麻豆传媒

A Mars colony

It鈥檚 all go. Stephen Hawking has declared that we should start colonising other planets as soon as possible, and last year billionaire venture capitalist Elon Musk announced plans to establish a Mars colony in the 2020s.

That鈥檚 possibly a little ambitious, says , an astrobiologist based at the University of Westminster, UK. Mars is a brutal and unforgiving environment. A quick land and return is one thing, but it鈥檚 quite another to set up a self-governing human colony largely independent in terms of food and energy, and 18 months鈥� travel time from Earth. 鈥淚鈥檇 hope for a colony within 50 years, but even that is probably verging on 1950s levels of credulous optimism,鈥� he says. So don鈥檛 bet your house.

Bookie鈥檚 odds: 33/1 A permanent Mars colony by 2027

Bookie鈥檚 odds are for the stated breakthrough to occur within 10 years, and were calculated by bookmaker PaddyPower

Non-Darwinian evolution

The giraffe stretches its neck to reach the most succulent treetop leaves. Over time, as it repeats the action, it acquires a longer neck 鈥� an advantageous adaptation the giraffe passes on to its offspring.

Such developments are often called Lamarckian evolution, after French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who developed a 鈥渢heory of inheritance of acquired characteristics鈥漚round 1801. Today鈥檚 mainstream evolutionary theory, based on Darwin鈥檚 later ideas of natural selection, says it doesn鈥檛 work like this. Adaptations arise through the accumulation of random genetic mutations that we pass on if we reproduce. Stretching our necks has no effect on the necks of later generations.

Not so fast. We have recently discovered that the environment and our behaviour may indeed influence our biochemical inheritance. Pollution, smoking, stress and diet can all cause some genes to be expressed and others to remain dormant in non-random ways. In some organisms, these changes seem to be 鈥渆辫颈驳别苍别迟颈肠鈥�, cascading down the generations. They might even speed up evolution purely by natural selection.

You can debate whether to call such effects Lamarckian evolution, says biologist of Wayne State University in Detroit, but for him, their existence is a closed book. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think that we have to wait until 2025 before most evolutionary biologists appreciate the role of epigenetics in evolution,鈥� he says.

of the City University of New York broadly agrees. There are probably multiple layers of inheritance, some genetic and some epigenetic, he says. 鈥淲hat remains to be seen is just how widespread and evolutionarily relevant the additional layers are compared with the genetic one.鈥� Bet against Darwin at your peril 鈥� but a flutter on Lamarck might be an advantageous adaptation to evolving circumstances say the bookies, too.

Bookie鈥檚 odds: 5/1 Lamarckian evolution confirmed

Proof that acupuncture works

Acupuncture is undoubtedly popular. But does sticking needles into your skin at designated points actually cure pain, or do people merely think it does? , a health psychologist at the University of Southampton, UK, is relatively confident. 鈥淚 would be willing to place a sizeable bet that acupuncture is better than a placebo pill for pain,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 would also bet that, in a properly designed and powered trial, acupuncture is better than so-called 鈥榮ham鈥� acupuncture for pain鈥� 鈥� where a stage-dagger needle prods the skin but doesn鈥檛 pierce it.

Such tests have yet to be done to everyone鈥檚 satisfaction. But they might not be persuasive enough on their own anyway. Acupuncturists engage strongly with their patients, showing empathy and interest that is likely to elicit positive mental and emotional responses. They also recommend lifestyle changes that could account for a reduction in pain. It鈥檚 hard to control for such a 鈥渟uper placebo鈥� effect, Bishop admits. So while the bookie鈥檚 odds on this one are relatively short, evidence that will convince them to pay out may be hard to find.

Bookie鈥檚 odds: 5/1 Conclusive proof that acupuncture works universally as a treatment for pain relief

Human clones

In the past few decades we have cloned cows, mice, chickens and, most famously, sheep: we have extracted the DNA from a living animal and inserted it into an egg with its nucleus removed, to make an identical copy of the animal. So are humans next?

Some argue human cloning could 鈥渞esurrect鈥� a lost child, or be a source of organs or tissue for someone with an incurable illness. Ethically speaking, it鈥檚 a minefield, but there are many technical hurdles, too. Cloning is hard to perfect and live births are elusive. Dolly was the first success in a batch of 277 attempts to clone a sheep that lived to adulthood. She mated and gave birth to lambs normally, but developed osteoarthritis and died from a lung condition relatively young, aged 6. That might just have been bad luck: other sheep cloned later from the same source lived to ripe old ages.

