NationStates Jolt Archive

What will be the first significant scientific achievement of the 21st century? Or what are any other achievements you think will happen before the end of this century?

Widely avaidable non-fossil fuel cars.

Free AIDS cure

I'm hoping we find a cure for stupidity. It's the one disease I really want the government to fund some research for.

I'm hoping we find a cure for stupidity. It's the one disease I really want the government to fund some research for.
There is only one. Cure for stupidity=
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:mp5:
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I think one discovery that I hope the world makes soon will come up, and if it does, it'll change the world perminantly. A reasonable defense against nuclear weapons. I have no idea what it will be, or even if we already have one (I doubt it), but when it comes, watch the nukes fly.

-R. S. of UC

I think the greatest will be a new revolutionary thrust system for aircraft and spacecraft. It will cause the price of civilian airflights finally cheap, plus will seriously cut the costs of current space flight. It will mean that we can travel to Mars or the moons of Jupiter and Saturn in a fraction of the current time.

The virtual prostitute. Safe and STD free. No need to worry about angry pimps who will beat you up and take your money. It's also safer for the girls too because they don't really exist. And because it's basically high tech masturbation it'll even be legal. No more worrying about picking up a cop by mistake. And since there's no need to even leave your house the probability of getting mugged is nonexistent.

Cloning seems like the most reasonable, cheap, and easiest advancement to get to. Although frequent cloning seems far away. Although that's what they said about men in space after Sputnik's launch....

Perhaps the moon colonization is the best choice.

Free AIDS cure
your kidding right? even if it was in the capitalist interest to make an aids vaccine, in no way would it be free

Men on Mars is the most futile, so government will probably try that first :D

your kidding right? even if it was in the capitalist interest to make an aids vaccine, in no way would it be free

I was kinda hoping actually

I think regular cloning of human organs is going to be the first technological leap of this century, although a colony on mars would be very interesting to live through. I voted cloning.

Colony on Mars is pointless really. We probably will do it, but for me it is still pointless.

Cure for cancer or AIDS or both. We will and when we do it will be likely the greatest acheivement listed their, considering it will save millions of lives if the cure can be mass-produced, which it will have to be if they want a cure.

Moon base is stupid. The cost of getting things on to the moon will be insanely high. A colony is impossible and a base is rather pointless.

Cloning is another good one, but not as important as a cure for cancer and AIDS.

Robots, we will likely have highly advanced robots, but not sentient ones, I hope...

People born on mars will be weaker but taller than earth people because of gravity so we might have a screwed up planet in the future but at least will be able to kick those healthy colonists butt in sport

This will finally free us from our dependance on oil (and our doom if it keeps up), and make space travel (and all other transportation) much faster and less expensive

I voted for a cure for cancer or AIDS.

A mission to Mars will probably occur in this century, but currently we are in no rush. While technically possible, there are many problems with going to Mars that simply causes the cost to go up. The higher the cost, the lower the will. There is no longer a cold war to give the "spare no cost" push as was the case with the landing on the Moon.

A settlement on the Moon currently has no practical value. In theory the Moon could be a great source of materials necessary to build the L5 colonies, but I don't see the will for that even in the science fiction literature. Babylon 5 is nice but even it gets blown up in the end. I don't expect the next L5 push for at least 50 years. And by that time moonbase launches might have to compete with the space elevator.

Cloning humans may not be a practical thing to do. I think a better avenue would be the use of natural or atritifially induced stem cells that can then morph into organs as necessary. The importance of stem cells in mamallian female fertility is only now being discovered and studied. Stem cells might not be for fetuses and placenta anymore ... and this would elininate the need to take non stem cell DNA and implant them in eggs.

Robots, I think, will be too much influenced by all the science fiction of the 20th century, from Dune to the Terminator. It was the same Asimov who created the rules of robotics who tore them down. AI Pets on the other hand might take over the hearts, if not the will of the world.

Colony on Mars is pointless really. We probably will do it, but for me it is still pointless.


Yes, because all know that there are no (http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/spinoff.html) divergent (http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html) benefits (http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinselect.html) from the space program, right?

The explorers among us deserve recognition. Pointless indeed.

I'm hoping that the 21st century will be one of biological advancements, just as the 20th was one of physics advancements.

Yes, because all know that there are no (http://vesuvius.jsc.nasa.gov/er/seh/spinoff.html) divergent (http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html) benefits (http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/spinselect.html) from the space program, right?

The explorers among us deserve recognition. Pointless indeed.
Of course there are benefits from developing technology that would function in those kind of conditions. But they still won't compare to the break through of having a cheap, easily produced cure for cancer and AIDS.

The problem is, in reality, you can't pick and choose what you'll discover, when and how.

