Quantum computing is a major trend in computer science. It’s jaw-dropping to think that it all started from observing the weird properties of light! There have been several pioneers in quantum computing, the main one being Richard Feynman—he explained that quantum computers are feasible and that they are the future of computing.

Quantum computers have existed since way before you think. The first quantum computation was carried out in 1997, using NMR on chloroform molecules.^[1] Nowadays, we’ve been trying to slap the “quantum” buzzword on just about anything. Even then, there are still a few applications—in the endless list of quantum technologies—that are really mind-boggling.

10 Improving Cancer Treatment

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death around the world. In fact, according to a recent survey from the World Health Organization (WHO), respiratory cancers alone claimed 1.7 million lives in 2016. However, if cancer is recognized at an early stage, the chances of recovery through treatment are much higher. There are many ways cancer can be treated. One is to remove it by surgery; another is through radiotherapy.

Beam optimization is critical in radiotherapy, as it is important to make sure that the radiation damages as little healthy cells and tissues near the cancer region as possible. There have been many optimization methods for radiotherapy in the past that use classical computers. In 2015, researchers at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute came up with a new technique that uses quantum annealing computers, like the ones manufactured by D-Wave, to optimize radiotherapy in a manner that is three to four times faster than that of a regular computer ^[2]

9 Better Traffic Flow

Many of us are familiar with waking up early and setting off for work, only to find a traffic jam waiting on the way. And then comes the terrifying feeling that you’re going to be late for work. Google has been working on fixing this problem by monitoring traffic and suggesting alternative routes to its users. However, Volkswagen is taking it to another level with their research.

In a 2017 experiment, Volkswagen tried to tackle the issue of traffic, not through monitoring but rather by optimizing traffic flow itself. They used the Quadratic Unconstraint Binary Optimization (QUBO) technique with quantum annealing computers to find the optimal route for a select number of cars and possible routes in consideration.^[3]

So far, they have tested this with 10,000 taxis in Beijing to show how their method can optimize traffic flow significantly faster than a classical computer. However, many people are skeptical of Volkswagen’s claims, since they used a D-Wave quantum annealing computer to do the processing. Many scientists state that the quantum annealers D-Wave manufactures do not offer a speedup as significant as Volkswagen claims.

8 Better Mobile Data Coverage

We have all been in a spot where the mobile data reception is excessively bad, and we’d rather just use that slow WiFi hotspot in that nearby coffee shop. Well, it seems that a company called Booz Allen Hamilton might just have found the solution to the horrible network coverage problem, with the help of quantum computers, of course!

In a 2017 publication, they suggested that optimal satellite coverage is pretty tough to figure out. This is because there are a lot of possible alignment combinations, and it is really hard to check all these combinations with classical computers.

The solution? They suggest that using the QUBO technique, as previously mentioned, with the help of D-Wave’s quantum annealing computers, can help find the optimal satellite coverage position required.^[4] This would not mean that the satellites would be able to cover all the bad reception spots, but the likelihood of being able to find a spot with better reception can be increased significantly.

7 Simulate Molecules

Molecule simulation has been a crucial field in biology and chemistry, as it helps us understand the structure of molecules and how they interact with each other. But it also helps us discover new molecules.

Although classical computers nowadays may be able to simulate these molecular dynamics, there is a limitation on the complexity of molecules in a given simulation. Quantum computers are able to effectively break this barrier. So far, they’ve only been used to simulate small molecules, like beryllium hydride (BeH₂), for example. It might not seem like much, but that fact that it was simulated by a seven-qubit chip shows that if we had more qubits at our disposal, we might be able to run extremely complex molecular simulations.^[5] This is because the processing power of quantum computers increases exponentially as the number of qubits increase.

Other hardware—like D-Wave’s quantum annealing computers—has also been used by researchers to come up with simulation methods that might be just as good, if not faster, than current methods.

6 Break Currently Used Cryptosystems Other Than RSA

Some of us might have heard of the scare about quantum computers being able to break cryptosystems such as RSA or DSA. This seems to be true for some cryptosystems, as they rely on prime numbers to generate a key based on prime factors. An algorithm, called Shor’s algorithm, can be used by quantum computers to find the prime factors used to generate the key, and they can do it much more efficiently.

But what about the other cryptosystems which do not rely on prime numbers to generate keys? There is another algorithm called Grover’s algorithm which might be used to brute force a key faster than a classical computer. However, this is not as big of a speedup as Shor’s algorithm would offer, compared to a classical computer (quadratic vs. exponential speedup). This would mean that we would need significantly faster quantum computers than the ones that currently exist to even attempt to break these cryptosystems.

Even with that, there are some cryptosystems that would be impossible for quantum computers to break. These cryptosystems are categorized within the field of “post-quantum cryptography.” Overall, though, it would seem that at least RSA—which is often used in digital signatures—would be obsolete.^[6]

5 More Humanlike AI

Artificial intelligence is an extremely trending field in computer science. Scientists have been trying to make AI more humanlike through the means of machine learning and neural networks. Seems terrifying, but now add quantum computers to the concoction, and it is taken to a whole new level.

Neural networks run on matrix-based data sets, and the processing done in neural networks is computed through the means of matrix algebra. However, quantum computing itself fundamentally works in such a nature that matrices are often used to define and determine the quantum states of qubits.^[7] So with that, any computational process done on the neural network would be similar to using transformational quantum gates on qubits. Hence, quantum computers seem like the perfect fit for neural networks incorporated in AI.

Not only that, but quantum computers can also help to significantly speed up machine learning compared to a classical computer. This is why Google has been investing in quantum computer research to improve Google AI by means of quantum hardware.

4 Quantum Cryptography

This is very different from post-quantum cryptography, as it is not meant to prevent quantum computers from breaking cryptosystems, though it does that, anyway. This type of cryptography uses the means of quantum mechanics itself. But how is it more versatile than other forms of cryptography?

Quantum cryptography mainly focuses on the key distribution part of a cryptosystem, here two pairs of entangled qubits are used. One is sent to the receiver, while the sender keeps the other. Entangled particles in a superposition, when measured, affect the other qubit. Send a stream of these qubits, and you have a key usable for encryption.^[8]

The best part about it is that eavesdropping is impossible, as the qubits cannot be copied. They can’t be measured, either, as there are methods to determine whether the qubit has been tampered with before being received by the intended recipient. This makes it a robust method for cryptography, which is why scientists are still researching this field.

