Scientific Advances You'd Like to See in Your Lifetime

Problem with the cure for cancer, as already pointed out, is that we need a deeper understanding of genetic code. We've made several cures for HIV, but the damn virus keeps mutating.

Still, I would love to see both.

A warp drive. It does work in theory, since you aren't actually travelling the speed of light. For those of you that don't know, it basically stretches the space behind you and shortens the space in front of you, making everything else move faster.

Cold fusion. A self perpetuating energy source, yes please.

Time machine would be amazing, but I would like to know what the effects would be. For instance, is the timeline already set (as in, you going back in time actually caused the events), would it create alternate universes, Chaos Theory style, or would you create a paradox and collapse reality itself? O_o

Hoverboards.

Teleportation.

Full immersino VR. If you don't know what that is, it means full sensory immersion - you ARE in the program. Everything plays through your brain and appeals to your physical senses.

.... I think that about covers it. Oh, and scientifical isn't a word. Just saying.

^Hoverboards would probably be the most plausible ones they could make. We already have hovercraft.

Hovercrafts work on air propulsion while hoverboards would have to work on some antigravitational concept. Unless we could fit an incredibly powerful yet compact engine along with something to stabilise the whole thing, a gyroscope variation or whatever. So I don't think it would be as easy. /nerdrant

Xsoteria:

Hovercrafts work on air propulsion while hoverboards would have to work on some antigravitational concept. Unless we could fit an incredibly powerful yet compact engine along with something to stabilise the whole thing, a gyroscope variation or whatever. So I don't think it would be as easy. /nerdrant

A gyroscopic hoverboard, that'd be cool. Have you ever ridden on a segway? I haven't, but I'll get to at the Science Centre here in Perth. They have two.

^No, no I haven't, segway is still science fiction here in Serbia lol. I heard they made something similar on four wheels, much more advanced. Bah, I can't remember its name... It sounded pretty cool.

Well, silent hoovers for one thing. Maybe a substitute for fossil fuels? :)

^ We have that, we just can't use them properly. I'd like a way to properly harness the sun's energy - I seem to remember being told that, properly harnessed, one day of sunlight could power the entire world for a year.

Or something like that.

I'm telling you, if we could get cold fusion to work...

Cold fusion is interesting -it's a never-ending supply of power. It's self-generating. I'm not quite sure how that works, given the Law of Conservation of Energy, but that's the idea. We've even gotten it to work for short periods of time. The problem is that the isotope required has a sustainable half-life, naturally, of almost nil. We've managed to extend the half-life to 36 seconds I think. But, ultimately, it still dies.

If we can get it to work, though, it would be a self-perpetuating, cheap source of energy.

Cloned dinosaurs

The ability to harness solar energy from the sun.

rustynail:

The ability to harness solar energy from the sun.

We can do that already....

Well, they recently made a huge breakthrough with nuclear fusion, so that's good news.

Personally, I think the biggest thing we need is anti-gravity of some sort. Just think of how easy it would make space travel. Gone would be the days of strapping an airtight, heat-shielded plane to a giant rocket and lighting the fuse. We could just float straight up.

Nanotechnology is another big one, and it could help tremendously with cancer and (if I'm not mistaken) HIV/AIDS.

Also teleportation. I only regret that I won't be there to see the video of the first human teleportation when the test subject says "beam me up, Scotty."

Mythnam:

Well, they recently made a huge breakthrough with nuclear fusion, so that's good news.

Personally, I think the biggest thing we need is anti-gravity of some sort. Just think of how easy it would make space travel. Gone would be the days of strapping an airtight, heat-shielded plane to a giant rocket and lighting the fuse. We could just float straight up.

Nanotechnology is another big one, and it could help tremendously with cancer and (if I'm not mistaken) HIV/AIDS.

Also teleportation. I only regret that I won't be there to see the video of the first human teleportation when the test subject says "beam me up, Scotty."

I think teleportation is possible at a molecular level. Nanotechnology is already being used, also. Anti-gravity would be sweet.

sunset boulevard:

I want to see a cure for multiple sicknesses, like the common cold. =P

^ Is a virus. Can't cure virus' apparently.

A cure for Parkinson's.

As stupid as it sounds, a pill that stops you from aging or dying.

I want to see the terraformation of mars, and possibly other planets too. We've fucked this planet up enough, now it's time to screw up the other ones! ^^

And Sing:

I think teleportation is possible at a molecular level. Nanotechnology is already being used, also. Anti-gravity would be sweet.

Anti-gravity is highly unlikely, if not entirely impossible because, as Einstein explained, gravity is not so much a force as the shape of space itself so you can't switch off gravity unless you bend space the other way- which is fairly complicated to say the least.

I hope for breakthroughs in physics/cosmology, actually. The superstring theory seems to me much too whimsical, we can come up with something better or at least improve it. Whether we discover a cure for cancer or not, we're still going to die, but if we manage to unravel more about our universe -us, tiny specks of matter inhabiting a tiny planet, in a relatively small, peripheral stellar system in an otherwise regular galaxy out of the billions of galaxies in the observable universe- it's almost as though our death is as insignificant as we are.

I don't know about advances I want to see but I know the advances I want to be a part of. I've always had a feeling I could cure automimmune disease and I kinda promised my mum since she has it

As for all the talk of curing cancer first people are going to need to get to grip with the fact that "cancer" is a catch all term for any disease that is characterised by uncontrolled proliferation of cells. As there are many different forms of cancers and many different underlying causes we're going to need multiple cures.

Miss Liar Liar:

As stupid as it sounds, a pill that stops you from aging or dying.

There is a possibility that that could happen. They know why we age. I forget the specifics myself, but there's something that is constantly regenerating (I'm sur eit starts with a T - Telmorase or something) and every time it does, it's slightly shorter. If they could stop that happening, then we could stop ageing.

Steph Woods:

There is a possibility that that could happen. They know why we age. I forget the specifics myself, but there's something that is constantly regenerating (I'm sur eit starts with a T - Telmorase or something) and every time it does, it's slightly shorter. If they could stop that happening, then we could stop ageing.

Everytime your DNA replicates the telomeres, which are the ends of the chromosomes get shorter. The theory is that if we can find some way to prevent this then we can slow aging