Longitude Prize 2014: a vote for the future of British science

Tonight's Horizon launches a new Longitude Prize to tackle the world's great problems

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You can't fault the ambition. While most programmes mark their milestones with celebrity cameos and self-congratulatory compilation tapes, Horizon is celebrating its 50th anniversary by setting out to secure the future of humanity.

Or rather, by inviting you to have a go. Tonight's edition introduces the Longitude Prize 2014, which will award £10m to anyone who can solve one of six challenges blighting human life – or threatening to extinguish it altogether.

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Holden Frith is The Week’s digital director. He also makes regular appearances on “The Week Unwrapped”, speaking about subjects as diverse as vaccine development and bionic bomb-sniffing locusts. He joined The Week in 2013, spending five years editing the magazine’s website. Before that, he was deputy digital editor at The Sunday Times. He has also been TheTimes.co.uk’s technology editor and the launch editor of Wired magazine’s UK website. Holden has worked in journalism for nearly two decades, having started his professional career while completing an English literature degree at Cambridge University. He followed that with a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago. A keen photographer, he also writes travel features whenever he gets the chance.