What Will Humans Look Like in 100,000 Years? Here's a Guess
Here's how one researcher thinks we'll look in 100,000 years. He's wrong.
June 10, 2013— -- Forbes magazine has introduced us to an artist's rendering of how the human face will look in 20,000; 60,000; and 100,000 years. Basically, according to artist/researcher Nickolay Lamm and a computational geneticist, humans will someday resemble super kawaii anime characters. Or aliens. Or, as my colleague Cristina saw it, like freaky-ass sugar glider hybrids.
See, according to Lamm, the human face will evolve over tens of thousands of years to have big, intense eyes, larger nostrils to facilitate breathing on other planets, and a big ol' head to contain our giant, sexy, super-powered brains. We'll also develop more pigmented skin to help shield us from UV rays.
That last point is worth highlighting because humans already have developed varying degrees of pigmentation and melanin production, in part to protect us from exposure to the sun.
Also worth highlighting? The report's examples of a "typical-looking" man and woman both happen to have light brown hair, light-to-olive complexions, and hazel eyes -- this despite the reality that, today, most people on Earth are Asian or of Asian descent, with the bulk of those belonging to the different ethnic groups residing in or emigrating from East Asia. In fact, when the Wikipedia community set about finding an image for their entry on "Human," they took into account the skin color, ethnicity, race, and socio-economic background of the average human being, finally settling on an image of a man and a woman from Thailand's indigenous Akha people... and, if you look reeeeaaaal close, you'll notice they don't look very much like Lamm's examples of a typical dude and dudette.
On a national level, Census results show that non-white Americans -- biracial, multi-racial, and otherwise -- will soon form the majority in the U.S., with "Asians" taking the lead as the country's fastest growing racial group as Latinos/Hispanics are now categorized as an ethnic group, and not a race.
So, remember: As we all slowly evolve into terribly creepy, yet highly collectible Bylthe dolls with voluptuous mega-brains, we're also going to look a little different than, say, an all-melon head reiminaging of the cast of Friends.