Edge question for 2009: What will change everything? What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?

John Brockman's Edge question for 2009 is now out: What will change everything? What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?

There are 151 contributors, for a total of 107,000 words.

I have not even begun reading any of them yet, but this one sounded intriguing:

PAUL J. STEINHARDT
Physicist; Albert Einstein Professor of Science, Princeton University; Coauthor, Endless Universe

BLACK HOLES: THE ULTIMATE GAME-CHANGER?

And I definitely need to read this one:

Marti Hearst
Computer Scientist, UC Berkeley, School of Information; Author, Search User Interfaces

THE DECLINE OF TEXT

-- Jack Krupansky