Are you proud of your chin?

You should be. In fact, give it an appreciative rub right now, or admire it in the mirror: That bony protuberance jutting out past your teeth is a trait that distinguishes you from the rest of the animal kingdom. Even your extinct hominin cousins — those enigmatic Neanderthals and Denisovans who strode bipedally like humans and even sometimes mated with them — never belonged to the chin club.

But why just us? One human who has deep thoughts on that mystery is Daniel Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard. It’s a question he loves to ponder in part because his students love to ponder it, too. When he poses it to them in class, he says, “it always gets them on the edge of their seat, even though it’s completely unimportant.”

Dr. Lieberman is one of 100 scientists to whom the writers and editors on The Times’s Science desk recently posed a query of their own: “What is a big unanswered question in your field?” Responses poured in from biochemists, quantum physicists, archaeologists, oceanographers, Nobel Prize-winning biologists, geoscientists, entomologists, you name it.

Scroll down and you can read the 100 questions they sent back — a list that demonstrates the fascinating range of the scientific mission and mind-set. Some questions aim at concrete, day-to-day mysteries (“How do ants work together to produce the collective behavior of colonies?” asks Deborah Gordon, a biologist). Others interrogate first principles: “What determines the laws of physics as they exist in our universe?” Katie Mack, an astrophysicist, wonders. Still others express an urgency about human problems that want solving — like “Can we make the wildlife trade sustainable?” and “Can the human aging process be safely reversed?”

And some, like Dr. Lieberman’s, express a pure curiosity for its own sake. Various hypotheses have tried to explain why chins might have helped our ancestors survive, he notes, but none really make sense. The only one left is sexual selection: Maybe chins made some hominins more attractive to the opposite sex, and the trait won out over time. But the theory is impossible to prove; testing it would entail “showing pictures of people without chins and asking if you would sleep with them,” which, Dr. Lieberman notes, is “a terrible experiment.”

In that regard, it’s one of the many big questions below that are most likely impossible to answer, at least not in our lifetimes. Still, we hope you’ll spend some time pondering them yourself. Imagine them, perhaps, as a road map for the future of science — charting long journeys of human exploration that will be well worth the trip, even if we never see the destination.

۱۰۰ Scientists. 100 Questions.
۱٫ Did time have a beginning, when our universe was very small?
Juan Maldacena, theoretical physicist, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University

۲٫ What preceded the Big Bang?
Adam Riess, astrophysicist, Johns Hopkins University

۳٫ How many dimensions does it take to describe the formation and evolution of our universe?
Andrea Ghez, astrophysicist, University of California, Los Angeles

۴٫ When and where did the cognitive capacities that made language, mathematics and complex societies possible first emerge?
Maxime Aubert, archaeologist and geochemist, Griffith University, Australia

۵٫ Why and how did the human brain expand so quickly during the ice age?
Sean B. Carroll, biologist, University of Maryland

۶٫ What is curiosity?
Victor Ambros, molecular biologist, UMass Chan Medical School

۷٫ How did the first Indigenous people enter the Americas?
Michael Waters, geoarchaeologist, Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University

۸٫ A million years ago, how did earlier human species colonize remote and previously uninhabited islands in Southeast Asia?
Adam Brumm, archaeologist, Griffith University, Australia

۹٫ Why does full writing — complete sentences that can make sense to readers out of context — appear so late in human history?
Olivier Morin, cognitive scientist, Institut Jean Nicod, Paris

۱۰٫ What is the form of human thought — words, pictures, something more abstract?
Evelina Fedorenko, neuroscientist, McGovern Institute for Brain Research

۱۱٫ Given how much A.I. is accomplishing with relatively simple neural networks, why is the human brain so complex?
Ed Lein, neurobiologist, Allen Institute

۱۲٫ How does the human brain construct meaning from language, when so much of what we understand is not expressed in the words?
Sharlene Newman, psychologist, University of Alabama

۱۳٫ What kind of information — about people, places and other dogs — can dogs acquire through smell?
Alexandra Horowitz, cognitive scientist, Dog Cognition Lab, Barnard College

۱۴٫ How do birds migrate with such energy efficiency?
David Lentink, engineer and biologist, University of Groningen, the Netherlands

