Cover Story: Journeys to the Future
Journeys to the Future
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| Foto: raviolidesign.de |
The blind can see again, diseases like malaria and Alzheimer’s can be cured and storms can be accurately forecast months in advance. It looks as though everything’s coming up roses according to the researchers who are quoted in the following. The only snag is that these achievements are still just visions. Eight researchers from various disciplines agreed to give free rein to their imagination and say what they think are the most important challenges facing their subject and research as a whole; which discoveries they dream of and which they fear.
What will become reality tomorrow, not for another ten years, maybe never? As ever in research, people will have to come to terms with disappointment in the same way they continue hoping for unexpected triumphs. However, all those surveyed were in no doubt that there are issues which just cannot wait much longer: Clean energies and effective measures against global warming come right at the top of nearly everyone’s list. And fear of cloning or other invasions of human integrity are also a common theme in many responses. Even if there are so many points of agreement, individual proclivities should not be ignored, as demonstrated by the researchers’ personal preferences when it comes to science fiction, for instance. Let yourself be surprised!
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