3 Forecasting Weather

We’ve all had that time where we’ve checked the weather forecast, and it said that it was going to be a wonderful, sunny day. Then, only moments later, it starts to pour, and you didn’t bring your umbrella. Well, it seems quantum computers might have a solution for that.

In 2017, a Russian researcher published a paper about the possibility of using quantum computers to predict the weather more accurately than classical computers. There are a few limitations with current computers in predicting all the intricate changes in weather.^[9] This is because large amounts of data are involved, but quantum computers seem to offer a big speedup compared to classical means because of Dynamic Quantum Clustering (DQC) methodology, which is claimed to generate useful datasets that classical techniques cannot.

Even so, it must be noted that not even quantum computers can predict the weather with absolute accuracy, but at least it will be less likely that we will regret not bringing an umbrella on suspicious sunny days!

2 More Efficient Customized Advertisements

We all hate it when we search for an article, only to find it to be littered with advertisements. Most of it doesn’t even seem relevant! Luckily, Recruit Communications has found a solution for one of those two problems—the relevancy of ads.

In their research, they explained how quantum annealing can be used to help companies wanting to advertise to reach a wider range of people without spending too much. The quantum annealing can be used to match relevant advertisements to customers so that they’re more likely to click them.^[10]

1 Gaming With Quantum Computers

With all the speedup quantum computers offer in the computing field, one thing gamers might be curious about is whether they can be used to make a sweet gaming rig which can run games at blazing high framerates. The answer would be, “Sort of.”

At this point, the field of quantum computers is still at its infancy, and current hardware still hasn’t reached “quantum supremacy”—which is when quantum hardware can compute faster than the current best computers, though the definition is still vague. This is because quantum computer algorithms work very differently from classical ones. Even with that, quantum gaming still seems to be possible.

There have been a few games which have been developed to utilize quantum computers. One of them is called Quantum Battleships, which is based on the Battleships board game.^[11] Furthermore, Microsoft has been working on a programming language called Q#, which uses both classical and quantum hardware to compute. It is also very similar to C#, which would mean that it is very possible to develop games using Q# that take advantage of quantum hardware. Maybe we’ll have Call of Duty Q one day!

I am a small music producer from the UK with a newly acquired side hobby for writing articles!

It goes without saying that our society is moving faster than it ever has in the past. As medical technology surges forward with unprecedented speed and accuracy, many of us are left in the ensuing dust storm of obsolete procedures that were commonplace mere decades ago. But if we look up and gaze into the near future, we can see the beginnings of a whole new world of medical treatments that the doctors of yesterday couldn’t even begin to imagine. Here are 10 medical technologies that could very well shape the future.

Usually, a medical advance comes from years of high budget research. Sometimes it’s sheer accident. And sometimes, a small team of pioneers will step forward with a truly innovative discovery. That’s the case with Joe Landolina and Isaac Miller and their Veti-Gel, a cream-like substance that will instantly seal a wound and start the clotting process.

The anti-bleeding gel creates a synthetic framework that mimics the extracellular matrix, an awesomely named natural substance that helps cells in the body grow together. Here’s a video of the gel in action (warning, it’s fairly bloody). In the video, pigs blood is piped into a cut of pork. When the pork is sliced, it begins bleeding immediately, but then stops the instant Veti-Gel is applied.

In other tests, Landolino used the gel to stop the bleeding on the carotid artery of a rat, as well as a live liver that had been sliced. If this product becomes commercial, it could save millions of lives, especially in combat zones.

Artificial lung tissue grown with magnetic levitation: it sounds like something out of science fiction, and it was, until now. In 2010, Glauco Souza and his team began looking into a way to create realistic human tissue using nanomagnets that allowed lab-grown tissue to levitate above a nutrient solution.

The result was the most realistic synthetically grown organ tissue ever grown. Typically, lab-grown tissue is created in a petri dish, but elevating the tissue allows it to grow in a 3D shape that allows for more complex cell layers. That 3D growth pattern is a more perfect simulation of the way cells grow in the human body, which means that this is a huge step forward in creating artificial organs that can be transplanted into humans.

It’s obvious that the direction of medical technology is leaning more towards reproducing human tissue outside the body, allowing us to create “spare parts,” so to speak. If one organ isn’t working, we can just replace it with a new one, fresh off the assembly line. Now that idea is moving down to the cellular level with a gel that mimics the action of specific cells.

The material is formed in bunches that are only 7.5 billionths of a meter wide—for comparison, that’s about four times wider than a DNA double helix. Cells have their own type of skeleton, known as a cytoskeleton, which is made of proteins. The synthetic gel will take the place of that cytoskeleton in a cell, and when it’s applied to, say, a wound, it replaces any cells that were lost or damaged. In a practical sense, it would work like a tiny, tiny sewer grate. Fluids can pass through the cell, which allow the wound to continue healing, but the artificial skeleton prevents bacteria from passing through with the fluid.

In a sentence we won’t get to use often, researchers have turned pee into human brain cells. At the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health in China, biologists have taken waste cells from urine and modified them with the use of retroviruses to create progenitor cells, which the body uses as the building blocks for brain cells. The most valuable benefit to this method is that the new neurons created haven’t caused tumors in any of the mice used for testing.

See, embryonic stem cells have been used for this in the past, but one of their side effects was that they were more likely to develop tumors after transplant. But after only a few weeks, the pee-based cells had already begun to shape into neurons with absolutely no unwanted mutations.

The obvious medical benefit of getting cells from urine is that, well, it’s freely available, and scientists could work on developing neurons that are sourced from the same person, increasing the chance that they’ll be accepted by the body.

We know, we know, but hear us out—electric underwear really can save thousands of lives. See, when a patient is lying in a hospital bed for days, weeks, or months, they can develop bed sores—open wounds formed by a lack of circulation and compressed skin. And believe it or not, bed sores can be deadly. Roughly 60,000 people die from bed sores and resulting infections every year, draining $12 billion from the U.S. medical industry.

Developed by Canadian researcher Sean Dukelow, the electric underpants—dubbed Smart-E-Pants—deliver a small electrical charge every ten minutes. The effect is the same as if the patient was moving on their own—it activates muscles and increases circulation in that area, and effectively eliminates bed sores, thereby saving lives.

Flower pollen is one of the most common allergens in the world, and it’s so effective at what it does because of the way pollen is built. The outer shell of pollen is incredibly tough, tough enough to be resistant to the disintegrating power of the human digestive system. And that’s more than most vaccines can say—the majority of vaccines are injected because they can’t withstand stomach acids when they’re taken orally. The vaccine breaks down, and becomes useless.

