Along with flying cars and underwater bubble cities, pills curing every ill are a staple of science fiction. But while aero-autobahns and submerged metropolises have not moved any closer to reality, medical science has advanced to the point where pills once considering miraculous may soon be a reality. Popular Science has a rundown of the top future pills that may one day change your life. Launch it here.
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Don't hold your breath, folks. Remember how Big Pharma is evil and charging you huge amounts of money for your drugs, and so Big Goverment -- either Obama or McCain, alas -- is going to take 'em on and force those prices down, down, down?
Think the suits will still be pouring billions into new miracle drugs after their profits have been confiscated, and with the promise that any future big profits will go straight into the government's pocket? Nope. Better to put the money into real estate. Think young biochemists and biotech entrepreneurs will still be eager to spend half their lives living in garages and eating mac 'n' cheese, pursuing crazy miracle research, without the promise that if they succeed they'll become millionaires? Ha ha. Genius doesn't work for the sheer pleasure of it any more than you or I do. If the possible rewards don't match up to the risk, there'll be no takers. Better to go into the law, or business.
The future will have to wait, it seems likely, for a more enlightened community that understands TANSTAAFL. But our cholesterol and blood pressure medicine will be lots cheaper. Isn't that nice!