Scientists Cannot Solve These 10 Mysteries...

Top 10 Unsolved Scientific Mysteries

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at the biggest mysteries scientists are still trying to solve.

#10: How Does the Environment Influence Genes?

Nature vs. Nurture is one of the biggest debates in modern science. It’s clear that everything from the way we look to the way we behave is governed both by our genetics and our environment, but exactly how these interactions happen remains deeply enigmatic. It wasn’t until a landmark study was published in 2020 that we even knew how genes determined a person’s height, which, it turns out, comes down to roughly 10,000 genes working in tandem. But far from being immutable, your genetics can be influenced by all kinds of things in your environment throughout your life, from diet to how stressed you are, and we’re a long way from understanding how, exactly, this works.

#9: Why Do We Sleep?

If you’re healthy, you do it every single day, and if you ever go too long without it, you’ll certainly feel the consequences. But you may be surprised to learn that scientists don’t actually know what sleep is for. We NEED sleep, that’s clear enough – but, why? And why do we have to spend a third of our lives doing it? Scientists believe it’s a way for the brain to keep house and recover from the day’s events, though how, exactly, sleep achieves this is still quite mysterious. There are many theories, but until we learn more about the human brain, or even brains in general, we might not be able to unravel this mystery.

#8: What is Ball Lightning?

This phenomenon is so weird that scientists aren’t even sure if it’s real despite being witnessed so widely. Spherical objects apparently made of pure light or electricity are reported in foul weather, literal balls of lightning flying through the air. Interestingly, scientists HAVE been able recreate things that resemble lightning balls in laboratories – but nobody knows whether they actually ARE creating ball lightning or not. And even if they are, it’s still unknown how those conditions are replicated in nature. There are dozens of different theories, many with a lot of scientific evidence backing them up, and many scientists are still investigating ball lightning today. But we just don’t know how it happens or what it really is.

#7: How Did Life on Earth Begin?

We’ll be talking more about the universe later, but one of the biggest mysteries facing our species is how, exactly, we got here. There are six chemical elements believed to be crucial for forming life: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. But how did they get to Earth, and why don’t they all seem to exist on the other planets in our solar system? We just don’t know for certain. The earliest evidence of life we’ve been able to find on Earth also dates back to roughly 3.7 billion years ago, which is certainly a long time, but Earth itself is over 4.5 billion years old. So, what triggered life to begin after so long without it?

#6: What’s the Oldest Possible Age for a Human?

This is an interesting one. We know what the average age for a human is, which depends on various factors and demographics, but what’s the absolute, upper limit on how long we can live? Well, the oldest verified human ever was Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who lived for over 122 years, and plenty of people have extraordinarily lived to be over 110. But as medicine continues to advance, are we going to be able to prolong human life even more, to unforeseen ages? This is definitely a possibility, and is why we just don’t know what the maximum age of a human is right now.

#5: Why is There More Matter Than Antimatter?

Called the “matter-antimatter asymmetry problem”, this is a big question in physics. We didn’t have a description of antimatter until the 1920s, but we know now that while regular, or Baryonic matter is made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, antimatter is made of anti-protons, neutrons, and positrons. Logically, it makes sense that there would be just as much antimatter as there is normal matter – but this doesn’t appear to be the case. Physicists are working hard on this problem, since it’s believed that the Big Bang should have created just as much antimatter. Some unknown force or phenomenon may be at work across the universe that prevents antimatter from existing.

#4: What Causes Alzheimer’s?

Though tens of millions of people are tragically affected by Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, we’re struggling not only to treat it but also to learn why it happens at all. There’s a hereditary element, and certain things are believed to be risk factors, but we’re not sure what actually causes the cognitive decline seen in the condition. Some studies have put forward theories, the most well-known of which is the “Amyloid Hypothesis”, but many more scientists and doctors dispute those studies and say they weren’t rigorous enough. And even if that theory is correct, it’s existed for decades and we still don’t understand the disease or how we might one day cure it.

#3: What is Dark Matter?

To return to the subject of “matter”, less than 5% of everything in the universe is normal matter. Of the remaining 95%, over a quarter of it is DARK matter, stranger even than the elusive antimatter. We don’t know what dark matter is, but we know it’s there because it interacts with gravity. Galaxies, for instance, don’t have enough matter to maintain their shapes gravitationally if you only consider NORMAL matter – therefore, some other type of matter must exist. It’s completely invisible to us, unable to reflect or emit light, and we have no real way right now of knowing what it is, how it works, or how it came to exist and be so abundant.

#2: What is Dark Energy?

If 5% of the universe is normal matter, and 27% is dark matter, the remaining two-thirds are the most mysterious substance – if it can be called a substance at all – in existence: dark energy. We know even less about dark energy than about dark matter, and we only know it exists in the first place because of the observable acceleration of cosmic expansion. The universe is still expanding, and expanding faster and faster, and dark energy is somehow related to this, expanding to fill the gaps in space as everything gets further and further apart. The universe is only going to get bigger, and dark energy is quite possibly to blame.

#1: Are We Alone in the Universe?

The universe is so incomprehensibly vast that it seems absurd that Earth is the only planet out there capable of hosting life. Scientists have found plenty of exoplanets that appear to be well-suited to it, but we still have no evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Statistically, it’s more likely than not that there ARE other intelligent species in the universe, but where are they? Why can’t we communicate with them? There may be many explanations for this – maybe there were intelligent lifeforms that died long ago, or maybe space is just too big to even send messages between planets. But the question of whether there’s anybody out there remains one of the biggest mysteries for our species.

Let us know in the comments which mystery you hope gets solved first.