25 ideas about changing our world-
Table of Contents
AI image generation
As AI continues to perform jobs just as well as humans, there’s a new industry to add to the list – the art world. Researchers at OpenAI have created software that can create images from just worded prompts.
Type in “dog in a cowboy hat singing in the rain” and you’ll get several completely original images that fit that description. You can even choose what art style your request will be returned in. However, this technology is not perfect and still has problems, like when we gave it bad instructions to design cartoon characters. Known as Dall-E, the technology is now in its second iteration and the team behind it plans to continue to develop it further. In the future, we could see this technology used to create art exhibitions, for companies to get quick, original illustrations, or of course to revolutionize the way we create memes on the internet.
Brain reading robots
The use of brain reading technology has improved significantly in recent years, it is no longer a sci-fi trope. One of the most interesting and practical uses we’ve seen so far comes from researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)Using a machine learning algorithm, a robotic arm, and a brain-computer interface, these researchers were able to create a means for tetraplegic patients (those who cannot move their upper or lower body) to interact with the world.
In the tests, the robotic arm would perform simple tasks such as moving around an obstacle. The algorithm would then interpret the signals from the brain using the EEG cap and automatically determine when the arm made a movement that the brain thought was incorrect, such as moving too close to an obstacle or moving too fast. Over time, the algorithm can then adapt to the individual’s preferences and brain signals. In the future, this could lead to brain-controlled wheelchairs or assistive machines for tetraplegic patients.
3D printed bones
3D printing is an industry that promises everything from cheap house construction to affordable, robust armor, but one of the most exciting uses for the technology is building 3D-printed bones. Ossiform specializes in medical 3D printing and creates patient-specific replacements for various bones from tricalcium phosphate – a material with similar properties to human bones. Using these 3D-printed bones is surprisingly easy. The hospital can take an MRI, which is then sent to Ossiform, which creates a 3D model of the patient-specific implant that is needed. The surgeon accepts the design and after it is printed, it can be used in surgery. What’s special about these 3D-printed bones is that by using calcium phosphate, the body rebuilds the implants into the vascularized bone. This means that they will allow full restoration of the function of the bone they are replacing. To achieve the best possible integration, the implants have a porous structure and have large pores and channels for cells to attach to and reform the bone.
Realistic holographs
Holograms have filled sci-fi books, movies, and culture for years, and even when they exist, they’re still difficult to achieve, especially on a large scale. However, a potential technology that could change this is holo bricks. Developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge and Disney Research, Holobricks are a way to stitch together multiple holograms to create a large, seamless 3D image. The problem with most holographs right now is the amount of data they need to create, especially when done on a large scale. A typical HD display takes about 3GB per second to generate a 2D image. A hologram of similar size and resolution would be close to 3 TB per second, which is a huge amount of data. To avoid this, holo bricks would provide individual parts of one large holographic image, greatly reducing the amount of data needed. This could eventually lead to the use of holograms in everyday consumer entertainment such as movies, games, and digital displays.
Clothes that hear
Wearable technology has come leaps and bounds over the years, adding new features to the accessories and clothing we wear every day. One promising route involves providing the ears with clothing, or at least the same capacity as the ear. Scientists from MIT have created a substance that can detect a heartbeat, clapping, or even very faint sounds. The team suggested it could be used as wearable technology for the blind, used in buildings to detect cracks or stress, or even woven into fishing nets to detect the sound of fish. Currently, the material used is thick and a work in progress, but they hope to roll it out for consumer use in the next few years.
