Good Call

I don't like Scott Adams' copyright maximalist stance, but the post below was a good call. It reminds me of that lab in Quebec which had (still does?) injected spider genes into goats and was getting basically spiderweb strength strands of milk to use as a super strong and durable material.

Muscle Car

from The Dilbert Blog by Scott_Adams

The following line of thought started with my observation of how efficient the human body is at converting food into energy. A marathon runner can eat a pork chop and run 26 miles. Your car can’t do that.

Then I thought about how scientists created a heart out of human cells grown in a lab. It’s a muscle that actually works. So how much of a leap is it to imagine vehicles powered by lab-grown muscles, with artificial digestion systems, powered by your leftovers from dinner? All it would take is a small electrical stimulation to make the muscle contract in time to pedal a generator attached to a motor.

We probably wouldn’t want to use human cells to create those muscle cars. Other creatures have more efficient muscles. Maybe a huge muscle made from an ant’s leg would be good. Those tiny bastards can lift many times their own weight. I want my car powered by giant ant muscles.

The great thing about a muscle car is that the more you use it, the stronger it gets from the exercise. The downside is that you’d have to keep the muscle warm enough so it didn’t freeze, and not so hot it died. But I think science could figure that out. Maybe the muscle would be part ant and part polar bear.

The artificial digestion system would be optimized for whatever food you have in your area. If you modeled it after a cow’s guts, it could run on anything from lawn clippings to licorice. You could stop at McDonalds and order a Big Mac for yourself and a milkshake for your car.

This feels somewhat inevitable to me.