Dalton Conley

University Professor, NYU

Before long the gene for breast cancer may be associated with lower odds of contracting the disease thanks to the steps women with the now-dangerous alleles take to mitigate their risk. In the not-so-distant future, BRCA1 mutations may predict mastectomies, not breast cancer.

Mario Livio

Astrophysicist, Space Telescope Science Institute

Harvey's greatest achievement was the demonstration that the heart, arteries and veins were all part of one circulatory system, with the heart at its center. This replaced Galen's complex motion of many intertwined cycles.

Francesco Fiondella

Senior Communications Officer, The International Research Institute for Climate and Society

The Elqui River basin in Chile's Coquimbo region is one of the driest places on Earth. It receives only about 4 inches of rain each year, and most of it during one short rainy season. In some years, the region will get close to zero rainfall, while in others it will get five times the normal amount.

Wray Herbert

Author, 'On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind's Hard-Wired Habits'

We hire and train intelligence agents to weigh risks and make judgments, and most of us want to believe that these assessments are sound. But how rational are the individual men and women who are making the life-and-death decisions that influence national security?

Marc Zimmer

Chemistry professor, Connecticut College

The fluorescent eel protein can be used to measure bilirubin in human serum with an improved sensitivity over existing tests. Fluorescent proteins have been used to light up a myriad of laboratory experiments, but this would be the first clinical use of a fluorescent protein.

James Rollins

Author, 'The Eye of God: A Sigma Force Novel'

With today's easy access to technology and knowledge, DIY scientists are popping up all over the United States. The fringes of scientific exploration have shifted out of the white towers of university labs and into neighborhood garages and basements. But with this come risks.

Allen Frances

Professor Emeritus, Duke University

We already had a crisis in psychiatric diagnosis before DSM-5. It is a sure sign of excess that 25 percent of us qualify for a mental disorder and that 20 percent are on psychiatric medication.

Baba Brinkman

Rap artist, playwright

Confronted with the hyper-vigilant and often violent jealousy of generations of men protecting their genetic legacy, evolution predicts a psychological arms race between the sexes, producing ever more keen-eyed and suspicious men and ever more creatively deceptive women.

Amir Aczel

Researcher, Boston University

It seems strange that in India erotic statues can be seen in temples -- and accompanied by math! What is the magic square doing here? Why place together erotic statues with a mathematical puzzle? And why put both of these in a temple? How does religion sit with sex and with math?

Seth Shulman

Senior Staff Writer, Union of Concerned Scientists

Did you know that a law on the books in Louisiana right now explicitly forbids science teachers in the state's public schools from teaching evolution unless equal time is given to the Christian creation story?

Asoka Bandarage

Author, Sustainability and Well-Being : The Middle Path to Environment, Society and the Economy (Palgrave)

Indeed, is the world just one "great laboratory of life" and is nature to be reduced to its component parts and reintegrated and dominated through technology and the market as envisaged by the likes of Thomas Bacon and Rene Descartes?

Bella Ellwood-Clayton

Sexual Anthropologist, Author

Although it appears that we may be more physically primed for sexual pleasures when young, there is great scope for a sexual renaissance. Sexual prime, then, is the result of "sexiness." And that, can peak at any age.

Andrea Bonior

Psychologist, Professor, Author of The Friendship Fix

Legos used to be a blank slate. They were a bunch of blocks for constructing towers, roller coasters, dinosaurs, mustache combs; you name it. The sky was the limit.

Roberta B. Ness, M.D., M.P.H.

Dean, University of Texas School of Public Health

The insights achieved by the greatest minds of the past century were not mystical or unknowable. They stemmed from identifiable tools that you, too, can access.

Illah Nourbakhsh

Director of the CREATE Lab and Head of the Robotics Master's Program at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute

Whether we enter a robot utopia, a robot smog or somewhere in between, we will close the gap between robotically aware and organically alive. Do we create new life forms, as Jansens suggests of his progeny?

Sandra Park

Staff Attorney, ACLU Women’s Rights Project

Should companies be able to patent human genes? Today, the Supreme Court answered that profound question with a resounding NO. Seems like common sense, right?

Foz Meadows

Author, blogger, bipedal mammal with delusions of immortality and carbon-based lifeform extraordinaire.

If and when sentient AI becomes reality, will it, too, have the capacity to both anthropomorphize and dehumanize other beings in relation to itself? And if it did, would we view it as more or less human depending on which skill it used to refine its opinion of humanity?