Free AIDS cure

Actually, I saw in a seminar recently where researchers have speculated that you can use a mutated form of the AIDS virus itself to compete for resources and essentially cure AIDS. This is, of course, still highly theoretical, but the fun part is that the cure would theoretically be sexually transmittable. =)


I picked the cloning option, but I think the use will be for stem cell research, cell therapy, and eventual regrowth of organs - not for reprodcutive cloning or even necessarily cloning of whole organs.

We could put a person on Mars right now. The only problem would be getting him back before he died. Because it would take a while to get there and back, ya know.

I picked the cloning option, but I think the use will be for stem cell research, cell therapy, and eventual regrowth of organs - not for reprodcutive cloning or even necessarily cloning of whole organs.

I am a christian who supports stem cell research, but I think it will be difficult to get it going. Too many influential people are blocking the way. Better cars would be nice.

I am a christian who supports stem cell research, but I think it will be difficult to get it going. Too many influential people are blocking the way. Better cars would be nice.

Only here in the bass-ackwards US of A. The first team in Great Britain just got a license and a Korean team has actually managed to produce a stem cell line through a clone. And when all the people who usually come to the US to study start going elsewhere, you can expect to see some changes in policy.

Cloning. The British government already gave the go for it's scientists. For therapeutic cloning.

Let's see here...

Mars/the moon - the space race has slowed down an awful lot due to there being no USSR, and it will take some sort of enemy for the U.S. or EU to speed it back up. China obviously hasn't filled the bill recently. I don't believe that people will live regularly on the moon or Mars in 2100; if anything, the moon and Mars will be like Antarctica is today - a research station.

Cloning - the human genome is being cracked, but it will take a lot more work to have viable clones. I don't think they can pull it off in the next century; however, they will solve a lot of genetic disease mysteries, even if they can't cure them. They will also likely clone body parts before they clone full human beings; it's probably more practical to do so.

Robots - fully functional, artificially intelligent robots are a strong possibility. Someone will have to build a computer that not only passes the Turing test but can interact semi-normally as a member of society. Well, maybe not, but the idea is that humans would be able to communicate with robots by voice, not by typing, and that's pretty close.

Cancer/AIDS - these diseases will probably be cured or halted within the next 100 years...with AIDS, scientists' best bet may be to develop a drug that prevents the transmission of the disease. With cancer, science will come up with something. However, some new disease will take cancer's place.

Cloning - the human genome is being cracked, but it will take a lot more work to have viable clones. I don't think they can pull it off in the next century; however, they will solve a lot of genetic disease mysteries, even if they can't cure them. They will also likely clone body parts before they clone full human beings; it's probably more practical to do so.

The human genome project doesn't have to be finished before cloning can be carried out. In fact, a Korean team has already cloned a human embryo for the purpose of getting a stem cell line. So, if people stop being whiny about it, we'll probably have therapeutic cloning within the next century.
As for reproductive cloning, I hope that never happens, and doubt we'll see it in this century.

Cancer/AIDS - these diseases will probably be cured or halted within the next 100 years...with AIDS, scientists' best bet may be to develop a drug that prevents the transmission of the disease. With cancer, science will come up with something. However, some new disease will take cancer's place.

People make the mistake of thinking that there is going to be one single cure for cancer. Cancer is not one single disease. Every type of cancer is caused by a different mutation or signalling problem with the cell. So, while we may cure certain cancers, I doubt that there will ever be a cure for *all* cancer.

The human genome project doesn't have to be finished before cloning can be carried out. In fact, a Korean team has already cloned a human embryo for the purpose of getting a stem cell line. So, if people stop being whiny about it, we'll probably have therapeutic cloning within the next century.
As for reproductive cloning, I hope that never happens, and doubt we'll see it in this century.

The human genome project may not have to be completed for cloning to take place; however, in order to iron out any faults in the cloning process, it sure wouldn't hurt. Or at the very least, the human genome project would serve as something of a debugger for cloning. Recall that old age is locked in one's DNA. I am 21 years old; even if I had a clone born tomorrow, the clone may be newborn but its DNA is 21. Therefore, if I die of old age at 82, my clone dies of old age at 61. That's the kind of thing we must look to the human genome project for - to alter DNA. It's not going to be as easy as altering, say, computer code, but scientists could pull it off.

People make the mistake of thinking that there is going to be one single cure for cancer. Cancer is not one single disease. Every type of cancer is caused by a different mutation or signalling problem with the cell. So, while we may cure certain cancers, I doubt that there will ever be a cure for *all* cancer.

Not all cancer is the same by any means, but I imagine that most cancers are at least pretty similar, potentially similar enough to require only small variations on the same cure. Therefore, a cure for one type of cancer may be only one piece of the puzzle, but that's a hell of a starting point.

What will be the first significant scientific achievement of the 21st century? Or what are any other achievements you think will happen before the end of this century?

The Orgasmatron. :)