4 . If you could travel in time, where would you go? Perhaps you would watch an original performance of a Shakespeare’s play in Elizabethan England? What about hanging out with Laozi in the Spring and Autumn Period? Or maybe you’d voyage far ahead of the present day to see what the future holds.

The possibility of time travel is indeed appealing. Stories exploring the subject have been around for hundreds of years. Perhaps the best known example is the science fiction novel The Time Machine, which was written by H. G. Wells and published in 1895 for the first time. It was adapted into at least two feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions, and a large number of comic book adaptations. It is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel using a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposefully and selectively. The term “time machine”, coined by Wells, is now universally used to refer to a vehicle transporting people into the far future.

But could time travel actually be possible? Some scientists say yes, in theory. They propose using cracks in time and space called “wormholes”, which could be used as shortcuts to other periods. Einstein’s theory of relativity allows time travel in extreme circumstances. And British physicist Stephen Hawking said you could travel into the future with a really fast spaceship—going at nearly the speed of light. Though building such a spaceship would of course be no simple task.

Even if you could travel into the past, there is something called the “grandfather paradox”. It asks what would happen if a time traveller were to go back in time and have his own grandfather killed for some reason, and therefore prevent himself from being born. If the time traveller wasn’t born, how would he travel back in time?

And would you really like to visit the future? In H. G. Wells’ book, the main character travels into distant time where he arrives at a beach and is attacked by giant crabs. He then voyages 30 million years into the future where the only living thing is a black object with tentacles (触角). If that’s what’s in store, maybe we are better just living in the present day after all.

5 . What do you plan to do when you retire? Keep working? Get more exercise? Or learn something new? You may put them on hold. There's a chance that, sooner or later, you might have to move further than you were thinking, as far as Mars.

On Thursday, National Geographic will show the first-ever Mars show home, giving earthlings (地球人)an idea of what their life could look like on the Red Planet. In the not-so-distant year of 2037, the igloo-shaped structure could be the home of your future.

It shows a house built using recycled spacecraft parts and Martian soil, called regolith, which has been microwaved into bricks. Some parts of the home are recognizable — a kitchen, a bedroom — but there are fundamental differences that are important to human survival.

As the Martian atmosphere is around one hundredth as thick as the Earth’s, people will need permanent (永久的) shelter from the sun；society will move largely indoors. Most buildings will be connected by underground passages and the houses won't have windows. The homes will have simulated solar lighting, or natural light that has been bent several times. Walls will need to be 10 to 12 feet thick, to protect people from dangerous rays (光线)that can pass through six feet of steel, and a double air-locked entrance to keep the home under proper pressure.

"We don’t think of our houses as things that keep us alive, but on Mars your house will be a survival centre, 99 says Stephen Petranek, author of How We’ll Live on Mars. This is not just the stuff of sci-fi. “10 to 20 years from now there will certainly be people on Mars,” Petranek says.

“We’ve had the technology for 30 years to land people on Mars, but we haven’t had the will, ”Petranek says. But two main factors have “completely swung public attitudes”.

The private companies’ participation has forced government agencies to speed up their game, and influential films such as Gravity and The Martian have caught society’s eye.

7 . If there is one thing I'm sure about, it is that in a hundred years from now we will still be reading newspapers. It is not that newspapers are a necessity. Even now some people get most of their news from television or radio. Many buy a paper only on Saturday or Sunday. But for most people, a newspaper has become a habit passed down from generation to generation.

The nature of what is news may change. What basically makes news is what affects our lives-and the big political stories, the coverage of the wars, earthquakes and other disasters, will continue much the same. I think there will be more coverage of scientific research, though. It's already happening in areas that may directly affect our lives, like genetic engineering. In the future, I think there will be more coverage of scientific explanations of why we feel as we do-as we develop a better understanding of how the brain operates and what our feelings really are.

It's quite possible that in the next century, newspapers will be transmitted electronically from the Fleet Street and printed out in our own home. In fact, I'm pretty sure that is how it will happen in the future. You will probably be able to choose from a menu, making up your own newspaper by picking out the things you want to read-say, sport and international news.

I think people have got it wrong when they talk about competition between the different media. They actually feed off each other. Some people once foresee that television would kill off newspapers, but that hasn't happened. What is read on the printed page lasts longer than pictures on a screen or sound lost in the air. And as for the Internet, it's never really pleasant to read something just on a screen.

Me in 10 Years

9 . What will our world be like in 2050?

There are two features in the growth of world population. First, the annual increase in population in 15 European countries, in the past few years, has been only 300,000. The United Nations estimates (估计)that by 2050, the population of European countries will decrease from the current 0.72 billion to 0.63 billion. Second, the population in developing countries is growing rapidly. By 2050，the population of Africa is expected to reach 1.8 billion, 0.9 billion more than its current population.

A recent research report published by the United Nations indicates that it is quite possible that the Earth's temperature is rising well above the previous estimate. The Antarctic ice sheet, which contains 90% of the world's ice, has lost significant mass in the past few years. The discovery comes as a surprise to scientists, who thought that the continent would gain ice this century because of increased snowfall in a warming climate. A research team from the University of Colorado used satellite data to estimate that the ice sheet will lose up to 48 cubic miles by 2050.

Africa's rivers face great change that will leave a quarter of the continent severely short of water by the middle of the century, according to a global warming study published today. Even modest decreases in rain in western Africa will see rivers lose as much as 80% of their water and a rise of what the scientists call "water refuges(难民)”. "In those areas where there is already a water shortage, it's going to have a destructive effect," the study says,.“If you're already walking 5 km to the nearest stream, by 2050,it's going to mean walking 30 km or moving your whole household closer to the water source."

10 . Experts say farmers will need to produce about 70 percent more food by the middle of the century. They predict that 9 billion people will need to be fed worldwide by 2050. The prediction means experts will need to develop more effective farming methods that cause less harm to the environment to produce more food. Experts say living things called bacteria could help achieve that goal. A bacterium is an organism.It is so small that it can be seen only with a microscope.

Researchers are finding extremely small organisms in the ground. One gram of soil contains between 100 million and one billion bacteria. Bacteria are taking part in a healthy ex- change with the plants that share the soil. Around plant roots, bacteria change chemicals in the air and soil into food for the plants. The bacteria include the material known as fungi(真菌). Some bacteria act as bodyguards. They produce anti-bodies and other chemicals to fight harmful bacteria.

Plants make sugar through a process called photosynthesis (光合作用).This happens when a plant receiving light changes water and carbon dioxide into food. Much of the sugar is pumped down through the roots. There, it is turned into sugar-based food and released into the soil. That is done to get bacteria to help the plants grow better. Some of the organisms turn chemicals in the air and soil into food that the plants can eat.

The biosciences company Novozymes already sells one kind of fungi. It has found a way to produce it in very large quantities and offer it to farmers as.a bio-pesticide (生物农药).A bio-pesticide protects crops from animals and bacteria. If so, farmers can harvest more crops.