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Feb 24, 2021 · 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2021. Sierra & Lenny. by. the Editors. February 24, 2021. This list marks 20 years since we began compiling an annual selection of the year’s most important ...
- Climate Change: Decarbonization Rises
- Agriculture: Crops That self-fertilize
- Biochemistry: Breath Sensors Diagnose Diseases
- Engineering: On-Demand Drug Manufacturing
- Computing: Energy from Wireless Signals
- Genomics: Engineering Better Aging
- Chemistry: Green Ammonia
- Bioinformatics: Biomarker Devices Go Wireless
- Materials Science: Houses Printed with Local Materials
- Engineering and Computing: Space Connects The Globe
Sweeping commitments to address climate change will birth new technologies By Bernard S. Meyerson More than a century after the first scientist argued that carbon dioxide could trap heat in the atmosphere and decades after “climate change” entered the vernacular, countries and industries have been making new commitments to cut their carbon footprin...
Root-grown instead of sown By Wilfried Weber and Carlo Ratti Providing food for the world’s growing population relies heavily on the use of nitrogen-containing industrial fertilizers. Some 110 million tons of nitrogen are required to sustain global crop production annually, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization. Nitrogen fertili...
Puffing is far faster than drawing blood By Rona Chandrawati and Daniel E. Hurtado When police officers suspect a motorist is intoxicated, they can use a Breathalyzer: a handheld device that measures the level of alcohol in the blood. Can the same be done for disease diagnosis? The short answer is yes. Human breath contains more than 800 compounds,...
Making pharmaceuticals where and when they are needed By Elizabeth O’Day and Mine Orlu What if the next time you went to your local pharmacy, rather than the pharmacist looking through aisles of premade drugs to fill your prescription, he or she made it to the exact dose and formulation tailored for you? Recent advances in microfluidics and on-dema...
5G will help power the Internet of Things By Joseph Costantine The wireless devices that make up the Internet of Things (IoT) constitute the backbone of an ever more networked world. They are deployed as gadgets in homes, as wearable devices for biomedical uses, and as sensors in hazardous and hard-to-reach areas. As the IoT grows, it is enabling a...
A focus on increasing “healthspan,” not just lifespan By Wilfried Weber and P. Murali Doraiswamy According to the World Health Organization, between 2015 and 2050 the proportion of the global population older than 60 will nearly double from 12 to 22 percent, posing enormous challenges to health and social systems. Aging is related to chronic diseas...
Reducing the CO2footprint of fertilizer production By Javier García Martínez and Sarah E. Fawcett The Haber-Bosch process—arguably one of the most important inventions of the 20th century that many people have never heard of—enables synthesis of ammonia on an industrial scale. This ammonia is used to produce the fertilizers that fuel 50 percent of ...
Continuous, noninvasive monitoring of chronic diseases By Joseph Costantine Nobody likes needles. But monitoring chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancer requires frequent blood work to identify and track certain biological markers, or biomarkers. Now more than 100 companies are developing wireless, portable and wearable sensors that will soon ...
Concrete is swapped for soil By Bernard S. Meyerson and Carlo Ratti Technologies such as childhood vaccines or LASIK eye surgery tend to dramatically improve quality of life for many people in the industrial world. But their influence in developing nations has often been far more limited or significantly delayed. Building houses with 3-D printers, ...
The Internet of Things goes into orbit By Rajalakshmi Nandakumar Today at least 10 billion active devices make up the Internet of Things (IoT), a number that is expected to more than double in the next 10 years. Maximizing the IoT’s benefits in communication and automation requires devices to be spread across the globe, collecting zettabytes of dat...
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- Health. Never in recent history has the world been so engrossed by the most mundane stages of the scientific process. But for the last two years, each incremental step in science—from lab research to understand the evolution of COVID-19 and develop a vaccine to fight it, to clinical trials, to pharmaceutical approval—meant one thing: Hope.
- Auto. The automotive industry came into 2021 trying to beat out some extremely tough odds, not least of which being a choked supply chain. It may seem surprising, then, just how truly revolutionary the year ended up.
- Personal Care. Our second year of making the most of too-much time spent at home has yielded countless products that promise to sooth our stressed minds and bodies.
- Aerospace. Augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and autonomy are just some of the technologies that elevated our air and space game in 2021. AI algorithms are helping route aircraft in more efficient ways, virtual enemies are training pilots mid-flight, and autonomous wingmen are scouting the skies ahead.
Experts convened by the World Economic Forum and Scientific American highlight technological advances that could revolutionize agriculture, health and space. Self-fertilizing crops, on-demand drug manufacturing, breath-sensing diagnostics and 3D-printed houses are among the technologies on the list.
Jan 6, 2021 · This year, advertisers are expected to spend about $2.4 billion on augmented reality advertising, up 71 percent from $1.4 billion last year, according to the research firm eMarketer. 2. Wi-Fi is ...
Dec 21, 2021 · The Apple M1 has a banner year. Apple started selling M1 computers in late 2020, but 2021 was the year the M1, and its successor the M1X, captured headlines and wowed users. Apple’s in-house M1 ...
Dec 6, 2021 · Technology Feature 01 Jun 2021 How waste water is helping South Africa fight COVID-19 Detecting the coronavirus in samples from treatment plants could give early warning of outbreaks and new variants.
