Science Fiction → Biggest breakthough in the next 100 years
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The past 100 years brought us the automobile, planes, air conditioning, vaccines against polio and malaria, antibiotics, nuclear energy and weapons, relativity, quantum physics, computers, and more.
What will be some of the breakthrough inventions of the next 100 years?
One that is on my list is a portable, efficient fusion reactor
Globally-deployed, driverless, solar-powered transportation. Seems inevitable.
Genetically-engineered humans. Some cultures smother girls, so the principle is already in place.
Organ regrowth technology. Some progress.
Technology to find life elsewhere in our solar system. Kind of close on this one.
Technology to detect life's signature in other star systems. Getting there.
Global-scale planetary cooling technology. We're kind of in a hurry for that one.
Global-scale desalination technology.
Global-scale rapid topsoil formation. Also in a hurry.
Near-100% waste recycling. Empty out those landfills.
Non-addictive, easily-tolerated, severe-pain medication. How much longer do I have to wait for this?!
A cure for baldness. The Dune movie had a bald emperor in the year 10,191 A.D. Not a good sign.
McSoy burgers people would actually be willing to eat (Earth could support about 10B vegetarians, billions more than with an omnivore diet).
World peace or new ways to kill each other. Kind of an either-or on this one. My money's on the latter.
Asteroid detection and deflection. The rest of the items on this list don't matter if we screw this one up.
Apple Pay. Check that one off.
Japanese researchers reported a few months ago that they had successfully transmitted power using microwaves, so it's close - as long as you don't get in the way of the microwave blast. Solar and wind power would go a long way toward solving energy needs, provided battery tech to store extra power improves. It's bizarre that oil companies keep fighting it, rather than leading new advances in energy tech to diversify their companies away from one source of revenue.
What's the cure for cancer you're referring to? I know there's research going on that can specifically target cancer cells without killing healthy cells, but I'm guessing the cancer cells will find a way to mutate to survive that too.
I need to pick up the pace of my writing to stay ahead of all the new tech. At one point I had several balding characters until I realized 2000 years ought to be enough to cure that. I do have a military man who shaves his head, but he doesn't live long enough to even warrant mentioning it.
Dirk
A release of the cure for cancer (since it's clearly already been invented)
I read an interesting article about cancer. It said that it's almost impossible to cure cancer because it occurs due to mutations in our DNA. Cancer is basically intertwined with evolution and adaption. Some of these mutations turn out to be beneficial, the vast majority do not. So, to cure cancer you'd have to stop evolution.
Personally, I always hope there'll be a keyboard for computers. It's the perfect interface for buggy software - something you can hit. Over and over. It never fixes the bug, but it sure feels good. Rumor has it that Sony had to build extra strong keyboards for use with Vista.
I could've sworn I read an article that talked about reprogramming DNA. I thought it referred to doing it in living organisms, but that does seem hopelessly complicated.
Someone I knew had a rare childhood cancer where tumors doubled in size every 24 hours. It was based around a defective gene that, once turned on, couldn't be stopped.
Personally, I always hope there'll be a keyboard for computers. It's the perfect interface for buggy software - something you can hit. Over and over. It never fixes the bug, but it sure feels good. Rumor has it that Sony had to build extra strong keyboards for use with Vista.
Good one. Keyboards are one of those great inventions that people are always trying to replace. Like building a better mousetrap. There is no contest typing on my keyboard versus my iPad.
A release of the cure for cancer (since it's clearly already been invented)
I read an interesting article about cancer. It said that it's almost impossible to cure cancer because it occurs due to mutations in our DNA. Cancer is basically intertwined with evolution and adaption. Some of these mutations turn out to be beneficial, the vast majority do not. So, to cure cancer you'd have to stop evolution.
Although, the immune system is also intertwined with our evolution. The immune system already fights cancer on a large scale. All cancer is are cells that do not die. The process of programmed cell death is called apoptosis, which is then divided into other mechanism for specific cells. There is also necrosis, which is trauma, or lack of blood which will also kill cancer, i.e. surgery. If you dig deep into immunology there are some interesting new methods to deliver nano bots that target specific proteins and certain molecules that which ride on cancer proteins. Proteins are one of the problems when the fold in the wrong way or are hijacked to do the dirty work to keep mutant cells alive.
With the human genome mapped, many misaligned proteins within the cells can be targeted, reconfigured and controlled from/ at the DNA level. Presently, I take a drug, Imuran, which acts at the DNA level to suppress my immune system to keep an autoimmune disease at bay. It is also a cancer drug.
Too many people die of cancer, not enough people die of CIDP... damn it! I need a cure!
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Science Fiction → Biggest breakthough in the next 100 years
