Several related trends are converging in the domain of medical monitors that will ultimately have a profound impact on the study and practice of medicine.

The next five to ten years... [could] see a confirmation of the fundamental hypothesis of evolutionary psychology -- that many aspects of human cognition and emotion are evolutionary adaptations -- from various new techniques for assessing signs of selection in genomic variation within and between species. The recent discoveries of selective pressures on genes for the normal versions of genes for microcephaly, for a speech and language disorder, and for development of the auditory system will be, I suspect, the harbinger of a large number of naturally selected genes with effects on the mind.

Palaeontologists and taxonomists are thinking big. In 50 years we should have a good picture of the tree of life - including all living and extinct species. At the moment, we are tussling over the large-scale aspects of the tree: what are the closest relatives of dinosaurs, trilobites or ginkgos; where do slime moulds fit in the scheme of things? Once such questions have been answered then the finer twigs can be mapped.

The influenza virus has long thought to be very fragile. It does not appear to retain infectivity when exposed to the environment outside the body for more than a few days. Yet a recent paper in Journal of Virology demonstrates evidence of old influenza strains surviving in frozen Siberian lakes. High quality RNA sequences from viruses as old as decades, and perhaps a century, can be recovered from thawed ice in areas that are frequented by migratory birds twice per year.