The sultan of 20th century science fiction, Arthur C Clarke, said that the only way to discover the limits of the possible is to venture beyond into the impossible. At the start of the new millennium, advances in scientific research and technology have so completely overtaken our lives that it has become impossible to fathom what else we might see and experience in our own lifetimes.
Incredible journeys now extend beyond mere geography; biologically, we hove jouneyed for inside our own bodies. Biotechnology has undergone a complete transformation -from a dull, laboratory science to a vibrant and pioneering branch of science. Some of the newly evolved bio-techniques like in vitro fertilisation and genetic engineering, exotransplantation and cloning seem straight out of bizarre science fiction and hold out unimaginable future possiblities. In Japan, scientists have now 'constructed' spermatozoa in a laboratory test-tube, the draft map of the human genome was completed
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