* "The use of proteins and other markers [will] permit the early detection and identification of cancer, hugely increasing the prospects of survival."

* "Young adults alive today will, on average, live to 120."

* "Eternal life may come within our reach once we understand enough about how our knowledge and mental processes work ... to duplicate that information -- and then [transfer it] into more robust machines."

* "Someone who is already alive will be the first person to make their permanent home off-Earth."

* "Within a generation ... we will be able to make self-replicating machines that ... absorb energy through solar cells, eat rock and use the energy and minerals to make copies of itself ... [as well as] toasters, refrigerators, and Lamborghinis."

Those are just five of the gee-whiz prognostications offered in response to the 10th Annual Edge Question, posed by John Brockman, editor of the science web site www.edge.org. This year, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Jared Diamond, Freeman Dyson and J. Craig Venter were among the 160 luminaries who in short, clear essays, tackled the question "What are you optimistic about?"

Forcing respondents to set aside the doom-and-gloom mindset that passes for sophistication, Brockman elicited answers that remind us that we are living in a Golden Age of discovery. The biologists, physicists and computer scientists he queried believe that the 20th-century breakthroughs that have enabled us to live longer, healthier and more comfortable lives may be dwarfed by the accomplishments on the near horizon.

Hold on there, the pessimist interrupts. What about global warming? Won't our cities be flooded as we're burned to a crisp? Nope. Edge respondents are convinced that help is on the way.

"The simplest idea uses the suspension of tiny harmless particles (less than one micron) at about 80,000 feet altitude ... to create a readily measurable shielding effect," says Gregory Benford, a physicist at the University of California-Irvine. This would dampen the sun's heat.

Others see a long-term fix in the sun's energy -- 7,000 to 10,000 times the amount we use today. The inventor and author Ray Kurzweil writes that capturing a tiny fraction of that sunlight "using extremely inexpensive, highly efficient, lightweight, nano engineered solar panels and ... nanotechnology-based fuel cells," will allow us to meet our energy needs without fossil fuels. Even better, many of these panels can be placed over our open-air parking lots, protecting our Lamborghinis (made by those self-replicating machines) from the elements.

It's not all pie in the sky. Though optimistic about our capacity to attenuate global warming, many respondents fear we lack the political will to act quickly. And yet even on this score, there's hope. However much they lament that the Internet has become a tool of perverse escapism, commentators see it as a boundary-busting tool of global communication.

More effectively than any other invention in human history, the World Wide Web links people all over the planet and, on a spiritual scale, drives home the message that we are all "connected," says Scott Sampson, the chief curator of the Utah Museum of Natural History. Global awareness is the first step toward solving global problems.

The Web, respondents argue, is also accelerating the pace of scientific discovery. "The internet distributes cutting edge scientific work much more widely and cheaply than ever before," observes Seth Lloyd, a quantum mechanical engineer at MIT. It allows researchers in Pakistan, England, South Africa and Brazil to work together and share findings in real time.

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