Odds on: 10 science breakthroughs you can bet on

[rangerrebew]

 

10 May 2017
Odds on: 10 science breakthroughs you can bet on

 

By Michael Brooks

A Mars colony

It’s all go. Stephen Hawking has declared that we should start colonising other planets as soon as possible, and last year billionaire venture capitalist Elon Musk announced plans to establish a Mars colony in the 2020s.

That’s possibly a little ambitious, says Lewis Dartnell, an astrobiologist based at the University of Westminster, UK. Mars is a brutal and unforgiving environment. A quick land and return is one thing, but it’s quite another to set up a self-governing human colony largely independent in terms of food and energy, and 18 months’ travel time from Earth. “I’d hope for a colony within 50 years, but even that is probably verging on 1950s levels of credulous optimism,” he says. So don’t bet your house.

Bookie’s odds: 33/1 A permanent Mars colony by 2027

Bookie’s odds are for the stated breakthrough to occur within 10 years, and were calculated by bookmaker PaddyPower

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431250-500-odds-on-10-science-breakthroughs-you-can-bet-on/

[Polly Ticks]

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[bolobaby]

Yeah, posting pay content kind of sucks.

[Oceander]

Lamarckian evolution is the next one. 

[bolobaby]

CRISPR CAS9

I'm heavily invested.

[Frank Cannon]

I heard rumors that in the next ten years we will develop a voice activated search for the interwebs. Some even say that we will be able to use it anywhere with communication devices similar to those on Star Trek.

[Oceander]

I heard rumors that in the next ten years we will develop a voice activated search for the interwebs. Some even say that we will be able to use it anywhere with communication devices similar to those on Star Trek.

Keep dreaming!!

[Polly Ticks]

I'm looking forward to the medical advances from Star Trek ....