The MIT Technology Review has released a list of technologies it believes will make the most impact over the next 12 months, including smarter cities, genetic fortune telling and “babel fish” earphones.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s magazine has published the annual list online in its March/April 2018 issue, and based its contents on the innovations that will shape the coming year.
“What Tech Review looks for when selecting the list is to identify what will have a profound effect on our lives,” said a statement from the institution, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Dueling neural networks. Artificial embryos. AI in the cloud. Welcome to our annual list of the 10 technology advances we think will shape the way we work and live now and for years to come.
“The recent launch of the SpaceX rocket Falcon Heavy is a good illustration of the entry of efficient and innovative private players into an arena long considered the preserve of national governments. But this does not mean that national competition in outer space is disappearing. If anything, it is actually accelerating in Asia. China’s growing space prowess is leading to a space race with India and Japan, which are beginning to pool their resources to better match Beijing.”
Using a type of graphene called Graphair, scientists from Australia have created a water filter that can make highly polluted seawater drinkable after just one pass.
The technology could be used to cheaply provide safe drinking water to regions of the world without access to it.
“Almost a third of the world’s population, some 2.1 billion people, don’t have clean and safe drinking water,” said lead author Dong Han Seo.
A new breakthrough will make DNA sequencing much more accurate and accessible, meaning it’s only a matter of time before your doctor starts doing it.
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Imagine you’re visiting your doctor for a checkup. Your doctor takes all the usual measurements like your height, weight, heart rate, and blood pressure, and then tells you she’s going to sequence your DNA.
Tongji University has announced what it says is a major breakthrough in the treatment of lung disease by repairing tissue through stem cell transplantation.
A University of Texas at Dallas graduate student, his advisor and industry collaborators believe they have addressed a long-standing problem troubling scientists and engineers for more than 35 years: How to prevent the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope from crashing into the surface of a material during imaging or lithography. Details of the group’s solution appeared in the January issue of the journal Review of Scientific Instruments, which is published by the American Institute of Physics. Scanning tunneling microscopes (STMs) operate in an ultra-high vacuum, bringing a fine-tipped p…
Light sails can later use space-dust braking Richard Bizley/Science Photo Library By James Romero Our galaxy may contain billions of habitable worlds that don’t host any life. Should we attempt to change that? Breakthrough Starshot is a project with ambitious aims to use such systems to send tiny, lightweight probes to Alpha Centauri. The goal is to take pictures of our nearest star, but these systems could also deliver much larger payloads into orbit around nearby stars, says Gros. Potential targets include the planetary system around TRAPPIST-1, a red dwarf star just 40 light years away…
Moreover, the launch accomplished SpaceX’s overarching goal of making access to space travel affordable, with a price tag of $90 million per launch, compared to roughly $500 million for the second most powerful rocket, the United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy. Now that the Falcon Heavy ’ s abilities have been demonstrated, it can be used to send satellites, payloads, and potentially tourists into space.
Days since the historic launch, this surreal image of a Tesla Roadster and Starman cruising away from Earth has become a symbol and foreshadowing of humanity’s exciting future as a space-faring species. After all, SpaceX’s massive transformative purpose is not simply to make space travel affordable, but rather to allows humans to become a multi-planetary species. Ultimately, Tuesday’s launch left many speechless because it brought us closer to accomplishing this aspirational goal.
Given the hefty cost of space exploration, it’s natural to wonder why we should explore space. Sure, space exploration and travel can also expand our technological abilities as a nation or even as a species. There have been many inventions that would not have occurred without space travel. But that’s not the real reason we explore space.