But put the two together, and you have a match made in heaven’s medical sciences lab. Researchers at Texas Tech University are looking into ways to use pollen as means to provide life-saving vaccines to soldiers stationed overseas. The lead researcher on the project, Harvinder Gill, has a goal of cracking into pollen to remove the allergens, then injecting a vaccine into the empty space left behind. Research like this could vastly change the way vaccines and medications can be given to humans.

Remember the days when you would break your arm and then have to wear a cast for weeks while the bone naturally healed itself? It looks like those days are behind us. Using 3D printers, researchers at Washington State University have developed a hybrid material that has the same properties—the same strength and flexibility—as real bone.

This “model” can then be placed in the body at the site of the fracture while the real bone grows up and around it like a scaffolding. Once the process is complete, the model disintegrates. The printer they’re using is a ProMetal 3D printer—consumer technology available to anyone with enough cash. It was the material for the bone structure that was the real problem, but they’ve created a formula that uses a combination of zinc, silicon, and calcium phosphate that works well—so well, in fact, that the entire process has already been successfully tested in rabbits. When the bone material was combined with stem cells, the natural bone grew back much faster than normal.

The real benefit of this technology is that, feasibly, any tissue—even full organs—could be grown with 3D printers once we have the right combination of starting materials.

The brain is a delicate organ, and even slight trauma can have lasting effects if it’s bumped in the wrong places. For people with traumatic brain injury, extensive rehabilitation is pretty much the only hope of leading a normal life again. Alternatively, they could just get a zap on the tongue.

Your tongue is connected to the nervous system through thousands of nerve clusters, some of which lead directly into the brain. Based on that fact, the Portable NeuroModulation Stimulator, or PoNS, stimulates specific nerve regions on the tongue to hopefully focus the brain on repairing the nerves that were damaged. And so far, it works. Patients being treated with that type of neuromodulation showed vast improvement after only a week. Fair warning, you might get brain damage just trying to read that link.

Apart from blunt trauma, the PoNS could feasibly be used to repair the brain from anything, including alcoholism, Parkinson’s, strokes, and multiple sclerosis.

Sometimes a new innovation doesn’t necessarily take the shape you expect. Most of us think of groundbreaking new procedures or cures for cancer, but this example shows that thinking outside the box can make a world of difference.

Pacemakers are used in approximately 700,000 people right now to regulate their hearts’ rhythms. But after seven years or so, the device runs out of juice, prompting a replacement with an expensive surgical procedure. Well, scientists at the University of Michigan may have solved that problem by developing a way to harness electricity from the motion of a beating heart—electricity which can then power a pacemaker.

Piggybacking off lab tests that produced overwhelmingly positive results, Dr. Amin Karami is ready to try his device—made from materials that create electricity when they change shape—on a live human heart. If the test works, it could revolutionize not just the pacemaker industry, but medical science as a whole by using human-generated electricity to power a range of medical devices. For example, this device harvests electricity from the vibrations of the inner ear and uses it to power a small radio.

DNA works like the instructions for life, telling cells what they’re supposed to do. Change the structure, and the message changes. DNA is often referred to as the building blocks of life, but engineers at Harvard are now making that phrase a little more literal. They are using DNA as building blocks—nano-size Legos—to build structures.

The Lego image was one that was encouraged by Peng Yin, the head researcher on the project, because it helped the engineers visualize what they were creating. And the comparison didn’t stop there—DNA is basically coded with four different letters—A, T, G, and C. When DNA combines, G connects to C, and A connects to T. Always. So they created a DNA strand that contained two of each letter like the pegs of a Lego brick. Snap them together, and you can build anything.

The concept is taking the biology world by storm, and the possibilities are endless. The Harvard team created a genetic copy of a 284 page book by translating it into binary, then associating the 1’s and 0’s of binary with the A,T,G,C structure of DNA. The resulting strand of DNA can be decoded by anyone to get the full text of the book.

These researchers at Oxford built a DNA robot that follows instructions, opening a whole other world of medical-related potential.

Man has always striven to expand his knowledge and the study of food is no exception. Our current technology has enabled us to push the boundaries of food development further than ever before, and the entries on this list are just some of what we might see in the future.

10Headless Chicken Farms

In 2012, Andre Ford, an architecture student at the UK Royal College Of Art, looked at the problems presently plaguing the broiler chicken industry and proposed the Center For Unconscious Farming as a solution. His objectives were to satisfy the demand for chicken meat while affording the animals more humane treatment. While his goals seemed noble enough, Ford’s methods were arguably dystopian in nature. He suggested that the chickens’ cerebral cortex be removed so that they wouldn’t feel any distress. To accommodate more chickens, their feet would be removed as well. To allow them to grow, the chickens’ brain stems would be kept intact, while regular electric shocks would provide muscular stimulation.

These unconscious chickens would then be tightly packed together in Matrix-like pods, where they would be fed through a series of tubes. In this system, nothing would be left to waste—Ford also suggested that chicken blood be used as plant feed. While many viewed his proposal as controversial, Ford defended it, stating that “the realities of the existing systems of production are just as shocking.”

9Food Would Be Delivered Through Skin Patches

While we are already used to taking various medications with transdermal patches, scientists with the Department of Defense’s Combat Feeding Program are taking things to the next level with the Transdermal Nutrient Delivery System (TDNDS). This food patch contains essential nutrients and can be used by soldiers stationed in warzones. The patch itself has a microchip processor which calculates a soldier’s nutritional requirements and releases the corresponding nutrients. While not a substitute for food, officials hope that these patches will help soldiers work well in the field until they can eat a real meal. It is estimated that the technology will be available by 2025. Dr. C. Patrick Dunne, a scientist with the program, believes that the innovation will also be useful for civilians who work in high-pressure occupations, such as miners and astronauts.

8Human Waste Will Be Made Edible Again

In 2009, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that they were working on improving a system which they believed would one day be used to sustain people living in space or even on other planets. The move came after NASA developed a similar system aboard the International Space Station which could turn human waste into drinkable water. ESA’s program, called Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative (MELiSSA) is far more advanced and is designed to recycle every bit of human waste into oxygen, food, and water. The first MELiSSA pilot plant was built in 1995, and researchers said that they expect that second-generation plant will be fully operational by 2014.

