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A bright future on the cards
11/04/2005 08:07 - (SA)
Tokyo - Robots doing house chores. A cure for HIV/Aids and Alzheimer's disease. Quake-predicting computers. An inhabited base on the moon.
That's what the not-so-distant future holds in store, according to Japanese researchers who responded to a recent Japanese government poll.
The Science and Education Ministry's survey of about 2 700 researchers and academics was conducted over several months through February to find out their predictions for future scientific and technological breakthroughs, the nationwide Asahi newspaper said on Saturday.
The results are expected to be incorporated into the country's plans to fund science projects.
The researchers' vision for the future is a bright one.
In 15 years, they think doctors will cure Aids patients of the HIV virus, which ranks among the world's top killer diseases. The virus attacks the immune system and has eluded researchers' efforts to thwart it with a vaccine.
By then, robots would be washing dishes and laundry in homes and express trains floating on a magnetic cushion at speeds of 500 kph would be common for intercity travel.
China has a high-speed magnetic levitating - or maglev - train travelling between Shanghai's airport and financial district, while Japan has an experimental maglev that hasn't been approved for commercial use because of high startup costs.
A cure for Alzheimer's disease could come 20 years from now. Technology to prevent cancers from metastasising - or spreading to other parts of the body - might also be available.
In 30 years or more, humans could land on the moon to build a base where astronauts would run experiments and exploit lunar resources to try for manned space flights to Mars, the poll found.
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