What reasonable advance do you see happening?

[Bruce Pratt]

Past hundred

Antibiotics. Before penicillin, if you got a serious infection, you lost limb or life.

[Chuck Wintle]

Past hundred

Antibiotics. Before penicillin, if you got a serious infection, you lost limb or life.

it's not any different today...with the super bugs limbs and life are at risk.

[William Adams]

Unfortunately, a lot of things are running up against real world limits and hard physics.

- we’re burning 10 calories of petrochemical energy to get 1 calorie of food energy
- irrigation w/ incompletely desalinated saltwater is making increasingly large areas of farmland unusable in Russia and other parts of the world
- China has stopped exporting phosphorous and is now importing all that they can — it’s the limiting element of the earth’s crust when converting it into biomass
- satellite observation has shown the earth’s vegetation as having reached some limit and not increasing
- some time in the past century, through over-fishing and increasing shipping we tipped the point of having a greater tonnage of shipping in the oceans than fish biomass — commercial hunting was outlawed during my grandfather’s day, I worry that my grandchildren will see the banning of commercial fishing
- by using non-renewable resources we’re using up two and a half of the earth’s annual output

On the flip side, it should be possible to:

- power all of New York City using solar panels if all roof surfaces were covered in them and there were a way to store the excess daylight power
- at $200 a barrel, it should be feasible to make long-chain hydrocarbons for fuel and plastics using liquefaction of warm most CO2 laden air via solar power if only someone can solve the catalyst problem

[Larry Edgerton]

The next 100 years? I think we are going to see the stuff hit the fan. Can not possibly maintain our present course.

[David Ragan]

Is the Zombie Apocalypse idea getting traction now?

[Bruce Pratt]

it's not any different today...with the super bugs limbs and life are at risk.

Certainly an emerging problem, but not nearly the magnitude of the risk reduction seen since 1900. See http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4829a1.htm

[Harold Burrell]

If I told you my prediction for the next 100 yrs (or even 25, for that matter), this thread would turn all "religious"...and end up getting locked.

[Chuck Wintle]

If I told you my prediction for the next 100 yrs (or even 25, for that matter), this thread would turn all "religious"...and end up getting locked.

well now that you have my interest peaked can you at least give a hint?

[Art Mann]

What we need is a better gas can. Is that too much to ask? Not some plastic container with a plastic dispenser and built in plastic check valve. What the heck is the benefit of that? I bet that everyone that is cursed with one of those finds a way to disable the safety feature as soon as possible because these new gas cans are useless.

A better gas can will not require technological innovation. All it will take is for the government to stop creating rules that don't make any sense and don't improve anything. That change is probably a hundred years away.

[Prashun Patel]

Technologically, I'm confident the biggest thing that will happen in the next 20 years will be automated automobile transportation. The only reason it's not happening now is our false sense that we can drive better than a robot.

However, the most important advances need to happen in social design. Our definitions of tribes, religions, civics, and ethics have to evolve to some place less primitive.

[Chuck Wintle]

Technologically, I'm confident the biggest thing that will happen in the next 20 years will be automated automobile transportation. The only reason it's not happening now is our false sense that we can drive better than a robot.

However, the most important advances need to happen in social design. Our definitions of tribes, religions, civics, and ethics have to evolve to some place less primitive.

at least in certain parts of the globe.

[Mike Ontko]

...the biggest thing that will happen in the next 20 years will be automated automobile transportation. The only reason it's not happening now is our false sense that we can drive better than a robot.

...the most important advances need to happen in social design. Our definitions of tribes, religions, civics, and ethics have to evolve to some place less primitive.

I've been reading a lot about automomous vehicle technologies, and though we are sure to see more of those entering the mainstream in the coming 10 to 20 years, we're still probably a long way off from the kind of thing shown in the movie I Robot, with Will Smith. It seems logical that more and more mass transit systems would be put into place. But the biggest roadblocks to that effort are the overall costs of building a supporting infrastructure and technology, and taking profits (and to some degree control) away from the auto and oil industries.

I agree with the second point above too, but something bigger and deeper has to happen before that can take place. Hopefully that something isn't as catastrophic as many seem to be imagining.

[Peter Kelly]

Gene therapy will be the norm in the treatment of leukemia, myeloma, lymphoma and (hopefully) other forms of cancer. I think in 50 years, we'll look back at the current non-surgical methods of treatment with some shock and awe at how primitive those techniques were. Radiation and intensive chemo will mostly be a thing of the past.

[Stephen Tashiro]

What? Nobody has a forecast about the future of wood?

[Prashun Patel]

We're not as far off as you think. The main barrier is human reluctance to cede control. It's a myth that humans can do a better job than computers in this regard. The cars Google is developing actually have NO steering wheel. Only a kill button.

Just like human operated elevators became obsolete, cars will too. Planes already fly most of the trip by themselves. This way we'll be able to text, eat, and sleep all we want in our vehicles.