7A Dash Of Music Enhances The Flavor

A recent study conducted by Oxford University discovered that sound really does influence the way we taste food. For example, high-pitched sounds added more sweetness to the food, while low, brassy sounds made it taste bitter. A participant in the experiment, Russel Jones, said that this discovery would have wide-ranging applications. He pointed out that it could potentially make foods healthier by reducing the sugar content—without sacrificing the perceived sweetness.

Even before the study came out, some restaurants had already added sonic-enhanced repertoire to their menu. Chef Heston Blumenthal, of UK restaurant The Fat Duck, provided an iPod that played soothing ocean sounds while his diners ate seafood dishes; they later attested that their food tasted saltier.

6Food That Can Be Inhaled

A bizarre trend of people literally inhaling their food has been on the rise since 2012. It started when Harvard professor David Edwards invented a device called Le Whif, which sprayed out breathable dark chocolate. The product became a best-seller for European dieters, who claimed that it reduced their appetites. The trend has since gained a foothold on North American soil, where Canadian chef Norman Aitken improved the invention and came up with Le Whaf. His device is essentially a vase with an ultrasound implanted underneath. The food, usually a soup, is placed inside the vase and is shaken by ultrasound until it becomes a cloud, at which point the customer uses a straw to inhale it. One customer who tried it described the experience as “a taste sensation without something in your mouth.”

5Space-Bred Seeds

Since the 1980s, China has been sending seeds into outer space, and its scientists have claimed amazing results. These space-exposed seeds, they reported, bred faster and produced larger crops than their earth-based counterparts. Professor Liu Luxiang, head of the program, said that their work has enabled the creation of stronger seed strains, which are currently being used nationwide.

While it’s hard to authenticate such claims given the secretive nature of China’s science programs, NASA has attempted the same feat—with less-than-favorable results. Western scientists also noted the lack of hard data, which they suspected is being kept secret by the military. Professor Liu himself lamented the media obsession with the oversized crops and said, “Size isn’t the point of the program . . . I care more about increasing yields.” While the effect of cosmic radiation is not yet clear, Professor Liu currently has two published works being reviewed by respected journals, which he hopes will lend his program an air of legitimacy from his Western counterparts.

4Peanut Butter And Jellyfish Sandwiches

“If you can’t fight them, eat them.” Those were the exact words of a 2013 report prepared by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. In the study, titled “Review of Jellyfish Blooms In the Mediterranean and Black Sea,” officials noted the world’s dwindling fish population and growing jellyfish blooms, and suggested a number of methods to solve the problem. Aside from the use of bio-control agents and cutting nets, they also proposed the use of jellyfish in food and medical products. The report pointed out that some jellyfish species have been part of the Chinese diet for a long time and encouraged research into the medicinal properties of jellyfish, which they believed might hold huge biological and industrial potential.

3Edible Plastics And Wrappers

In 2012, a Brazilian burger restaurant named Bob’s garnered plenty of attention when it released its burger wrapped in edible paper. People didn’t need to unwrap the burger—they just ate the whole thing! A year later, Professor David Edwards introduced his new invention, Wikicells, to the American public. Edwards got his inspiration from the way a cell stores water and set out to create a food wrapper based on that idea. The wrappers are made from natural skins and are designed to be insoluble to prevent bacteria and other particles from entering. They can be used to wrap foods and beverages of any kind. Best of all, they can be consumed along with the packaged food. Edwards hopes that his inventions will shift people away from the use of plastic and conventional wrappers—which will lead to much less waste clogging up landfills.

2Everyone Will Eat Bugs

A May 2013 report by the UN has advocated the eating of insects as a viable method to combat world hunger. According to UN officials, at least two billion people in Asia and Africa regularly eat 1,900 different kinds of insects. Of the edible bugs, beetles were on top of the menu, followed closely by caterpillars and bees. They also found lots of edible potential in the larvae of various flies. The UN noted that the challenge now would be to change Western attitudes regarding eating these creepy crawlies.

The consumption of bugs would have wide-ranging benefits. Insects are rich in proteins and minerals, reproduce quickly, and do not damage the environment as much as traditional livestock. Aside from that, an insect-farming industry could present a lucrative business opportunity, especially for those living in poor countries.

1Three-Course Meal Chewing Gum

For those who never quite got over Willy Wonka’s famous chewing gum which tasted like a three-course meal, take heart! Scientist Dave Hart of the UK’s Institute of Food Research is bent on turning that children’s fantasy into reality. Since 2010, Hart and his team have been using nanotechnology to reproduce the legendary chewing gum. He has already designed a method that can encapsulate specific flavors and essentially keep them from mixing. He explained that the chewer would experience each flavor sequentially. Initially, he would taste the appetizer capsule; as he chews harder he would taste the main course and dessert. Hart has acknowledged the intricacies of completing the elaborate chewing gum. He has also been tinkering with a much older method called the boiled sweet, where different flavors are layered separately by flavorless gelatin, with the climactic flavor wrapped right in the center of the chewing gum.

+Human-Algae Hybrids

Algae has many proponents as the best solution to world hunger. But one man has suggested an even crazier use for the organisms. On the BBC’s 60 Second Idea segment, Chuck Fisher shared his bizarre idea for integrating algae into the human skin. Just like a real plant, these hybrid humans would absorb sunlight to get their nutrition. A biologist by trade, Fisher got his idea by observing the symbiotic relationship between the corals (which are animals) and algae. Fisher admitted his proposal was far-fetched for now, but remains positive that that his dream to eradicate world hunger via photosynthesis will soon become a reality.

Marc V. is always open for a conversation, so do drop him a line sometime.

The future is often thought of as an unknowable, inscrutable web of possibility and promise. To try and know the future is foolish, and to claim to know it is a sign of madness. Yet, repeatedly through the years, people have tried to see what the future holds for us, in everything from politics to sports to tech.

Most of these endeavours fail. The keyword here is “most.” Every now and then, a correct prediction is made, usually as a joke that turns into a serious affair. It’s almost enough to make you think the universe must be aware and have a wicked sense of humor. Several incidents on the following list will definitely make you consider the possibility!

10 Book Predictions That Really Came True

10The Simpsons—3 Eyed Mutant Fish

It’s no surprise that having been around for over 30 years, The Simpsons has made its fair share of predictions, and most are flat-out wrong. The weirdest by far, however, has to be the prediction they were never trying to make in the first place: 3 eyed mutant fish.

