125 Questions We Still Don't Have Answers To

[Otori]

I thought maybe some of the more philosophical types might like chewing on some of these:

http://www.sciencemag.org/sciext/125th/

[sokapi]

Very interesting site. -bookmarked!

[Tarryk]

Bookmarked here as well, VERY cool stuff!

[Vallikat]

Nifty. *jumps on the bookmark bandwagon*

[Vallikat]

I started to take some time to look through this list today. I wasn't really sure where to begin, what I wanted to read about first. As I looked through the "top 25" 2 questions jumped out at me as being possibly interconnected.

1. How Much Can Human Life Span Be Extended?

and

2. Is an Effective HIV Vaccine Feasible?

I look at these two questions and I wonder one thing. Is it possible that we may never have the answer to the second question, if we don't stop messing with the first? It occurs to me that the earth can only support a finite number of people. Suppose it has to happen that the trade off for some of us living longer is that others of us have to be killed by disease?

Yet, if my hypothesis is correct and the scientists put all efforts into the HIV vaccine, stopping any effort to increase our lifespan, they will be in effect increasing our lifespan anyway by erradicating a deadly disease.

One way or the other there is one constant. The earth is only capable of supporting a finite number of people. So if we erradicate disease and we increase our longevity, how much longer before the earth reaches capacity?

[Otori]

See:

Will Malthus Continue to Be Wrong?

Predicted that the population should level off at about 10 billion around 2100.

[Decavolt]

There's nothing wrong with the world that a good Supernova wouldn't fix. Or for this thread, there's no unanswered question a Supernova wouldn't negate. Not that we really need one:

- Minimum amount of time until the Earth is destroyed by natural means (discounting total existence failure): 25 years
- Minimum amount of time until the Earth is destroyed by artificial means: 50 years

We're toast anyway kids. Enjoy it while it lasts

Check out the Top 10 Ways to Destroy the Earth.

By any means necessary, to render the Earth into a form in which it may no longer be considered a planet. Such forms include, but are most definitely not limited to: two or more planets; any number of smaller asteroids; a quantum singularity; a dust cloud.

To make the list, a method must actually work. That is, according to current scientific understanding, it must be possible for the Earth to actually be destroyed by this method, however improbable or impractical it may be.

I like a lot of the methods, although this is one's been a life motto of mine for years:

Method: Essentially, anything can be destroyed if you hit it hard enough. ANYTHING.

[Vallikat]

I found this last paragraph in the Malthus paper to be very interesting, and it seems to speak to my question as well as Decavolt's point:

And in an age of global television and relentless advertising, what will happen to patterns of consumption? The world clearly can't support 10 billion people living like Americans do today. Whether science--both the natural and social sciences--and technology can crank up efficiency and solve the problems we've created is perhaps the most critical question the world faces. Mustering the political will to make hard choices is, however, likely to be an even bigger challenge.

Putting this together with the "Top 10 Ways to Destroy the Earth" I conclude that we'll probably consume ourselves out of existance long before we see the destruction of the planet. Still the year 2100 is alarmingly close.

Maybe we'll see the error of our ways before then.

riiiiiiiiight.

[Chippel]

Not likly

Until then, cloth napkins and recycling to the rescue. *don't hurt me*

[Boinky]

Recycling cloth napkins. I do that by burning them. That's the correct method right.

On a universal scale at least - matter converts to energy & also back right? There is what there is & the rest is just changes.