Brad Plumer at the Washington Post reports on a question I’ve wondered about: In the future, what are we going to smuggle? He collects info from Wikistrat’s crowdsourcing project to predict what will be desired contraband in 2050. I don’t agree with most of the list, but it is fun. Two entries:

“– Experimental health enhancers. The future could bring a whole host of new technologies, from ‘software to create pleasurable sensory overloads’ to ‘biotechnology allowing the creation of (truly) perfect babies,’ says Wikistrat. Many of those technologies may end up restricted. For instance, schools and communities may decide to bar cognition-enhancing drugs because they give certain students unfair advantages. In that case, they may thrive on the black market, much as steroids do.

– Rare species. Scientists are already warning that millions of species could become extinct by 2050 because of human activity and climate change. Some useful species that are already dying out — those mysteriously vanishing honeybees, perhaps? — could be a hot black market commodity by mid-century.”