Long-time fans of The Simpsons will surely remember Blinky, the 3 eyed nuclear fish that lives in the pond outside Mr. Burns’s nuclear factory. The glowing runoff from the plant mutated the little goldfish into a bug-eyed monster!

In 2011, Blinky came to life in Argentina as a pair of fishermen caught a 3 eyed wolf fish in a reservoir fed by a nearby nuclear plant. Mr. Burns, however, was nowhere to be found. Blink thrice if you need a rescue, Blinky!^[1]

9Person of Interest—Snowden

In 2012, the writers of rel=”noopener” target=”_blank” hit on a great idea: what if we wrote about a boyishly handsome young CIA agent who discovers that the U.S. government is spying on American citizens illegally and tries to tell the world? In the show, he had to dodge assassins and agents as he met secretly with reporters to spread the word of the government’s dirty dealings.

In real life, it was much the same, as Edward Snowden ran from the government, roaming country to country after exposing the U.S. Government for the illegal mass surveillance of its citizens and citizens of other countries.

Truth is usually stranger than fiction, but sometimes the two collide and sync in the worst possible areas.^[2]

8Quantum Leap—Super Bowl XXX

Quantum Leap, as a show, was all about predicting the future. In it, a man named Sam has his mind thrown through time and into the bodies of others, each time with a task to complete—to improve the life of the person into whom he has leaped. This made for some quality television and oodles of predictions about the future, almost all of them wrong.

Almost all. There was, of course, the Super Bowl XXX prediction.

The episode “All Americans,” which premiered in 1990, opens with Sam watching Super Bowl 30, a game that wouldn’t be played until 1996. He mentions, casually, that the Steelers are playing and are trailing by 3 points. Simple set dressing, until 1996, when the Steelers not only played in the Super Bowl but were trailing by 3 points halfway through.^[3]

7Legends of Chamberlain Heights—Kobe Bryant’s Death

Although not a well-known show, the cartoon Legends of Chamberlain Heights was a well-enjoyed show for the short time that it ran. A Comedy Central product, it had its share of dark and tasteless jokes. One such dark joke featured Kobe Bryant in a helicopter, which then crashed to the ground, killing him (but not before he tried to crawl out from underneath it).

The episode, which aired in 2016, predicted almost perfectly the startling and brutal death of the basketball legend in 2020 in, as portrayed, a helicopter crash, which also took the life of his daughter GiGi.

Out of respect for the dead, Comedy Central has removed the episode, but the scene in question is being circulated around the internet.^[4]

6The Simpsons—President Trump

No discussion of predictions could be complete without noting one of the most infamous predictions ever made by a television show: the rise of President Trump.

One of the jokes in the episode ‘Bart To The Future,’ at the time a humorous impossibility, was that Lisa Simpson had taken over the presidency from Donald Trump. This was, according to the writers, originally a placeholder name, but the idea that billionaire businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump would not only run but win was so funny to the writers that they decided to keep it in. The joke drew a chuckle from audiences and was then promptly forgotten for 16 years.

Then, as we all know, the 2016 election happened, and Donald Trump not only ran but won, which has had the effect of making The Simpsons episode increasingly more hilarious with time. What was once considered an outlandish gag line had become a reality, and I, for one, could not be laughing harder, though I suspect Hillary Clinton skips this episode when she binges the show!^[5]

10 People Who Claimed To Have Traveled To The Future

5Scrubs—Osama Bin Laden Location

Scrubs, a comedy-drama about the day-to-day happenings at a fictional hospital called Sacred Heart Hospital, was known for a character without a name—known simply as the Janitor. Prone to wild stories and insane theories, the Janitor was a semi-creepy comic relief character and minor antagonist who would make insane claims—his wife’s hand sewed his pants despite only having pinkies and thumbs or that his parents were also his siblings.

So, it was no surprise to anyone that the Janitor would say something as strange and seemingly nonsensical as suggesting that Osama bin Laden could be found in Pakistan instead of Afghanistan.

Imagine the surprise when he was actually found hiding in Pakistan! Thanks for the tip, Janitor!^[6]

4Friends—Facebook

A year before Facebook would be unveiled to the world, the fondly remembered tv show Friends made a prediction about a site like MySpace and Friendster that would focus on college alumni. The episode focused on themes of connecting with old friends, childish pranks and comments made over social media, and setting up satirical pages for friends.

The episode culminates with a Memorial Page for one of the group, which draws only two former classmates to their staged funeral. While it’s a disappointing turnout, the fictitious site proves to be useful in reconnecting people and allowing them to rekindle (or permanently break) old relationships from across vast distances and gulfs of time.

The site would turn out to be extremely similar, in fact almost identical to what would become Facebook—the most successful social media site to exist to date, which would grow and amass such a large user base that it is still used by over 2 billion people more than a decade later. It is written as nothing more than a joke, but it is still an incredible prediction of what was to come only a year later.^[7]

3Parks and Recreation—Cubs Win

A more positive future prediction comes to us from Parks and Recreation, a show about the day-to-day workings of a small government-run public spaces department in Indiana. The show came to us with what many of us felt to be a ridiculous but sweet prediction: the Cubs winning the World Series for the first time in over a century. Many of us, especially the sports fans, are aware of the various jokes about the Cubs curse, which states that the Cubs will never win the World Series. For a time, it seemed the Cubs truly were cursed, as they didn’t have a championship title win for 108 years.

Until finally, in 2016, the Cubs beat their curse after it was predicted in 2015 by a Parks and Recreation episode.

The episode, airing in 2015, depicted the Cubs breaking their curse, a victory that actually came about in 2016 but which Chicago was still feeling well into 2017. The show’s co-creator is credited with having made the prediction and has even been featured on Grantland and NBC Sports to talk about it since the win. He said all he did was track the Cubs minor league system.^[8]

2Spooks—London Subway Bombings

This BBC drama—the title is a colloquialism for spies—followed a team of British secret agents devoted to stopping terrorists before they could strike. If only life was like this, where the good guys always prevail, and terrorist attacks can be stopped before they happened.

In June of 2005, the show filmed an episode about terrorists trying (and failing) to bomb train stations in London. Exactly a month later, actual terrorists attempted the same thing; only they succeeded in killing 52 people and injuring more than 500. Even more chillingly, the fictional terrorists in Spooks tried to detonate a bomb at Kings Cross Station, the same spot the real terrorists chose for one of their deadly attacks. The creators were so disturbed that they briefly considered pulling the episode completely but eventually opted to include a disclaimer at the beginning, assuring viewers that what they were about to see wasn’t based on actual events.^[9]

And it seems, other “predictions” have also been seen on episodes of Spooks. Maybe the writers have access to a time machine after all.