۱۵٫ Why did birds survive the Cretaceous mass extinction while other dinosaurs went extinct?
Sushma Reddy, ornithologist, University of Minnesota

۱۶٫ Were the first dinosaurs warm-blooded, or did different groups evolve it as separate evolutionary events?
Thomas R. Holtz, Jr., paleontologist, University of Maryland

۱۷٫ How did some herbivorous dinosaurs grow to 100 feet long or more on an all-plant diet?
Mary Schweitzer, paleontologist, North Carolina State University

۱۸٫ How many undiscovered animal species live in the deep sea, and do they matter?
Lisa Levin, marine ecologist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego

۱۹٫ Why do so many marine organisms glow, including some that live in burrows?
Joseph Pawlik, marine biologist, University of North Carolina, Wilmington

۲۰٫ How did some animals evolve to be strictly nocturnal?
Sunday Ekesi, entomologist, International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology

۲۱٫ Why do we sleep?
Katalin Kariko, biochemist, University of Pennsylvania

۲۲٫ Which other animals dream, and how similar are their dreams to ours?
Benjamin Scott, neuroscientist, Boston University

۲۳٫ Why do animals that fly live longer?
Elinor Karlsson, vertebrate geneticist, UMass Chan Medical School and Broad Institute

۲۴٫ Can the human aging process be safely reversed?
Dr. Eric Topol, physician-scientist, Scripps Research Translational Institute

۲۵٫ Can we make the wildlife trade sustainable?
Jérôme Gippet, ecologist, University of Fribourg, Switzerland

۲۶٫ Will climate change increase or reduce the ocean’s biological productivity?
Daniel Sigman, geoscientist, Princeton University

۲۷٫ To what extent are the forests of North America a human-created landscape?
Cathy Whitlock, earth scientist, Montana State University

۲۸٫ How does the three-dimensional structure of a forest canopy create its own climate?
Nalini Nadkarni, biologist, University of Utah

۲۹٫ How does the spotted lanternfly find its preferred host, the tree of heaven?
Kelli Hoover, entomologist, Penn State University

۳۰٫ Because of erosion, almost no fossils from ancient alpine environments have survived. What unknown creatures dwelled there?
Kenneth Lacovara, paleontologist, Rowan University

۳۱٫ Why did the first members of our lineage start walking on two legs?
William Harcourt-Smith, paleoanthropologist, American Museum of Natural History

۳۲٫ Did Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens share their lives and cultures as well as their genes?
Rebecca Wragg Sykes, archaeologist, University of Cambridge and University of Liverpool, England

۳۳٫ What was life like for the Denisovans?
Jennifer Raff, anthropologist, University of Kansas

۳۴٫ Why did modern humans, and not other hominins, become so numerous and develop such complex culture and technology?
Svante Pääbo, geneticist, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

۳۵٫ Most animals, including humans, find social encounters more attractive than other activities. How does the social brain work?
Catherine Dulac, neuroscientist, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard University

۳۶٫ How do ants work together to produce the collective behavior of colonies?
Deborah Gordon, biologist, Stanford University

۳۷٫ Why are humans the only species with a chin?
Daniel Lieberman, evolutionary biologist, Harvard University

۳۸٫ When in our evolutionary history did the human pattern of slow childhood development emerge?
Carrie Mongle, paleoanthropologist, Stony Brook University

۳۹٫ How did the building blocks of life, like proteins and nucleic acid, first organize into a living cell?
Steve Brusatte, paleontologist, University of Edinburgh

۴۰٫ What is dark matter?
Ina Sarcevic, astrophysicist, University of Arizona

۴۱٫ How can we understand the nature of dark matter without detecting it on Earth?
Gurtina Besla, astrophysicist, University of Arizona

۴۲٫ Is dark energy — which is causing the expansion of our universe to accelerate — a constant? Or is it changing over time?
David Kaiser, physicist and historian of science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

۴۳٫ Are all atoms of the same element and isotope identical? Or is every atom in the universe unique?
Mark Raizen, physicist, University of Texas, Austin

۴۴٫ Why are neutrinos non-trinary?
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, physicist, University of New Hampshire

