An expert group assembled by Scientific American (SA) identified their top 10 emerging technologies based on: potential major benefit, disruptive change, demonstrated interest and investment and impact within several years.
First, producing plastics that are durable and biodegradable made from plant material. At current rates, plastic waste will triple by 2050 to more than 900 million metric tons of which only 15% are recycled.
Second, robots are now assisting in surgery, manufacturing, and "personally assisting" retail customers and other humans at home-Amazon Echo" etc. Next generation robots will be more humanoid benefiting from cameras, sensors, computing power and algorithms to interpret and respond to human input-voices, facial recognition, emotions and gestures. Responding, in kind by making "eye contact", using verbal and non-verbal cues, robots will for example remind elders to "walk"or patients to take scheduled medications. Currently robots form a $5.6B industry expected to hit $19B by 2026.
Third, thin-flat metalenses <1 um thick will revolutionize optics for every imaginable field and application including extremely small cameras and scientific instruments used to measure and regulate various light forms.
Forth, effective pharmaceutical and biological treatments traditionally act in a "hand and glove" way based on "pairing" a reliable protein target. Such proteins converting to "intrinsically disordered proteins" (IDPs) don't fit the "glove" and evade such treatments. "When IDPs do not function properly disease ensues". Example of IDPs are found in Cancer and Alzheimers Disease. Applying biophysics and computational power some "fuzzy interfaces" on IDPs are being identified. Samsung, Google, IDP-Pharma and NovAlix are among those involved in identifing. and commercializing therapies targeting IDPs
The list rounds out in order; smart fertilizer-action with less pollution, collaborative telepresence-cyber hugs, advanced food tracking-respond quick to food poison and reduce inventory waste, safer nuclear reactors-clean power with lower risk, data storage on DNA-slow, massive but inexpensive and massive energy storage-convert clean energy to stored energy for continual use.
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