I've been brooding on something for a while, hesitant to write about it. But it's a quiet Sunday afternoon, so here goes.

Recently our magazine (more specifically, one of its most popular bloggers) was criticized for an anti-female bias. What sparked the criticism was the blogger's post listing the year's most "shocking" quotations about the future. What shocked some readers was the fact that all the individuals quoted were male. The inference from this omission was that the blogger--and hence the World Future Society--was telling women to shut up.

Bigelow Aerospace has a dream to create hotels in space using inflatable, expandable modules. Awarded a $17.8 million contract by NASA this week, Bigelow, owned by Robert Bigelow of Budget Suites of America, plans to launch an inflatable module into space where it will remain for two years and serve as a storage module attached to the ISS.

Each year since 1985, the editors of THE FUTURIST have selected the most thought-provoking ideas and forecasts appearing in the magazine to go into our annual Outlook report. The forecasts are meant as conversation starters, not absolute predictions about the future. We hope that this report--covering developments in business and economics, demography, energy, the environment, health and medicine, resources, society and values, and technology--inspires you to tackle the challenges, and seize the opportunities, of the coming decade. Here are our top ten.