IBM has just announced the invention of the PAN—Personal Area Network — a set of devices that use humans as conductors to relay detailed textual information from one person to another, simply by touch. It is a relatively small conceptual step from the PAN processor that relays a written message through one's body by a shake of the hand to a microcell sensory transmission system that relays ideas and sensations directly to and from the most powerful processor in the world, the human brain. Within a few decades, PAN-type research will transform the Internet into the Life Net, a comprehensive sensory environment for human habitation. Our minds will be afforded wireless direct sensory interfacing with other people and various databases. A dramatically enhanced version of what we now call virtual reality will become as common as air conditioning. Telephones, TVs, PCs, and other media will be replaced by wireless sensory feeds from and to communal microcells. People return to the Internet each day not from addiction, but because they can craft a new identity for themselves—any identity they choose. Or they can participate in experiences that are otherwise beyond their reach. Consider the impact of a technology affording a lifestyle in which you can go wherever you want to go and be whoever you want to be. Today's office and service workers have diminished physical capabilities, but are better educated. The Life Net will accelerate this trend. The need to survive while spending weeks, months, or years on the Net would be drastically reduced. Resource depletion resulting from overpopulation will cease to be a major issue when we are subsisting on 600 calories a day in a sensory reality where we can eat all we want. Our mansions will be built in our minds, and our future Ferrairs will be driven along the roads of our collective imaginations. Our minds will work and play in ways now beyond our {{U}}conception{{/U}}. Time constraints dissolve when we can communicate effortlessly anywhere in the world. Humans will require less sleep, since we will need only the time to file and store the information that our brains have collected, and not to rest physical bodies. The physical body will deteriorate to a state where a return to robust health would take months—if {{U}}possible{{/U}} at ail. These technologies will be inexpensive. Life Net participation will consume far fewer resources than an automobile, and reduce our housing and other needs. This will help the Life Net expand into Third World countries. The equipment required for the microcellular sensory transmission technology will be modular, redundant, and like that for the Internet, incrementally inexpensive. Countries with overcrowding and famine would embrace the Life Net. Their resources would be extended, and planners would likely program the system to minimize the population's reproductive drive. People will still have jobs. There will be lots of work to do. People will want to consume the newest experiential sensations. Some food will need to be prepared, and equipment manufactured. Government will be divided into Geographical, Physical and Communicative. The responsibilities of the geographic governments will be to defend land masses and keep order in the physical world as much as they do today. The responsibilities of the communicative governments will be to administer, regulate and defend cyberspace. The communicative government will also be responsible for maintaining the input-output microcells. Various online services are already functioning as a form of communicative government today—with their monthly fees as taxes. As they mature, these communicative governments will develop better defenses against cyberspace terrorism, which may come from large and potentially violent anti-technology cults. Some people will have to remain physically active and strong, because of the nature of their labor. Tools and equipment will always break down and need repair, and some operations and experiments will require a hands-on approach. Manufacturers, natural resource harvesters and explorers of all sorts are likely to be visitors to the Life Net, rather than residents. Manufacturing will be dramatically reduced, because few people will need cars, clothing, physical tools, or countless other physical objects. Natural resource harvesters will work in every field from farming to mining. Yet as with manufacturing, the need for harvesting will decrease. Fifty years from now, reality will consist of some wonderful things, some beautiful things, and some deeply frightening things.

Lichens may grow on the bark of a tree in a steaming tropical rain forest, on the bricks of big city buildings, on rocks in hot springs, on wind-swept mountaintops, and in the driest desserts. In the arctic, they provide the principal food for caribou, and they are one of the few plants that grow in Antarctica. They are pioneers, appearing in {{U}}barren{{/U}} rocky areas and starting the formation of soil in which mosses, then ferns, and then other plants can take root. Lichens are a partnership of two plants — fungi and algae. The lichen body is made up of a network of fungal strands. In the upper layers of these grow groups of algae. The two organisms live together to the benefit of both, a relationship known as symbiosis. The fungi provide support, absorb water, and shelter the tender algae from direct sunlight. The algae carry on photosynthesis and provide the fungi with food. The algae can live independently and are recognizable as a species that grows alone. The fungi, on the other hand, cannot live apart from their partners. They can be placed in known classes of fungi but are unlike any species that lives independently. So definite are the form, color, and characteristics of these double organisms that for hundreds of years, they were classified as one. More than 15,000 "species" were named. If these organisms are classified as separate species, it is difficult to fit them into the existing system of classification. But if they are classified separately, these species of fungi seem rather strange. Lichens are a {{U}}splendid{{/U}} example of the difficulties faced by taxonomists in classifying species.

语法与词汇Pessimistic procrastinators feel________and are afraid that their involvement in the task will prove this in the end

语法与词汇When living in England, people should be aware that English people are, by temperament, often ________ and may be unwilling to start a conversation

语法与词汇The most famous discovery there, King Tuts Tomb, included________ model boats that served a similar function to Senwosrets full-size ones

语法与词汇This bestselling novelist shares the story of how she escaped the curses of her past to make a future of her own, and at the same time she presents a refreshing meditation on the choices, charms, freedoms, and luck that affect us all

语法与词汇Greenwood Park, which has a lovely beer garden and pitches it as family friend, closes its doors on kids after 7 pm

语法与词汇The expense of moving a family to the frontier was too difficult for many, and the cost of tools, a wagon, a well, fencing, and of building the simplest house, might come to US$1,000 a formidable barrier

语法与词汇Veterans of World War IIreceived greater support from the general public than later wars

语法与词汇Psychologists advise that before making any major changes in their lives, they need to focus on ones goals

语法与词汇We didnt have time to read the whole novel, so the teacher prepared a ________for us

语法与词汇A discovery in New Jersey actually contributed to the early economic development of the U

语法与词汇I like singing

语法与词汇Address forms, as a susceptible linguistic phenomenon, have always been the object of sociolinguistic researches

语法与词汇This region may have as many as 5 million cases of AIDS in 2016 if the________ is not taken seriously

语法与词汇The project which will cost 34 million yuan designs to build more than 100 homes, restaurants and retail shops around the city

语法与词汇The mayor is ideologically consistent

语法与词汇Urban centers with strong teleconnectivity need fewer volunteers than remote areas with________ communication systems

语法与词汇Some urban residents retire to the country resort to enjoy the tranquility of the fields on weekends

语法与词汇Most fishes and many reptiles have ribs along most of the spine, but in mammals finding them only in the chest area