-a feature that has already been enlarging as of the 14th and 16th centuries.
And, with genetic engineering, the human face may be largely defined by people’s personal tastes.
The skin will also become less pigmented to reduce the damage from UV rays outside of the protective ozone of the Earth. Kwan also notes that humans will have thicker eyelids and a supercilary arch.
And, the human face will be largely biased towards features humans find attractive, such as a straight nose, strong lines, intense eyes, and perfect symmetry.
Humans will probably have other necessary features like bigger nostrils, denser hair, and an ability to choose what the child’s eye-color or teeth should look like. Wearable tech will still be around, but in subtler forms like implants and nano chips.
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