A number of the world’s leading experts in science have spoken openly about their predictions for the next decade. With technology continuing to march swiftly on, space tourism, banks of sperm and eggs, and individual unravelled genomes for sale are just some of the predictions made for the next ten years.
Speaking of some of the major changes likely to be seen in relation to brain function and development, Blue Brain director Henry Markram said “By 2020, genetics and brain simulation will be giving us personalised prescriptions for marriage, lifestyle and healthcare.” The scientist who is attempting to reverse engineer the brain added “We won’t need a psychologist to tell us why we feel unhappy. All we’ll need to do is log into a simulation of our own brain, navigate around in this virtual copy and find out the origins of our quirks … Computers will look at a virtual copy of our brains and work out exactly what we need to stop our headaches, quiet the voices talking in our heads and climb out of the valley of depression to a world of colour and beauty.”
Meanwhile reproduction is thought to become a mix of early sterilisation and late child bearing. Inventor of the pill Carl Djerassi explained “At present, people tend to have children and then are sterilised later on in life. In the future, sterilisation will happen earlier on in a person’s life, with gametes, male and female, extracted and stored in a reproductive bank account.” Bioethicist Baroness Deech agreed, saying “Late child-bearing will be assisted by advances in reproductive technology, enabling young women to freeze their eggs in their twenties and postpone child-bearing until it is convenient.”
Elsewhere predictions were made that by 2020 rainforest deforestation will have stopped, bacteria will secrete diesel, further planets will have been discovered and space tourism will be common.