Laboratory dairy products
You’ve heard of cultured “meat” and Wagyu steaks grew cell by cell in a lab, but what about other animal foods? A growing number of biotech companies around the world are researching laboratory dairy products, including milk, ice cream, cheese, and eggs. And many think they’ve cracked it. The dairy industry is not ecological, not even by a long shot. It’s responsible for 4 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, more than air and shipping combined, and there’s a growing demand for a greener splash to pour into our teacups and cereal bowls. Compared to meat, milk is not that difficult to make in a lab. Rather than growing it from stem cells, most researchers attempt to produce it through a fermentation process to produce the milk proteins whey and casein. Some products are already on the US market, from companies like Perfect Day, with ongoing work aimed at reproducing the mouthfeel and nutritional benefits of regular cow’s milk.In addition, scientists are working on lab-made mozzarella that melts perfectly on pizza, as well as other cheeses and ice cream.
Hydrogen planes
Carbon emissions are a big problem when it comes to commercial flights, but there is a potential solution that has received a lot of funding.
A £15 million British project has unveiled plans for a hydrogen-powered plane. This project is known as Fly Zero and is led by the Aerospace Technology Institute in partnership with the UK government.
The project came up with the concept of a medium-sized aircraft powered entirely by liquid hydrogen. It should have the capacity to fly roughly 279 passengers halfway around the world without a stopover.
Digital “twins” that monitor your health
In Star Trek, where many of our ideas about future technology originated, human beings can walk into a medical facility and have their entire body digitally scanned for signs of illness and injury. Doing this in real life, according to Q Bio’s creators, would improve health outcomes while reducing the burden on doctors.A US company has built a scanner that measures hundreds of biomarkers in about an hour, from hormone levels to liver fat deposits to markers of inflammation or any number of cancers. He intends to use this data to create a 3D digital avatar of the patient’s body – known as a digital twin – that can be tracked over time and updated with each new scan.
Virtual reality universes
After a dramatic name change, the company once known as Facebook has become Meta. This means that Zuckerberg and his vast team have moved into the metaverse – an embodied internet that is mostly accessed through virtual and augmented reality.As part of this move, we’ll start to see the Meta spend more time gearing up to access this new world – mostly in VR. Announced back in 2021, Meta is developing a new headset called ‘Project Cambria’.
Direct air capture
Through the process of photosynthesis, trees have remained one of the best ways to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere. However, the new technology could fulfill the same role as trees, absorbing carbon dioxide to a greater extent while taking up less land.
This technology is known as Direct Air Capture (DAC). It involves taking carbon dioxide from the air and either storing the CO2 in deep geological caverns underground or using it in combination with hydrogen to make synthetic fuels.
Green burials
Sustainable living is becoming a priority for individuals coping with the reality of the climate crisis, but what about environmentally friendly dying? Death tends to be a carbon-heavy process, the last sign of our ecological footprint. An average cremation is said to release, for example, 400 kg of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So what is the greener way?In Washington State, USA, you could be composted instead. The bodies are stored in chambers with bark, soil, straw and other compounds that promote natural decomposition. Within 30 days, your body is reduced to soil that can be returned to the garden or forest. Recompose, the company behind the process, claims it uses an eighth of the carbon dioxide from cremation.
Artificial eyes
Bionic eyes have been a mainstay of science fiction for decades, but now real-world research is starting to catch up with visionary storytellers. A number of technologies are coming to the market that restore sight to people with various types of visual impairment.In January 2021, Israeli surgeons implanted the world’s first artificial cornea in a bilaterally blind, 78-year-old man. When the bandages were removed, the patient could immediately read and recognize family members. The implant also fuses naturally with human tissue without being rejected by the recipient’s body.
An airport for drones and flying taxis
Our congested cities are in desperate need of a breather, and air, not roads, can provide relief. Plans for a different kind of transport hub – one for delivery drones and electric air taxis – are becoming a reality, with the city’s first air port receiving funding from the UK government.
It is being built in Coventry. The Hub will be a pilot scheme and hopefully a proof of concept for the company behind it. The idea is to remove the need for as many off-grid hydrogen powered vans and cars on our roads as possible and replace them with a clean alternative in the form of a new type of small aircraft with designs under development. Hyundai and Airbus among others.Infrastructure will be important. Organizations such as the Civil Aviation Authority are exploring the establishment of air corridors that could connect a city center with a local airport or distribution center.
