Thread: What scientific discoveries is needed the most?

What scientific discoveries is in your opinion needed the most today?

"needed the most" can be anything from survival issues, progress or anything you consider the most important.

In my opinion its a new energy source and a cure for age. Energy source because pollution, waste and the like will make our planet uninhabitable soon if not fixed/stopped. And a cure to age because humans have way to short lifespan, if scientists want to discover new technology they need a way greater lifespan to do their research.

Your thoughts?

Considering the rate at which our population is growing, the two which come immediately to my mind are 1) a way to desalinate huge volumes of water for cheap and distribute to inland areas for drinking, and 2) a way to scrub CO2 from the atmosphere and use it to grow food sources en masse (which will help with climate change AND starvation).

The water problem can be solved at the same time as making more room.

In Antarctica.

We may as well face it: this planet is going to become one whole mess of humanity with tiny dots of green parks in it, where the last of wildlife will be carefully 'cared' for.

It seems inescapable that this will happen alot sooner than moving into space will happen.

We are bound to find some way of melting/harvesting all the fresh water covering the southern continent, freeing up alot more room to build on, and likely opening whole new fields of resources, including oil.

As global warming proceeds, more and more of northern Canada and Russia will become alot more habitable to humans, who will move northwards in greater concentrations. Some coastal areas are bound to be inundated, but all in all, there's bound to be alot more interior space gained.

I don't like this prediction, but this is what seems to be the likely course with a few educated guesstimates....is there any actual data that leads predictions by the nose very well?

Fusion Power
Flying Cars
Time dilation refridgerators

PS. Global warming has not been verified as a definite entity that exists because of a certain phenomena. No doubt CO2 is damaging the atmosphere yet the principle of the earth heating up has never actually been directly proven to be caused by CO2. It is heating up the planet yet is not solely responsible for the increase of temperature increase.

Needless to say again it is unverified as to whether or not it is the cause of climate change, although there is evidence pointing both ways of the argument.

I don't see the point in wasting money on global warming. Lets just move to the desert if things get too wet. I'm sure the ecosystems of the world will change if the caps melt completley enough so that old habitable areas are no longer habitable and that inhabitable areas are now habitable.

Fusion power and time dilation fridges would greatly help mankind moreso than stopping global warming. The cause of global warming is not using fusion power anyway, so theres you main motivators.

Besides, we know that big business aren't going to fund fusion research for reasons you know and love, yet the same companies are more than happy to promote the global wamring climate change theories on to you aren't they?

Please remember that there are scientists, and there are commercial scientists.

You wouldn't trust the media, so why trust these guys? Do the research yourself.

Britain still gets rain, snow and sun. So does the States, the polar caps have melted in the past and then solidified. They told us we'd be in an ice age by now in the 70s, and now its going to all melt.

Paradoxical fellas in white suits... you gotta love them.

Large scale Nuclear Fusion power.

Large scale cheap water desalination machines.

I would say that a way to counteract Global warming would probably be nice, there are lots of easier things we could do but unfortunately based on the way we (Human race) are lots of us just won't bother. - However this is largely irrelevant if Nuclear fusion power was done on a large scale.

I like the fully automatic cars run with sensors and stuff that just require you to input destination. If they can get perfected to work far better than the average human can then I can see speed limits being raised a lot (probably not in public places) as the fully automatic cars won't crash into each other. This would lead to people getting where they need to faster, and less deaths due to road accidents.

If this could be done with flying cars then even better, if done on mass then the amount of roads would decrease and could be used for Housing (combats overcrowding) and in some cases farmland (combats starvation)

Originally Posted by Quantime

Needless to say again it is unverified as to whether or not it is the cause of climate change, although there is evidence pointing both ways of the argument.

Well no. The evidence ALL points one way, but whatever. Posts like yours make me think that the scientific discovery needed most is a way to educate people about the truth of such basic things as evolution and climate change so we don't keep wasting our time repeating points a thousand times in threads like this or in social settings about an issue that has been understand relatively well for 3 generations.

