The future is now, maybe.

All the news headlines right now are screaming about UK general elections, Brexit, another Trumpian disaster across the ocean... 

But let's just leave politics aside for a moment and take a stroll through the latest medical science news. (Links ahead, if you'd like to read more about any of the things mentioned.)

Wow.

In the massive, scary, dark shadow of political fuck ups and crumbling economic stability across the world, some amazing things are happening.

In some hospitals, burn victims and post operative patients are already entering VR worlds to ease their pain. Others use them to control their PTSD and anxiety symptoms. And it works! And in some training hospitals doctors are using VR sets to train junior surgeons and other specialist doctors with great results.

Then there's 3D printing - custom designed 3D printed drugs are a few years away - apparently pyramid shape is the best for absorption, but how about paracetamol for children in the shape of a tiny dinosaur or a racing car? Heavily customised casts for broken limbs, that are porous and so there's no sweating and itching, are also a reality right now. Come on, NHS.

And did you hear about the newest hand prosthetic that allows the wearer to feel what they touch?

Oh, and let's not forget the nanotechnology - there's these microscopic fish shaped meds delivery devices that literally swim in your blood stream to deliver specified doses of medications to the target area. Die, tumours.

Alzheimer might also be a thing of the past in a little while, as there's a new drug going through last stages of clinical trials, that eats protein deposits in the brain that are causing it, but doesn't damage healthy neurons and has no known side effects.

It kind of feels like we're on a cusp of either a scientific utopia with healthy, nano filled, VR savvy, happy Earth-men and Earth-women ready to conquer Mars and  the rest of the universe, or a dark dystopia where messy-haired dumb warlords send super soldiers to fight battles for them, over some offensive Tweets.

Nothing to do but wait...