1Star Trek—iPad

Arguably one of the most well known and important sci fi shows of all time, Star Trek gave us a view of the future that gave us all hope for a better life among the stars in a few hundred years. Although many of the show’s moments are ingrained heavily in American pop culture, few know that Star Trek predicted the invention of the touchscreen computer tablet about 23 years before Apple made the now famous iPad.

The touchscreen device, known in the show as a PADD (Personal Access Display Device), was a small, flat and touch-based device with rounded corners and no keyboard, connected to the Star Trek equivalent to the internet and used by nearly every officer, including medical staff and the captain.

Of course, the PADD was also the product of a small prop budget, and what better way to save money than to make a flat, rectangular slab with no knobs or blinking lights. The iPad itself is not a direct replica, but it’s still pretty amazing to see that we’ve already come far enough to have a small, rectangular slab of plastic, metal and glass that works on touch and can tell us anything we want to know with just a series of swipes.^[10]

10 Predictions From ‘The Simpsons’ That Weren’t Predictions At All

Air travel is a common occurrence in our modern society. When most people imagine commercial airliners, they imagine the standard tube-and-wing configuration. However, aerospace engineers across the world are developing concepts for future airliners that would revolutionize air travel.

10 Aether Airship

Airships were a big part of commercial aviation before they slowly died off in the mid-20th century. However, some intrepid aerospace designers are now developing designs to bring airships back into use.

One of the more interesting ideas is the Aether airship. Designer Mac Byers realized that his airship needed to look different than old airships so that people did not associate it with disasters like the Hindenburg explosion. Thus, the Aether airship has a long, sharklike appearance that communicates both safety and futurism.

This airship is more like a cruise ship than a normal airliner. Conceptually, the Aether airship would travel to different locations while offering enough amenities so that passengers wouldn’t need to leave the airship if they didn’t want to.

Passengers would have access to a large variety of dining options and comfortable rooms to stay in. Byers’s design takes advantage of the scenic sky with large windows for the passengers.

Although the design is only a concept, it offers a glimpse into the future. Other companies are also investigating airship concepts. They are more economical, have a large payload capacity, and offer an entirely new travel experience for modern tourists. Within a few years, airships could make a return.

9 Boeing Blended-Wing Airliners

Although Boeing recently started production of its 787 airliner, its engineers are already working on their next airliner. This time, Boeing is planning to do something radically different from its standard designs.

Instead of the same fuselage-and-wing design, Boeing engineers are looking at creating a blended-wing airliner. In blended-wing designs, the wings and fuselage flow into each other, removing the distinction between the two parts.

Both NASA and Boeing are currently experimenting with blended wings for both commercial and military purposes. To explore the aerodynamic possibilities, the two groups worked together to build the X-48, an unmanned jet airplane built with a blended-wing design.

The X-48 tests were successful, showing that the airplane had a high payload, was quieter than expected, and had extremely good fuel efficiency. Based on this, it is obvious that blended-wing bodies are the future of aerospace.

NASA is considering civilian applications of the concept, hoping to develop prototypes for airliners within 20 years. On the other hand, Boeing is looking at military applications for the design, mostly for airlift and aerial refueling purposes.

Lockheed Martin is also looking into a future airlift design using blended-wing technology. The company hopes to design an airplane with a huge payload.

Since these companies are investing in blended-wing bodies, it is extremely likely that the next generation of airliners will use the concepts pioneered by the X-48.

8 Reaction Engines A2

Another big push in aerospace is hypersonic airliners. While the Concorde and the TU-144 made history as the first commercially operated supersonic airliners, modern engineers are now looking to design airliners that are capable of speeds in excess of Mach 5.

On the cutting edge is UK company Reaction Engines Limited, which designed a concept for an airliner called the A2. This futuristic-looking airplane would travel at hypersonic speeds and be environmentally friendly.

The A2 uses the Scimitar engine, another design from Reaction Engines. The Scimitar uses technology that is derived from the SABRE engine. Both engines are hybrid engines. But while the SABRE uses rocket engines, the Scimitar uses a hybrid ramjet and normal air-breathing jet engine design.

When the Scimitar is flying at high speed, it uses the ramjet. But during takeoff and landing, it engages a high bypass mode that operates like a normal jet engine. The Scimitar uses liquid hydrogen for fuel, which also cools the engine right before ignition. This type of engine is known as a pre-cooled engine and is used for long-range endurance at hypersonic speeds.

Due to concerns over sonic boom noise, the A2 would only fly hypersonically over the ocean or unpopulated areas. When flying over populated regions, it would fly just under the speed of sound.

At top speed, the A2 can fly from Australia to northern Europe in just five hours. One big concern with the A2 is passenger comfort. Due to concerns over stress on the airframe, the A2 does not have windows. Claustrophobic customers might find the flight uncomfortable.

7 Bombardier Antipode

Not content to let the UK take the lead with hypersonic aerospace designs, Canadian company Bombardier recently got in the game with the Antipode, their concept business jet. They designed a small airplane that only carries a few people but can fly at Mach 24. At that speed, the Antipode can travel from New York to London in 11 minutes.

The Antipode concept makes use of a scramjet engine, a rather straightforward improvement on the normal ramjet engine. Scramjets have no moving parts such as fans or compressors. Instead, they rely on the speed of the airplane to force air through the engine.

As the scramjet travels at high Mach numbers, hypersonic air enters the engine and slows down to supersonic speeds. Then more hypersonic air enters the engine after the slowed air, forcing it through the engine and producing thrust with combustion.

To get to the speeds required for the scramjet to work, the Antipode would use rocket boosters to launch off the ground. Once the airplane gets to cruising altitude and speed, the scramjet would kick in, accelerating the vehicle to Mach 24.

However, a big concern is that the body of the airplane would get too hot at those speeds from air friction. Bombardier proposes a solution called long penetration mode. The system uses vents in the nose of the airplane to blow chilled supersonic air over the fuselage, cooling it while also reducing the sonic boom noise.

Whether the Antipode will ever be put into service is up for debate, but the concepts designed for it may be used in the next generation of airliners.

6 Boeing Pelican

In the early 2000s, Boeing investigated the construction of a new transoceanic airplane called the Pelican. Although designed primarily to carry cargo, the ideas behind the Pelican are applicable for commercial airliners. In concept, the Pelican was a huge airplane which used the ground effect to fly.

