• The 2009 EDGE Question marks the 12th anniversary of EDGE, which began in December 1996 as an email to about 50 people. Today, EDGE.org has more than five million user sessions online and is one of the world’s most respected science and technology sites.

• This Will Change Everything contains an introduction by Daniel C. Dennett, the renowned Tufts University philosopher and bestselling author of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon.

“What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?” was the question John Brockman posed to 150 of the world’s sharpest minds. Their brilliant and eye-opening answers, gathered in This Will Change Everything, include:

Ian McEwan (author of Atonement) on the full flourishing of solar power; Steven Pinker (author of The Language Instinct) on the introduction of direct-to-consumer genomics; Richard Dawkins (author of The God Delusion) on cross-species breeding; Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of The Black Swan) on the end of precise knowledge; Chris Anderson (editor of Wired magazine, author of The Long Tail) on how the internet will revolutionize education; Irene Pepperberg (author of Alex & Me) on unlocking the secrets of the brain; Brian Eno (music producer) on the battle between hope and fear; J. Craig Venter (decoder of DNA) on rewriting DNA; & dozens more . . .