125 Unanswered Questions

[Max Cohen]

A really interesting article about how much we really don't know about the universe. The top 125 questions are listed, and there are essays devoted to the top 25 questions, which I listed below.

Pardon the gimmick account, I'm not on my computer.

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

-What Is the Universe Made Of?
-What is the Biological Basis of Consciousness?
-Why Do Humans Have So Few Genes?
-To What Extent Are Genetic Variation and Personal Health Linked?
-Can the Laws of Physics Be Unified?
-How Much Can Human Life Span Be Extended?
-What Controls Organ Regeneration?
-How Can a Skin Cell Become a Nerve Cell?
-How Does a Single Somatic Cell Become a Whole Plant?
-How Does Earth's Interior Work?
-Are We Alone in the Universe?
-How and Where Did Life on Earth Arise?
-What Determines Species Diversity?
-What Genetic Changes Made Us Uniquely Human?
-How Are Memories Stored and Retrieved?
-How Did Cooperative Behavior Evolve?
-How Will Big Pictures Emerge from a Sea of Biological Data?
-How Far Can We Push Chemical Self-Assembly?
-What Are the Limits of Conventional Computing?
-Can We Selectively Shut Off Immune Responses?
-Do Deeper Principles Underlie Quantum Uncertainty and Nonlocality?
-Is an Effective HIV Vaccine Feasible?
-How Hot Will the Greenhouse World Be?
-What Can Replace Cheap Oil -- and When?
-Will Malthus Continue to Be Wrong?

[BZ_Zorro]

Wow, great post.

[kitaristi0]

Good stuff. Those are some very interesting questions.

[[censored]]

Will Malthus continue to be wrong?

I didn't know who he was so I googled him. Am I right that his basic assertion was that as the world population increases, poverty and famine would also increase eventually being widespread? And that so far in human history we have seen the opposite, thus he so far is considered wrong?

Is that about right?

[mmbt0ne]

Well, you could've gone and read the essay on the linked site /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

But yeah, I think you pretty much got it. Here's the first 2 paragraphs from the discussion.

In 1798, a 32-year-old curate at a small parish church in Albury, England, published a sobering pamphlet entitled An Essay on the Principle of Population. As a grim rebuttal of the utopian philosophers of his day, Thomas Malthus argued that human populations will always tend to grow and, eventually, they will always be checked--either by foresight, such as birth control, or as a result of famine, war, or disease. Those speculations have inspired many a dire warning from environmentalists.

Since Malthus's time, world population has risen sixfold to more than 6 billion. Yet happily, apocalyptic collapses have mostly been prevented by the advent of cheap energy, the rise of science and technology, and the green revolution. Most demographers predict that by 2100, global population will level off at about 10 billion.

[SpearsBritney]

We haven't been wiped us out as a species or anything, but I would say his remarks aren't too far off. This seems pretty "widespread" to me:

3 billion of the world's people (one-half) live in 'poverty' (living on less than $2 per day). 1.3 billion people live in 'absolute' or 'extreme poverty' (living on less than $1 per day).

800 million people lack access to basic healthcare. 17 million people, including 11 million children, die every year from easily preventable diseases and malnutrition.

800 million people are hungry or malnourished. Nearly 160 million children are malnourished worldwide. 11 million people die every year from hunger and malnutrition.

2.4 billion people lack access to proper sanitation. 1.1 billion do not have safe drinking water. By 2025, at least 3.5 billion people or nearly 2/3rd's of the world's population will face water scarcity. More than 2.2 million people, mostly children, die each year from water related diseases.

275 million children never attend or complete primary school education. 870 million of the world's adults are illiterate.

3 million people die every year from HIV/AIDS. Approximately 25 million people have died from AIDS in the last 20 years. 70 million will die from AIDS by 2020. 40 million people are currently infected with HIV/AIDS, who will die within 10 years. 13 million children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS since the epidemic began, and the number is expected to double to 26 million by 2010.

Over 100 million people live in slums. An estimated 25 to 50 percent of urban inhabitants in poor, developing countries live in impoverished slums and squatter settlements.

The richest 1% of the world's people earned as much income as the bottom 57% (2.7 billion people). The top 5% of the world's people earn more income than the bottom 80%. The top 10% of the world's people earn as much income as the bottom 90%. The richest 16% of the world's population receives 84% of the world's annual income.

The wealth of the world's 7.1 million millionaires ($27 trillion) equals the total combined annual income of the entire planet. The combined wealth of the world's richest 300 individuals is equal to the total annual income of 45% of the world's population. The world's 3 wealthiest families have a combined wealth equal to the annual income of 600 million of the world's people. The wealthiest one-fifth of the world's population receive an average income that is 75 times greater than the poorest one-fifth.

Poor countries (which contain 4/5th's of the world's people) pay the rich countries an estimated nine times more in debt repayments than they receive in aid. Africa alone spends four times more on repaying its debts than it spends on health care. In 1997 the foreign debts of poor countries were more than $2 trillion and growing. The result is a debt of $400 for every person in the developing world - where average annual income in the very poorest countries is less than a dollar a day.

[KingMarc]

[ QUOTE ]
Will Malthus continue to be wrong?

I didn't know who he was so I googled him. Am I right that his basic assertion was that as the world population increases, poverty and famine would also increase eventually being widespread? And that so far in human history we have seen the opposite, thus he so far is considered wrong?

Is that about right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Pretty much. However parts can be said to be true. For example in Africa, where families that have twelve children but can only provide for one or two.

[tolbiny]

The article Ignores severl factors-


"homas Malthus argued that human populations will always tend to grow and, eventually, they will always be checked--either by foresight"

There have been massive efforts to check population control. China, for example, spent years limting the number of children each couple could have. In areas where birth control efforts have been uneffective or nonexistant (ie large sections of africa) poverty and disiese are pretty rampamt - essentially constant warfare in some areas kills Tens of thousands a year.

[KaneKungFu123]

You REALLY need to list different stats for Africa then the rest of the world. Africa drastically weighs things down.