The seconds following the big bang have been described in elaborate
detail, but we will hopefully nail down exactly what happened at the
awesome moment itself
50th Anniversary Forecasts - 18 November 2006
The elucidation of dark matter should be the biggest breakthrough of the
next half-century, and many tools are already in place to detect it
50th Anniversary Forecasts - 18 November 2006
Biomedicine will be transformed when we discover the ability to to
produce unlimited supplies of transplantable human organs
50th Anniversary Forecasts - 18 November 2006
Fifty years is about the time it takes for breakthroughs to occur that
you cannot anticipate, nevertheless…
50th Anniversary Forecasts - 18 November 2006
On the experimental side, the construction of a working, general-purpose
quantum computer is what this emminent physicist hopes for
50th Anniversary Forecasts - 18 November 2006
Applied physics will be revolutionised by advances in metamaterials and
intricate synthetic structures, trancending natural materials
50th Anniversary Forecasts - 18 November 2006
The creator of the famous Madlebrot Set believes the fractal geometry of
roughness is set to expand rapidly, carving itself an important role in
science
50th Anniversary Forecasts - 18 November 2006
By 2056 the computational revolution will be recognised as a
transformation as significant as the industrial revolution
50th Anniversary Forecasts - 18 November 2006
Within 50 years it should be possible to provide mechanistic
explanations of the intricate self-regulating nature of the cell, the
basic unit of life
50th Anniversary Forecasts - 18 November 2006
How about injecting universal donor cells that naturally migrate to an
injury site, where tissue repair and regeneration can occur, all without
rejection?
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
To speculate on the next 50 years in cognitive neuroscience, look at
what has emerged over the last five years and multiply by 10
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
By 2056, weird astronomical observations may have led to radical new
fundamental physics, and people will be tampering with the human genome,
which should be fun
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
The depths of reality are only now being uncovered, but by 2056 the
springs of imagination, intuition, abstraction and even pre-cognition
are revealed
Breaking News - 15 November 2006
The future will no doubt promote advances molecular neurobiology and an
understanding of the systems related to cognition and behavior
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
Cognitive neuroscience will figure out how neural nets in the brain are
stitched together to produce the mental activities familiar in cognitive
psychology
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
A big breakthrough will be the development of an efficient and
convenient means of storing a young woman's ovarian tissue or eggs to be
used years later
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
We have been searching alien life for 50 years and found nothing, but in
the next half century we shall discover it
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
It is now possible to go online and see the world's lush forests and the
effects of deforestation - the breakthrough will come in how we act on
this information
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
Many theories predict that at least Mars and Europa are suitable hosts
for life within our solar system - it will be disappointing if our
increasingly sophisticated tools fail to find some
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
Brain imaging has revolutionised cognitive neuroscience and diagnostics
- in the future we will be able to see changes at the synaptic level
that underpin learning
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
Increasing use of "psychedelic" drugs may lead to a new field
of medicine in which spirituality is kindled to help us accept our
mortality without fear
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
The discovery of life elsewhere in the universe would be the most
significant breakthrough, not only for astrophysics, but also for
biology, philosophy and culture
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
The most significant breakthrough would be to have an inexhaustible
source of safe, green energy that is substantially cheaper than any
existing energy source
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
In the next 50 years, computer science needs to achieve a new
unification between the inside of the computer and the outside
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
Identifying gene variants that confer vulnerability to major psychiatric
disorders will result in the emergence of a new field, preventative
psychiatry
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
We have been promised humans on Mars for so long now that I almost
despair that this will be achieved by 2056, but we should at least have
brought back Martian samples
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
The most significant development in planetary exploration in the next 50
years will be the discovery of either extant or fossilised
extraterrestrial life forms on another solar system body
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
Between now and 2056 a coherent way of thinking about the world will
emerge, compatible with new discoveries such as quantum theory and
relativity
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
There could be no more significant advance than learning whether there
is life elsewhere in the universe - either way, a definitive answer
would be profound
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
Over the next 50 years, gravitational waves from the big bang will be
detected, first indirectly by the imprint they leave on the cosmic
microwave radiation and then directly
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
In a perfect world, in 50 years we will have found hundreds of beautiful
skeletons of those bipedal apes that were the ancestors of modern humans
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
In addition to a better understanding of brain activity during sexual
response and orgasm, we will hopefully come to the universal acceptance
that sexual health is a fundamental human right
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
The most significant breakthrough in hominid palaeobiology will be the
recognition that fossil vertebrates are a limited and non-renewable
resource
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
Even if the present cosmological picture remains unchallenged, there
will be numerous discoveries involving, for example, extra-solar planets
Breaking News - 16 November 2006
The major breakthrough in quantum mechanics will be to finally
understand why nature is such that we have a description that is so
enormously successful, yet so counterintuitive
Breaking News - 16 November 2006