鈥淒olly was the first success in 277 attempts鈥� Subtleties with humans make things more complicated鈥�

Subtleties with humans make things more complicated. In primates, spindle proteins, structures vital for cell division, sit very close to the nucleus. These tend to get damaged when the original cell nucleus is extracted, diminishing the chance of cells dividing without catastrophic errors. of Newcastle University is one of only two researchers in the UK with a licence to clone human embryos. She says she鈥檚 not aware of any serious scientific, ethically approved programme working on human cloning. To her eyes, the bookie鈥檚 assessment seems rather optimistic. 鈥淎s a scientist, I can鈥檛 ever say never but I estimate the odds being close to zero.鈥�

Bookie鈥檚 odds: 10/1 A viable human clone by 2027

Psychedelics licensed as pharmaceuticals

The evidence is piling up: mind-altering drugs help people with stress disorders and depression, or those with a terminal illness. So how do you lock ravers up for taking ecstasy while simultaneously condoning its use in traumatised soldiers?

The dilemma has made it difficult to research substances such as MDMA, aka ecstasy, and psilocybin, the active ingredient of magic mushrooms. Getting hold of and storing the drugs requires expensive licences, secure storage facilities, not to say laborious access and accounting procedures. Still, things are only moving one way, says of Imperial College London, who last year conducted the first clinical trial of psilocybin as a treatment for depression. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 quite heavily odds on that a government somewhere will approve psilocybin as a therapeutic by 2025,鈥� says Carhart-Harris. 鈥淚f I could get evens, I鈥檇 put most of my savings on it.鈥�

Bookie鈥檚 odds: 14/1 All Class A drugs to be licensed for medical use in the UK

Commercial nuclear fusion

A huge doughnut-shaped reactor under construction in the south of France represents humanity鈥檚 best hope of taming the power of the sun. But there鈥檚 an old joke about nuclear fusion: it鈥檚 four decades away, and always has been. 鈥淔usion is a difficult business,鈥� says of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Germany.

ITER, the French project, isn鈥檛 exactly breeding confidence. The internationally funded 鈥渢okamak鈥� reactor is 11 years behind schedule, and is now due to start up properly in 2027. Despite its $20 billion price tag, it鈥檚 only a demonstration model, not generating enough power to be connected to the grid. Nuclear fusion as a significant energy source within 10 years seems a long shot.

Unless one of ITER鈥檚 rivals can strike gold. Klinger works on the billion-Euro Wendelstein 7-X 鈥渟tellarator鈥�, a doughnut with added twists and turns. Its plan is to achieve 30 minutes鈥� continuous operation in 2021, but it too is just a demonstration model. The immediate prospects of any of the numerous smaller fusion start-ups seems similarly doubtful. 鈥淭he so-called 鈥榓lternative schemes鈥� have no scientific basis to be faster than tokamak or stellarator,鈥� says Klinger.

For Klinger, the lack of progress has a simple explanation: lack of funding, over the past four decades to be precise. For this bet to come off, someone will need to punt a few billion.

Bookie鈥檚 odds: 20/1 Nuclear fusion power to be the predominant source for electricity worldwide

Perpetual motion machines

Roger Shawyer is not shy of making predictions for his invention, the EmDrive. 鈥淚f you are asking what is the probability of a commercial EmDrive by 2025, I can tell you with absolute certainty that it is 100 per cent,鈥� he says. His confidence comes from 鈥渒nowledge of existing commercial projects鈥�.

Many people would wager against that: they claim the EmDrive is nothing but a perpetual motion machine. It consists of a cone-shaped chamber where bouncing microwaves generate a small thrust that pushes the narrow end of the cone away from the wider end 鈥� movement from nothing according to the critics, in contravention of all known laws of physics.

A NASA evaluation of the EmDrive published last year did find a net force acting, albeit only around 1.2 millinewtons per kilowatt of electricity, far less than conventional electrically-driven thrusters can produce. One suggestion made in the report is that an as-yet unsubstantiated hidden process in quantum theory (see 鈥淧roof there鈥檚 no quantum weirdness鈥�) might offer an explanation.

That is somewhat reminiscent of the 鈥渓aw of conservation of mysteries鈥�: explaining one mystery by invoking another completely unproven phenomenon. John Baez, a mathematical physicist at the University of California, Riverside, is unconvinced: the idea the EmDrive can work as claimed is 鈥済raduate-level baloney鈥�, he says. That鈥檚 certainly the bookies鈥� take on perpetual motion machines.

