Will we ever have jetpacks?
To celebrate the launch of its new publication Mosaic the Wellcome Trust asked leading scientists, journalists and thinkers what they thought was the biggest question remaining in science. These are what they came up with.
How does the brain generate consciousness?
Mo Costandi, neuroscientist and writer.
Scientists might never be able to explain what consciousness is. But scientists have somewhere to start in determining how it comes about by looking at neurological patients whose injuries have changed their consciousness – for example, damage to some structures in the brainstem leaves people in a coma.
What are the limits of human life and physiology?
Kevin Fong, space medicine expert.
At the moment, astronauts that go up to the International Space Station are limited to spending six months in space at a time because of the effects of microgravity on the human body. But from March 2015 astronaut Scott Kelly is going to spend a year in orbit. And his twin, astronaut Mark Kelly, will be staying on Earth. Nasa hopes this unique twin study will give us some insight into how we can counteract the damaging effects of space on our bodies.
NASA / Via en.wikipedia.org
Can we replace damaged brain parts with computational devices?
Vaughan Bell, author.
We already have prosthetic limbs but "neural prostheses" to replace or bypass damaged brain tissue are a bit further away, because the brain is so complicated.