۴۵٫ How do we unify small-scale quantum physics with large-scale gravitational physics?
Jim Peebles, physicist, Princeton University

۴۶٫ Could we probe the interplay between quantum and gravitational physics in a laboratory setting?
Jun Ye, physicist, JILA, University of Colorado, Boulder

۴۷٫ What are the practical consequences of long-distance quantum entanglements between particles?
George Schatz, chemist, Northwestern University

۴۸٫ Do organisms use quantum effects, such as entanglement and superposition?
Christof Koch, neuroscientist, Allen Institute for Brain Science

۴۹٫ How did the earliest genetic materials replicate before there were enzymes?
Jack Szostak, chemist, Center for the Origins of Life, University of Chicago

۵۰٫ How did viruses originate?
Edward C. Holmes, virologist, University of Sydney

۵۱٫ When does a cell become destined to develop into cancer?
Dr. Kimryn Rathmell, physician-scientist, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital

۵۲٫ Can we catalog all the microbes that make us sick — including some that might be triggers of chronic disease?
Dr. Pardis Sabeti, computational geneticist, Harvard University

۵۳٫ Can we decode the language of microbiomes?
Jennifer Doudna, biochemist, University of California, Berkeley

۵۴٫ Will we ever decipher Linear A, Cypro-Minoan and other important ancient scripts?
Silvia Ferrara, philologist, University of Bologna, Italy

۵۵٫ Can we figure out which approaches are best for preserving biodiversity in different ecosystems?
Erika Zavaleta, ecologist, University of California, Santa Cruz

۵۶٫ Can we learn to predict how a work of art will look in the future based on the microscopic changes occurring inside it today?
Francesca Casadio, cultural heritage scientist, Getty Conservation Institute

۵۷٫ When we invent new materials, can we learn also to predict how they age, so we can preserve the things we make with them?
Andrew Davis, chemist, Library of Congress

۵۸٫ How do humans create genuinely new concepts — not just random variations or recombinations of old ideas?
Alison Gopnik, cognitive scientist, University of California, Berkeley

۵۹٫ How do the smallest low-mass dwarf galaxies create multiple generations of stars?
Deidre Hunter, astronomer

۶۰٫ Are deep mantle plumes the cause of important volcanic activity on Earth?
Gillian R. Foulger, geophysicist, Durham University, England

۶۱٫ What would be the global impact of a supervolcanic eruption in modern times?
Wendy Stovall, volcanologist, U.S. Geological Survey Volcano Hazards Program

۶۲٫ What underlying physics determines when and how earthquakes start and stop?
Vashan Wright, geophysicist, University of California, San Diego

۶۳٫ Can we identify any visible sign that a major earthquake is coming?
John Vidale, geophysicist, University of Southern California

۶۴٫ Venus and Earth are of similar size and are similarly close to the sun. Why are they so different?
Fran Bagenal, senior research scientist, University of Colorado, Boulder

۶۵٫ Can unlocking the mysteries of our sun reveal how stars create worlds?
Nour E. Rawafi, astrophysicist, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

۶۶٫ How many stars host planets like the Earth?
Heather Knutson, planetary scientist, California Institute of Technology

۶۷٫ Why has evolution given human females a relatively narrow “Goldilocks zone” for successful reproduction?
Binyam Mogessie, reproductive biologist, Yale University

۶۸٫ Where do endometriosis lesions come from, and why do only some women and girls develop them?
Linda Griffith, biological engineer, Center for Gynepathology Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

۶۹٫ How do children learn so much from so little?
Joshua Tenenbaum, computational cognitive neuroscientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

۷۰٫ Blue whales are the biggest animals ever to exist on Earth. Where are their babies born?
Helen Scales, marine biologist

۷۱٫ Can we learn how to locate the exact breeding sites of sand flies, in order to control the diseases they cause?
Daniel Masiga, biologist, International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology

۷۲٫ What biological mechanisms cause some hosts to be superspreaders of ticks and the diseases they carry?
Abel S. Biguezoton, health ecologist, International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology

۷۳٫ Can we build protein nanomachines that patrol our bodies to repair cellular damage?
David Baker, biochemist, University of Washington

۷۴٫ Most cancers are not genetic, so why do they occur?
Dr. Mehra Golshan, cancer surgeon, Yale School of Medicine

