Society is headed for another reboot, Roger Carlin told a group of incoming Iola High School National Honor Society members Wednesday.
Carlin, a retired social studies teacher at Iola Middle School, delivered the keynote address for the 15 inductees and the 21 current members.
His wildly entertaining talk featured such props as a toilet seat, a fishing pole, a set of pliers and pocket knife tool, laptop computer, cell phone, and finally, a boot.
All are illustrative of various innovations that have served mankind, Carlin explained.
While stressing hed be unable to the predict students futures, Carlin noted he didnt need to.
The future is now.
For example, he touched on research at Rice University, where scientists successfully injected stem cells from a South American lizard one capable of regenerating body parts into the cells of a mouses tooth.
The experiments led to the mice eventually being able to regrow their teeth, Carlin noted.
Other researchers took that work a step further, and were able to regrow human teeth.
The next steps incorporated advances in treating humans with hearing or seeing impairments.
Some who are blind, for example, can now detect light.
That might not seem like much to you or me, but if youre blind, thats everything, Carlin said.
Such innovations are evidence that humans, in many ways, are becoming cyborgs, from prosthetic limbs to artificial implants for ears and eyes.
WHICH BROUGHT
him to his larger point.
Todays society has been shaped through innovation, from the steam engine 200 years ago, mass production in the past century, and the digital age of today.
So whats next?
Carlin posits that pioneers such as Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, Inc., is already on his way to finding out.
In addition to electric cars, SpaceX flights and other advances in renewable fuels, Tesla is looking into advances in the human brain.
Tesla already has developed a chip that connects to the brains cortex, essentially allowing a person to communicate wirelessly with computers, machines, anything that can communicate with you through Bluetooth, Carlin said.
