The US government is researching how combat experience can be downloaded in to the heads of raw airforce recruits. Other researchers have already figured out how to operate machines simply by thinking about the action you require (useful if you’re physically disabled for instance). How long before you can download your life into another brain or download your consciousness into a machine? Trends like life-caching would seem to indicate that the former is starting to happen already but the latter is  a very long way off.

90% of medicines don’t work for 30% of people, so in the future we’ll see treatment programs and drugs tailor made for specific groups and even individuals. We’ll also see diets customised to specific groups of people and genetically based treatments. Fast forward to the year 2033. After supplying a sample of blood you receive an email from the supermarket telling you what you should and shouldn’t eat to extend your life by twenty years. This diet will not be totally unique because you’ll share certain characteristics with other people (for example, different ethnic groups have different food intolerances). In the ‘average’ groups such diets will be unnecessary, but for people with problematic DNA profiles treatments will be highly beneficial.

Western societies are sleep deprived and as a result people are becoming clumsy, stupid, unhappy and dead according to Dr Stanley Coren (author of The Sleep Thieves). Social observers have coined the term TATT Syndrome to describe people that are Tired All The Time. Whether you buy in to such phraseology the condition seems real enough and sleep is set to be one of the next big social and medical issues. The figures certainly speak for themselves. Back in 1900 Americans slept for an average of 9.0 hours every night. The figure is now 6.9 hours. In Australia there were 4 sleep clinics in 1985. The number is now 70. In the New York there is even a company called Metro Naps that sells sleep to stressed out city types (US $14 for 15 minutes).