Scientific American has a great article entitled Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2020, and I've got to share it.
- Microneedles Could Enable Painless Injections and Blood Draws - This is right out of Star Trek. A hypospray. Just like communicators became cell phones and the PADD became an iPad, more Trek Tech is becoming reality.
- Sun-Powered Chemistry Can Turn Carbon Dioxide into Common Materials - Photocatalysts. So interesting. Carbon dioxide can be turned into necessary chemicals such as formaldehyde, methanol, or formic acid for use in disinfectants, adhesives, or plywood.
- Virtual Patients Could Revolutionize Medicine - This one is talking about using a virtual person for drug trials. Perhaps someday using people as test subjects will seem barbaric.
- Spatial Computing Could Be the Next Big Thing - Spatial computing? Yeah, that term threw me at first too. Never heard of it. Turns out, it's about having computers track the exact location of items in a small space. The article explains more, but it could help inventory, robo-vacuums, or a person in a wheelchair navigate their home.
- Digital Medicine Can Diagnose and Treat What Ails You - Diagnostic apps. It seems odd, a doctor's prescription to download an iPhone app. But an app could connect to your glucose sensor, or act as a mental health aid. I've even recently heard about an app which can detect COVID-19 accurately by the specific sound of a cough. Granted, that's only useful if someone is symptomatic, but it's amazing.
- Electric Aviation Could Be Closer Than You Think - This isn't pilotless flight. It's flight without gasoline or jet fuel. Electric cars have been around for a bit, but what about electric aircraft? They'd be quieter, and save a ton in emissions. It's a hopeful news story.
- Low-Carbon Cement Can Help Combat Climate Change - I've heard for a while that concrete production is a major carbon emitter. Eight percent is a serious chunk. Having concrete which traps carbon rather than generating it could be a big factor in limiting carbon emission.
- Quantum Sensors Could Let Autonomous Cars ‘See’ around Corners - This one is seriously science fictiony. Quantum science which allows vision around corners sounds like something used by the Avengers, not a Tesla feature. But quantum gravimeters and magnetometers which can detect infinitesimal changes in local gravity or magnetic fields, combined with machine learning, are already becoming a reality. The applications they'll allow are outside the scope of my own imagination.
- Green Hydrogen Could Fill Big Gaps In Renewable Energy - Hydrogen fuel cells have been talked about for years, so this one is nothing new. But if they got good enough to go to market, it would certainly be a big deal. The trick is creating "green" hydrogen, which means that the creation process doesn't itself create carbon emissions. Doing this via electrolysis is the trick, which is doable, but at present it's prohibitively expensive. But as technology improves, costs decrease...
- Whole-Genome Synthesis Will Transform Cell Engineering - Imagine sequencing the a genome and sending that data across the world, where a lab 3d-prints the cell's DNA. Isn't that effectively teleportation? Kind of. But it's the closest thing to a Star Trek transporter we've got. It's presently being used for virology.
I got excited when I saw this article, and I hope a few of the above have peaked your interest as well.