One Hundred Eighty-Eight

I suspect that, at some point in the not-too-distant future, life forms will be capable of changing as quickly as the technologies created by humankind.  For example, the evolution of exceptionally efficient biological filters might take place to replace the already extraordinary, but all-too-fallible, filters that remove impurities from our blood. Perhaps these rapid evolutionary adjustments will require intervention by our technologies, but they may not be, in and of themselves, technological adaptations. Instead, they might simply be accelerated natural transformations, undertaken to adjust to the world in which we live. Might our lungs adjust to remove impurities from the air we breathe just as our livers remove  impurities from our blood? Self-healing heart valves. The ability to grow additional fingers or whole hands to accommodate new requirements in physical dexterity. Science fiction has, so frequently, anticipated radical change in the world. Perhaps we will have transcended science fiction when our own bodies repair and adapt to the high-speed changes mankind imposes on the world and on himself.