If Albert Einstein were still alive today, he would have turned 127 earlier this week. Posthumous analysis of his brain found that the parietal operculum region was missing, leading to an inferior parietal lobe with 15% more volume than usual. The inferior parietal region is a part of the brain that underlies mathematical thought, visuospatial cognition, and imagery of movement. Einstein could envision complex physics problems holistically. Does this mean that we should use neural stem cells to artificially increase the size of parietal lobes in chimps to see what happens? Yes.

And what if Einstein could still be alive today, contributing to physics? He died at 76. 127 isn’t too much to ask for, only a few decades longer than people live when they’re really healthy. Perhaps we should all make a bigger point to fight aging?

In honor of Einstein, let’s check out Mangled Worlds Quantum Mechanics, a new interpretation of QM from transhumanist (and polymath professor at George Mason University) Robin Hanson. New Scientist writes an article on the topic, “Is Our Universe About to be Mangled?”, that slightly misses the point. George Dvorsky kindly clarifies.

In other news, Mike Treder goes on New York Public Radio today to talk about nanotech. A few years ago he was just a guy with experience managing radio stations. Now he’s a transhumanist extraordinaire, travelling around the world and going on radio shows with millions of listeners to warn them about the reality of nanotech that the establishment behind the National Nanotechnology Intiative won’t dare discuss in any detail. Amazing work, Mike.

Ramit Sethi is especially amusing today. His is one of the few non-science, non-tech blogs I read regularly.

I’m starting to build up a respectable collection of del.ic.ious links. Wanna see? If you’re on del.ic.ious, how about posting the link to your page in the comments? Heck, how about commenting more often in general?

And finally, let’s all pay a visit to Natasha, who is busy championing the artistic side of transhumanism.