The ground effect is an aerodynamic phenomenon in which low-flying objects with specially shaped wings can trap air beneath them and use the cushion to glide quickly and efficiently across water. The Pelican would take advantage of the ground effect over the ocean, flying only 6 meters (20 ft) above the water.

During overland flight, the Pelican would fly at normal altitudes. By using the ground effect, Boeing hoped that the Pelican would be extremely fuel efficient, which was important for the gigantic airplane. With a wingspan of 150 kilometers (500 ft), the Pelican would be the largest airplane in the world.

Although the design was promising, Boeing has not revisited the concept since the early 2000s for unknown reasons. However, the concept of a ground-effect transport will likely reappear in civilian aviation because it can carry loads comparable to ships at higher speeds with minimal fuel cost.

5 SAX-40

Even when airplanes are traveling as subsonic speeds, their engine noise is annoying to people living around airports and can cause adverse health effects for people working around airplanes. To combat the problem, a group from MIT and Cambridge University developed the SAX-40, a super-quiet airplane concept.

Airplanes are noisy mainly because of irregularities in their bodies, so the SAX-40 is highly streamlined. Due to its body shape, the SAX-40 has far more lift than a normal airplane. As a result, it would not need to use flaps to get enough lift during takeoff and landing, reducing the noisiness of the engines.

The engine intakes are on top of the airplane, letting the fuselage shield people on the ground from engine noise. To cut the noise of the engine exhaust, the SAX-40 uses variable exhausts that would change shape during flight for minimal noise.

These are the major design features of the SAX-40. With its lifting body design and special wings, the airplane would only generate 63 decibels of noise on takeoff and landing outside the airport perimeter. For comparison, normal jets take off at 100 decibels. The SAX-40 would generate as much noise as an air-conditioning unit.

4 SpaceLiner

The German Aerospace Center (GAC) is currently developing its own design for high-speed travel. However, instead of just relying on standard airplane ideas, the GAC is developing a spaceplane called the SpaceLiner.

In concept, the SpaceLiner combines the best characteristics of a rocket and an airplane. Like the US space shuttle, the SpaceLiner uses a two-stage concept. The spaceplane rides up to high orbit on a cryogenic rocket booster, which then drops away.

To make the concept reusable, the Germans are developing special planes to capture the falling booster in midair. At extremely high altitudes, the SpaceLiner accelerates to Mach 25, which would enable it to fly from Australia to Europe in under 90 minutes.

At the end of the trip, the spaceplane lands like any normal airplane. The project has many advantages, including speed and reusability. But the SpaceLiner is also environmentally friendly. Since it uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as rocket propellant, the only by-product of its engines is water vapor. The GAC hopes to see the SpaceLiner in operation by 2050.

3 AWWA-QG Progress Eagle

The AWWA-QG Progress Eagle is one of the most complex concept airplanes floating around. At first glance, it seems like somebody just combined every cool future technology into one airplane, but the Progress Eagle is a valid proposal for a large, environmentally friendly passenger airplane.

The Progress Eagle is huge, dwarfing every other airliner with its triple-deck design and 800-passenger payload. Due to its huge size, the Progress Eagle has folding wings so that current airports would not have to go through big renovations.

For power, the Progress Eagle uses six hydrogen-powered engines, which also provide electricity during the flight. However, most of the electricity would come from the solar panels in the wings. These panels use quantum dot material to boost efficiency.

The Progress Eagle would also sport a CO₂ cleaner to actively clean the air through which it travels. Designer Oscar Vinals is optimistic that his airplane will enter service in 2030.

2 Concorde 2

Although the Concorde, the first supersonic airliner, was eventually retired, its legacy lives on with the next generation of proposed airliners. Last year, Airbus won patent rights for their design of a new airplane called the Concorde 2. Following in the original plane’s footsteps, this second version would push the boundaries of flight to become the first hypersonic airliner.

The key selling point of the new plane would be its Mach 4.5 cruising speed. But the plane has a variety of other strange features, most notably its propulsion system. The Concorde 2 would use three types of engines.

For takeoff, the plane would use lift jets for a vertical takeoff, similar to a Harrier jump jet. Once the Concorde 2 is in the air, a rocket engine would shoot the passenger jet to its altitude and supersonic speeds. Finally, ramjets on the wings would accelerate the plane to its Mach 4.5 cruising speed.

To cut down on sonic booms, the Concorde 2 has an odd-looking wing that also provides high lift. Although the Concorde 2 would be faster than the original plane, it also has a smaller passenger complement—only 20 people compared to original Concorde’s 120.

1 Mobula

The Mobula, designed by Chris Cooke from Coventry University, is one of the strangest new concepts for an airliner. This breathtaking design bridges the gap between airplanes and ocean liners. Capable of carrying over 1,000 passengers on five decks, the Mobula is about more than getting to the destination. It is also about the experience.

Like the Pelican, the Mobula is an ekranoplan. Flying just a few meters above the ocean, the Mobula can use the ground effect for lift and rapid travel. For water operations, the Mobula also has floating capabilities and can easily rest on the surface on the water.

After studying the shape of animals, Cooke designed the Mobula with its organic look. But the design is not meant for pure aesthetics. In wind tunnel tests, the Mobula proved ideal for low-altitude flying with minimal drag.

Although the Mobula will probably remain a concept vehicle, it gives a glimpse into the future of air travel. Large, fast-moving ekranoplans would change the way that people travel across the ocean. Even if the Mobula is never built, it could become an important precursor to a revolution in air travel.

Zachery Brasier writes.

Ever wondered what the future of photography might hold? It’s notoriously tricky to pre-empt technological advances but we might get an idea by looking at where we’ve been, where we are, and what we can’t yet photograph—however audacious the expectation that we should be able to might seem. In that spirit, here is the past, present, and future of photography in the weirdest cameras we could find.

10. Camera obscura

The camera obscura was the world’s first camera—first recorded in China in the 4th century BC. Simple yet ingenious, it consisted of a darkened room or box with a small hole or lens in the front. As light passed through the hole into the room or box, it left an inverted image of the outside world on the surface at the back. The image was inverted because light travels in straight lines; it’s easy to understand: imagine someone sitting for a photo in front of a camera obscura, with straight lines (the light) passing from the top of their head and the soles of their feet through the pinhole in the box to the surface at the back. If the hole was as big as the object, the light could travel in parallel lines. But because the hole is so small, the lines each take a diagonal route to pass through it (one slanting down, the other slanting up) so by the time they get to the back of the box, the top line is at the bottom and the bottom line is at the top. As light does the same from every single point on the object, the whole image gets inverted.