Bricks accumulating energy
Scientists have found a way to store energy in the red bricks that are used to build houses.
Researchers led by Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, US, have developed a method that can turn a cheap and widely available building material into “smart bricks” that can store energy like batteries.
Smart watch powered by sweat
Engineers at the University of Glasgow have developed a new type of flexible supercapacitor that stores energy and replaces the electrolytes found in conventional batteries with sweat.
It can be fully charged with just 20 microliters of liquid and is robust enough to survive 4,000 cycles of the types of bends and bends it may encounter in use.
Self-healing “living concrete”
Scientists have developed what they call living concrete using sand, gel and bacteria.The researchers said this building material has a structural load-bearing function, is capable of self-healing and is more environmentally friendly than concrete – which is the second most consumed material on Earth after water.
Living robots
Tiny hybrid robots made using stem cells from frog embryos could one day be used to swim around human bodies to specific areas requiring medicine or to collect microplastics in the oceans.
Internet for everyone
It seems we can’t live without the internet (how else would you read sciencefocus.com?), but still only half the world’s population is connected. There are many reasons for this, including economic and social reasons, but for some, the internet is simply unavailable because they don’t have a connection.Google is slowly trying to solve the problem by using helium balloons to beam internet to inaccessible areas, while Facebook has abandoned plans to do the same with drones, meaning companies like Hiber are stealing the march.
Drown forest fires in sound
Forest fires could one day be tackled by drones that direct loud noises to the trees below. Since sound is made up of pressure waves, it can be used to disrupt the air surrounding the fire, essentially cutting off the supply of oxygen to the fuel. At the right frequency, the fire simply goes out, as scientists at George Mason University in Virginia recently showed with their sonic fire extinguisher. Bass frequencies seem to work best.
Car batteries that charge in 10 minutes
Rapid charging of electric cars is believed to be key to getting them up and running, so motorists can stop at a petrol station and fully charge their car in the time it takes them to grab a coffee and use the toilet – which doesn’t take longer than a normal break. .
But rapid charging of lithium-ion batteries can degrade the batteries, according to researchers at Penn State University in the US. This is because the flow of lithium particles, known as ions, from one electrode to another to charge the unit and keep the power ready for use does not occur smoothly during rapid charging at lower temperatures.
Artificial neurons on silicon chips
Scientists have found a way to attach artificial neurons to silicon chips, mimicking the neurons in our nervous system and copying their electrical properties.”Until now, neurons have been like black boxes, but we managed to open the black box and look inside,” said Professor Alain Nogaret of the University of Bath, who led the project.”Our work is paradigm-changing because it provides a robust method for reproducing the electrical properties of real neurons in minute detail.”But it’s wider because our neurons only need 140 nanowatts of power.” This is a billionth of the microprocessor power requirement used by other attempts to create synthetic neurons.
Floating farms
The UN predicts that there will be two billion more people in the world by 2050, creating a demand for 70 percent more food. By then, 80 percent of us will live in cities, and most of the food we eat in urban areas is imported. So farms anchored at sea or in inland lakes near cities would certainly shorten the food miles.But how would they work? A design by architect Javier Ponce of Forward Thinking Architecture shows a 24m-tall three-story structure with solar panels on top to provide power. The middle layer grows various types of vegetables on an area of 51,000 m2, not using soil but nutrients in liquid. These nutrients and plant matter would fall to the bottom layer to feed the fish that are kept in the enclosure.
Satellites, lasers and robots track global carbon
The technology improves understanding of the role of forests and oceans in climate change
Phones or artificial intelligence to modernize disaster early warnings
Sensor networks can predict earthquakes with greater accuracy
Deep-sea trenches look to store carbon
Ocean gorges offer space and lower costs for climate change mitigation projects
Leave a Reply