• Question: what do you think will be the next biggest scientific thing?

    Asked by midget3 to Emma, Jen, Joseph, Michael, Mona on 20 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Michael Taggart

      Michael Taggart answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      In terms of combatting disease, I think there will be a breakthrough in understanding some aspects of neuronal degeneration. In a wider sense, I hope there will be some breakthroughs in how our energy and food supplies are resourced or we might be in a tight spot in the not-too distant future.

    • Photo: Jen Gupta

      Jen Gupta answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      In astronomy the next big thing will probably be the discovery of a planet that is like the Earth and could support life. We’re getting close to it but we’re not quite there yet. The other big thing is that we are trying to observe the Epoch of Reionization – this is when the gas in the universe went from being neutral to being ionised (charged). This was because the first objects in the universe started emitting light so there are lots of telescopes being built that are trying to observe these first stars and galaxies when the universe “switched on”.

    • Photo: Emma Bennett

      Emma Bennett answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      GM food. American can grow it but this is still banned in the EU so the up coming food crisis (we need to double our food production by 2030) might mean that these bans are lifted. This will make European scientists lives much easier and could lead to some interesting discoveries a lot quicker than by just using normal breeding.

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