As we begin a new year, BBC Future has compiled 40 intriguing predictions made by scientists, politicians, journalists, bloggers and other assorted pundits in recent years about the shape of the world from 2013 to 2150.

They range from the serious to the fanciful, from the exciting to the petrifying.

And to get a gauge on how likely they are to happen, we asked the special bets department at British betting firm Ladbrokes to give us their odds on each prediction coming true.