Bookie鈥檚 odds: 5000/1 Construction of a perpetual motion machine

Proof there鈥檚 no quantum weirdness

Quantum theory is a bookie鈥檚 theory: it never tells you what鈥檚 going to happen, only what the odds are. That鈥檚 a bit of a downer for a theory that, mathematically at least, is meant to explain the fundamentals of our world, where things definitely happen and causes have definite effects, or so it seems.

There are various unsatisfactory explanations for quantum theory鈥檚 vagueness. The dominant 鈥淐openhagen鈥� interpretation, for example, says there is no meaningful physical reality until we make an observation or measurement. In the 鈥渕any worlds鈥� interpretation, by contrast, all possible states of reality actually do occur, and what we see is a manifestation of interference between these parallel universes.

An alternative is that there is a more concrete, physical explanation for quantum weirdness 鈥� some 鈥渉idden variable鈥� that we can鈥檛 yet see and that calls reality鈥檚 shots. Almost since quantum theory鈥檚 beginnings, a small band of physicists, notably Einstein and exiled American David Bohm, have championed this view, albeit with a notable lack of success so far.

Might we ever make such a breakthrough? of Birkbeck, University of London, who worked with Bohm, says we鈥檙e not there yet. 鈥淚 know of no hidden variable theory that provides a completely satisfactory account of quantum phenomena,鈥� he says. And the odds that might change any time soon? 鈥淚 cannot answer with a one-liner.鈥� We may yearn for a theory we understand a little better, but it seems we need to learn to live with it for now.

Bookie鈥檚 odds: 50/1 Proof of a 鈥渞ealistic鈥� interpretation of quantum theory

A better theory of gravity

We invented dark matter, an unseen substance that outweighs normal matter by more than four to one, to explain why gravity doesn鈥檛 work 鈥� why, for example, galaxies and galaxy clusters whirl around far faster than they would if there were only visible matter there.

Yet despite decades of searching, we have found no peep of the stuff. Perhaps our understanding of gravity is wrong instead?

Dark-matter sceptic Stacy McGaugh of Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, is wary of getting any bets to stick. 鈥淚鈥檝e been down this road before,鈥� he says. In 1999, he publicly wagered that close analysis of features in the cosmic microwave background, the radiation left over from the big bang, would disprove the then-standard model of dark matter. It did 鈥� then the model changed. 鈥淔ree parameters were pulled out of the bag, knobs were dialled, data were fitted,鈥� he says.

McGaugh has published various further tests of his ideas, but still no one has bitten. His latest wager is that he can predict the distribution of individual stars鈥� velocities within a dwarf galaxy 鈥渨ithout any reference to a fictitious dark matter component鈥�. But, he says, 鈥淭he trick is finding someone who will take the contrary bet, and actually stick to it.鈥�

Bookie鈥檚 odds: 66/1 Proof dark matter doesn鈥檛 exist

Alien contact

In Hollywood, aliens are all over the place: here to take over the planet, save us from ourselves, or just passing by.

In the real world, not so much. We have yet to get a convincing signal from extraterrestrials, despite several telescopes looking. The closest thing was the Wow! signal, spotted by Ohio State University鈥檚 Big Ear radio telescope in 1977. A continuous radio signal observed over 72 seconds, Wow! is still to be explained, although last year, Antonio Paris of St Petersburg College in Florida suggested it came from a comet.

That doesn鈥檛 deter Seth Shostak of the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute in California. SETI experiments are gaining in power and number, he says, and by 2030 we should be well set up to receive alien broadcasts. 鈥淏y that date, assuming that funding to do the work can be found, we鈥檒l have checked out roughly a million stellar systems for signals,鈥� he says. He is personally willing to stake only a cup of coffee on a discovery, though.

, a SETI researcher at the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade, is similarly sceptical in the short term. He puts the odds of detection at no more than 5 per cent by 2030 鈥� although 鈥渂y the end of the century, I would give the odds no less than 50 per cent 鈥� barring nuclear winter, pandemics or abuse of nanotechnology which could destroy civilisation on Earth,鈥� he says. So if we don鈥檛 get us, the aliens still might.

Bookie鈥檚 odds: 100/1 Verified communication between humans and intelligent aliens

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淥dds on鈥