11 bold forecasts for the near future technological decade
The last 10 years have seen half of the forecasts come true: this is what has happened, and here are those for the near future.
Search Results for: Nanotechnology
The material of the future? Transparent and enhanced wood
New construction methods, bright ceilings, futuristic car interiors, even batteries: transparent and enhanced wood is the most promising material of the future
Singleton hypothesis, for Nick Bostrom a New World Order is inevitable
Nick Bostrom's “Singleton” hypothesis holds that intelligent life on Earth will eventually form a unique complex. Here are the benefits and risks.
Because the future will be bright beyond all expectations
Humanity is moving very quickly towards a rosy future. A perfect world, even if perfection will never be fully achieved. Does this seem like an unreasonable prediction to you? Think that the alternative is self-destruction. Tertium non datur, and the dystopias of the various films are unlikely. One of the best films seen in recent years was Interstellar, but as much as I loved it, it has a weak point: it is set in a future that is not at all rosy. A dystopian nightmare in which storms… Read more
Really: how many chances do we have to live forever?
The prospect of living forever exalts many, terrifies many. What weight does this aspiration and this fear have? The answer of 4 scientists.
3 Scary technologies that we shouldn't be making
Smile! There are not only technologies that can have a negative impact. There are also scary ones that can have a lethal relapse.
Revolution in regenerative medicine: a microchip changes the function of cells and can "heal" entire organs
The small device uses nano transfection of tissues to regenerate entire organs with the touch of a finger: what was once matter for Star Trek now comes close to reality.
Synthetic blood: in 2024 the first uses
Since 1600 man has been looking for an effective substitute for blood, the most important vehicle of oxygen in our body. Let's retrace all the stages of an infinite journey and the first exciting results available within the next 5 years.
Here is the robot that swallows
It is swallowed like a pill, and can deliver drugs into the human body, remove foreign bodies and repair the stomach. It is very small, but inside it contains a concentration of nanotechnology. It is the latest ingenious invention from scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston: an origami robot that hatches inside the stomach and can serve many purposes. The project was developed by the team of Daniela Rus, director of the Computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory at MIT, together with … Read more
Medical innovations coming thanks to nano sensors
David Sretavan, professor of ophthalmology at the University of California, San Francisco, studies how to repair damage to the optic nerve caused by glaucoma, a disorder that causes irreversible blindness and affects approximately 70 million individuals worldwide. Glaucoma is a disorder that arises from a complex of causes without an apparent trigger. We try to monitor its possible onset by measuring the pressure of the eyeball, but the rapid and frequent fluctuations of ... Read more
Extraterrestrial life: the radio bubble hypothesis
The question was referring to the fact that it seemed strange to him that we were not receiving any extraterrestrial transmissions from space. If it is true that there are millions of planets similar to ours out there and if at least a small percentage of them have developed intelligent life, why don't we receive any radio transmissions? This inconsistency was later called the “Fermi Paradox”. It is clear that if intelligent life develops on a remote planet, once technological development has been reached, it will necessarily have to... Read more
Blood nanorobot to treat infections and tumors
This is the case of "nanobots" or microscopic machines (about 50 nanometers in size) that science fiction had imagined in the Star Trek series and which, injected into a patient's circulation, went there to rebuild damaged tissues, eliminate pathogens such as viruses and resistant bacteria or even eradicate a cancer. Unfortunately, the economic factor often stops the ideas and drive towards innovation of motivated researchers: no one puts in the money and the research remains on paper. … Read more
In nanomachine towards the future
It's not the first and it won't be the last. Scientists from the University of Groningen (Holland) and the Empa research center (Switzerland) have created a nanometric transport system equipped with four motor units (translation: a “namomachine”). It's electric, four nanometers long and every half turn of the wheels has to fill up... It works thanks to a scanning tunneling microscope positioned above it, which transmits a tiny electric charge that causes reversible structural changes in the wheels (translation: … Read more
IBM declares war on antibiotic resistant bacteria
IBM and the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore have designed a new type of polymer capable of identifying and destroying antibiotic-resistant bacteria and preventing their evolution. The most interesting feature of this nanostructure is that it is biodegradable and does not accumulate in tissues: it can be easily eliminated from the body, unlike previous polymer-based solutions. The material, used as a real 'invisible missile', destroys the cell membranes of bacteria: it has a ... Read more