Kudos to inow for answering quantime perfectly!

We take loads of Carbon out of the ground where it's been locked away since the coal age - when global temperatures cooled with the incredible expansion of global forests that had NO appreciable herbivores - and put it right the hell back into the atmosphere.

What's gonna happen???

Insert babbling greedy corporation spokesperson to deny it here: like Eddie Murphy said "Just keep saying it wasn't you. Eventually she'll agree: 'Maybe it wasn't you!'"

Thanks for the feedback inow.

Perhaps you could present your own evidence and experiemnts on global warming for me to analyse. Do you have any information on the climate of Earth prior to the 1800s? Seeing as all modern research on global warming is only based on 200 to the present year old evidence, opposed to the eons before

Also could you explain why the sun has increased in solar activity in the last 200 years and explain why the other planets in the solar system have heated up also along with the earth at the same time. Perhaps you and Al Gore would like to introduce Carbon tax to people living on Jupiter.

The question really isn't whether the planet is heating up. We know that it is. The question that Quantime addressed was specifically why the planet is heating up. The exact causes aren't specifically known, and not all of the contributors are known. It's hard to peg as the exact and most influential contributor to global warming, afaik, and to that effect there is evidence going both ways. There certainly is no evidence that the planet is cooling

Perpetual Motion Machine-though we are nowhere near this
Nuclear fusion-also nowhere near our lifetime

May I suggest a move of this global warming talk to an appropriate section? Quantime, all of the things you have said have been covered laboriously in other threads. May I suggest a short hand refutation of the majority of your questions with this link to two youtube bloggers, each with his own series on climate change and its detractors. I trust you will find it illuminating.

Greenman3610

Potholer54

Thanks for those links Kalster. I have no objection to the moving of the discussion. What discoveries do you think we need Kalster?

What would we use a Perpetual motion machine for heisenberg?

Energy sources. We need cheap energy. The moment we achieve that we have to start thinking about seriously getting rid of the use of fission elements, at least outlaw the possession of any amount above a certain level and the means to look for it from space. That means the complete worldwide outlawing of nuclear weapons. Then an easy and cheap way to manufacture food, like yeasts and such, that could replace agriculture in poor countries.

What would we use a Perpetual motion machine for heisenberg?

in simple words "cost free energy."

What about super charged mangents? In a dynamo sort of way would that not work? Or what about a certainty/uncertainty reactor?

Originally Posted by Heinsbergrelatz

What would we use a Perpetual motion machine for heisenberg?

in simple words "cost free energy."

Perpetual motion machines for powering electricity?

If you get any energy out of them they would lose kinetic energy?

A device to make politicians recognise, value and speak the truth.

Perpetual motion machines for powering electricity?

If you get any energy out of them they would lose kinetic energy?

you are indeed right, it would lose its energy in a form of heat,kinetic energy, and air resistance....etc


But try and consider the second law of thermodynamics

We need to perfect the genetic sciences to it's highest potential!!! Meaning that the reprogramming of our own DNA to stop aging and remain at the same state once our "prime" is reached must be done now!!!!! Also meaning that you and I shall live forever and ever, never forget the flaws or the body such as cancer cells will be obliterated!!! In the future we all know this is bound dammit if i was born 700 years into the future DAMN!

A big improvement in electrical energy storage density per unit volume and mass, recharge time, and long life and low-environmentally friendly production. Most of our problems with alternative energy would be solved with better storage capacity and distribution. The same with transportations systems--particularly cars. Invent a 500 pound battery that can get a small SUV 500 miles, recharge in ten minutes and last for ten years and they'd sell like hotcakes.

Improve science education.

We should not focus any of our scientific budgets on things like perpetual motion, which we can rule out as impossible given our current model of thermodynamics. We need to focus on genetics, cybernetics, antimatter power, quantum computing and atmospheric regulation/modification.

I think we should focus on properties of matter (superconductivity etc)

Origin of life research, genetics, biotech, ageing...