What does the next half-century have in store? The record of the past fifty years shows that almost anything could happen. In 1955, the structure of DNA had been known only two years, and the complete sequence of the human genome wasn't even a distant prospect. Indeed, there were fewer than half as many humans as there are now. Roomfuls of vacuum-tube equipment were needed for computing power dwarfed by objects we now carry in our pockets. There were no cell-phones, no integrated circuits and almost no television. Antibiotics and transistors were novelties, the cold war a reality, and quarks existed only in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Space exploration was a dream yet to be realized.

In the same era, a generation inspired by the possibilities of science had taken an old ‘westerns-in-space’ formula and begun to forge a new kind of literature that asked serious questions about how technological change might affect the way we think about ourselves and other people. This was the golden age of science fiction. The 1950s saw the publication of — to pick a few choice pebbles from the shore — Robert Heinlein's The Man Who Sold the Moon, Isaac Asimov's Foundation, Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination and Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz.

In 1999 and 2000, Nature ran Futures, a series of science-fiction vignettes on what the coming millennium had to offer. Publishers know that, job-seekers apart, readers' attention wanes as they penetrate further into a magazine. So it may only be our most astute or compulsive enthusiasts who have noticed over the past few weeks that Futures has returned, on the back page of each issue.

Nature is proud to present Futures as a forum for the best new science-fiction writing, and the pieces — commissioned from well-established and novice writers alike — explore some of the themes that might challenge us in the next half-century or so. Prepare to be amused, stimulated, even outraged, but know this: the future is sooner than you think.