۷۵٫ Why does the immune system in some people, and not others, control cancers and viruses?
Dr. Sharon Lewin, infectious diseases physician, the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, University of Melbourne, Australia

۷۶٫ Will we learn how to use stem cells to grow new, healthy organs that can replace old or diseased ones?
Paul Knoepfler, cell biologist, University of California, Davis

۷۷٫ Is there a way to predict how humans will respond to newly developed drugs without having to perform clinical trials?
Dr. Don Ingber, biologist and engineer, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University

۷۸٫ Can we create virtual versions of human tissues and organs that truly mimic the ones in our bodies?
Robert Langer, biotechnologist and chemical engineer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

۷۹٫ What features of a virus’s genetic code might help predict whether it can infect humans, spread widely and cause severe disease?
Dr. Charles Chiu, microbiologist and infectious diseases physician, University of California, San Francisco

۸۰٫ Why do the viruses that cause colds and flu spread so much more easily in winter?
Linsey Marr, environmental engineer, Virginia Tech

۸۱٫ Chemical reactions have had a speed limit, described more than a century ago. Can we learn to surpass it?
Paul Dauenhauer, chemical engineer, University of Minnesota

۸۲٫ Will we ever understand consciousness in a way that could apply to nonliving entities?
Edward Wasserman, experimental psychologist, University of Iowa

۸۳٫ How can we learn to recognize — and communicate with — unconventional intelligences in cells, tissues and other unfamiliar substrates?
Michael Levin, developmental and synthetic biologist, Tufts University

۸۴٫ Can we learn what emotions animals are experiencing?
Tom Smulders, evolutionary neuroscientist, Newcastle University, England

۸۵٫ How can we give robots a great sense of touch?
Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, roboticist, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems

۸۶٫ How much does human taste — as opposed to other factors like food texture and smell — guide food selection and overeating?
Nirupa Chaudhari, physiologist, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

۸۷٫ When did hominids first begin to ferment foods, and what role did that invention play in human evolution?
Rob Dunn, biologist, North Carolina State University

۸۸٫ Who were the Sea Peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean and what was their role in the collapse of the late Bronze Age?
Eric H. Cline, archaeologist, George Washington University

۸۹٫ Did Nefertiti ever rule Ancient Egypt on her own as a sole pharaoh?
Alejandro Jiménez-Serrano, Egyptologist, University of Jaen, Spain

۹۰٫ How did the ancient Egyptians build the Great Pyramid?
Mark Lehner, archaeologist, Ancient Egypt Research Associates

۹۱٫ What will be the total financial cost of climate change?
Chris Gloninger, climate scientist, Woods Hole Group

۹۲٫ How sensitive are the world’s ice sheets to global warming, and what will this mean for global sea levels?
Sarah Aarons, geochemist, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University

۹۳٫ Can environmental sustainability be achieved under capitalism?
Luis Zambrano, biologist, National Autonomous University of Mexico

۹۴٫ Is humanity doomed by our nature to inequality and war?
Sarah Parcak, anthropologist, University of Alabama at Birmingham

۹۵٫ Can humans figure out how to survive the space radiation environment and settle off Earth?
Lindy Elkins-Tanton, planetary scientist, UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory

۹۶٫ How will the universe end?
Michael Turner, cosmologist, University of California, Los Angeles, and University of Chicago

۹۷٫ Why is there any matter at all in the universe?
Aaron Roodman, astrophysicist, Stanford University

۹۸٫ What determines the laws of physics as they exist in our universe?
Katie Mack, astrophysicist, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

۹۹٫ Are we alone in the universe?
Robert Hazen, staff scientist, Carnegie Institution for Science

۱۰۰٫ Can we ever know everything about the universe — or must some of its mysteries always remain beyond our reach?
Priyamvada Natarajan, astrophysicist, Yale University

K. R. Callaway, Stella Raine Chu, Carolyn Y. Johnson, Carl Zimmer, Katrina Miller, Amber Williams, Alan Burdick and Alexandra Sifferlin contributed reporting.

The post 100 Unanswered Questions About Ourselves, Our World and Our Universe appeared first on New York Times.

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