Unfortunately, there are no surviving photos from fourth-century China because the photographic process came later. In those days, camera obscura was mostly used for safely observing eclipses. It only displayed an image; it couldn’t print it—although cave paintings may have been traced over camera obscura-type images. 

Although there was once said to be a photo of Jesus, the tabloid source was murky on the facts. Some also think the Shroud of Turin, which shows a likeness of Jesus, is a photo from camera obscura. The oldest known photograph, however, was taken much later—in 1826 or 1827—though it did, coincidentally, involve “bitumen of Judea” as a coating for the photographic plate. Taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, it shows his  “View from the Window at Le Gras,” the estate he lived on. His so-called “heliography” technique marked the start of modern photography. Niépce also worked closely with Jacques-Mandé Daguerre in creating the daguerreotype process, reducing exposure time from eight hours to just three to fifteen minutes. This breakthrough, together with the French government’s acquisition of its patent in 1839, brought photography into the mainstream.

9. George R. Lawrence’s “mammoth camera”

The world’s largest camera was built in 1900. About the size of a car, its purpose was simple: To capture an entire train in a single shot. It was commissioned by the Chicago & Alton Railway to showcase the “handsomest train in the world” in all its glory: their “Alton Limited” steam engine with its eight passenger cars. At the turn of the century, this was unprecedented. Photography was still new, and there was no way to take an image so big—not without compromising on detail.

The so-called “mammoth camera,” designed by George R. Lawrence, was therefore a marvel of its time, capable of holding an 8-by-4.5-foot image. Lined with heavy black canvas and light-proofed with 40 gallons of glue, it featured an intricate bellows system and innovative plate holder to minimize friction with the massive glass plate, as well as to facilitate ease of handling. On the day of the photo, the camera was delivered by freight car and horse-drawn van to the Brighton Park shooting location. There, it took fifteen men to set up. But the image itself took only two and a half minutes of exposure to capture.

Nowadays there’s a digital equivalent—and it’s pointed at the stars. Also roughly the size of a car, the LSST Camera—the world’s largest digital camera—is set to be installed at the Rubin Observatory in Chile at the end of 2024. Remarkably, its record-breaking 1.57-meter lens contains 189 sensors with more pixels each than the iPhone 13 camera. In total, the LSST has 3.2 gigapixels, which means it’s capable of taking images with a resolution high enough to show a golf ball from 24 kilometers away. Every night, it’s expected to capture 15 terabytes of data, helping scientists study the nature of dark matter and galaxy formation.

8. Zenit Photosniper

The Zenit Photosniper was one of many “gun cameras” made for military use. And by “gun camera,” we don’t mean a gun-mounted camera (or even a camera-mounted gun); we mean a camera shaped like a gun.

Initially developed by the Soviet Union for reconnaissance during World War Two, the Photosniper was designed to leverage snipers’ steady-handedness for the capture of critical intel. One model, the Photosniper FS-2, which featured a wooden rifle stock and reflex viewfinder for high-precision, long-distance shots, later became available to civilians.

Not all gun cameras were rifle-shaped, though. There was also the DORYU 2-16, which looked like a pistol and was designed for use by police, and the Rokuoh-Sha Type 89, which looked like a machine gun. This was produced by Konishoruko (Konica) for the Japanese Air Force, and was designed to be mounted to planes—hooked up to the weapons trigger to evaluate trainee pilots’ accuracy. Instead of firing bullets, the gun took a photo of where the pilot was shooting.

7. DARPA’s mantis eye

In 2013, with funding from DARPA, researchers from the University of Illinois came up with a digital camera based on the multi-lens eyes of arthropods—specifically praying mantises and dragonflies. Earlier designs, they say, had limited resolutions more comparable to the eyesight of a fire ant or bark beetle. Featuring an array of tiny focusing lenses and detectors, the camera boasts an exceptionally wide field of view that researchers say is “nearly infinite.” It also has minimal optical aberrations, all of which makes it virtually unparalleled among modern digital cameras. It even resembles an insect’s eye, with its curved, elastic electronics and microlenses. 

You might be wondering what DARPA plans to do (or has already done) with this design. Well, it isn’t clear. But there has been talk in the past of practically undetectable, mosquito-sized assassin drones. It seems an obvious application for the military. Less sinister, though, would be its use in micro airborne vehicles (MAVs) for disaster relief applications, where a multifaceted insect-eye camera would help navigate collapsed, smoky buildings in the search for survivors.

6. OmniVision OV6948

Heralded by Guinness World Records as the smallest commercially available image sensor, the tiny OmniVision OV6948 is a giant leap forward for medical imaging. Measuring 0.575 mm by 0.575 mm, it can be fitted to devices as narrow as a millimeter to help minimize discomfort and recovery time. Plus, the sensor’s low-power backside illumination does away with the need for potentially too-hot additional light sources, which further avoids any discomfort. Its resolution of 200 x 200 pixels is good enough for capturing images of some of the tiniest body parts, so it’ll be invaluable to a wide range of medical fields, including neurology, cardiology, and urology.

Furthermore, because it’s relatively cheap to make, it addresses a growing demand for disposable endoscopes amid concerns over cross-contamination.

5. Panono

Equipped with 36 lenses, each with a quarter-inch 108-megapixel sensor, the grapefruit-sized Panono offers the kind of panorama George R. Lawrence could only dream of: one that captures every angle of a scene. In case you missed the specs there, that’s 36 individual lenses, each with 108 megapixels, which is the megapixellage of a high-end smartphone camera. It gives users an expansive, high-resolution 360-degree image.

It was originally conceived as a thesis project. Thanks to crowd-sourcing, however, the German-engineered Panono rocketed from concept to market in record time. And, for all its technical sophistication, the camera—designed to be held on a stick or thrown in the air like a ball—is activated with a single button push, while its status is communicated by an LED ring. Similarly straightforward, the Panono’s single micro USB port serves as both an accessory connector and charging point. Even the app is optional, although it does enhance shooting, processing, and sharing the photos. 

4. Paragraphica

Reflecting our diminishing interest in the outside world, Paragraphica is (probably) the first ever camera without a lens or aperture of any kind. The place where it would usually be is instead fitted with an extraterrestrial-looking, purely decorative 3D-printed spirograph inspired by the star-nosed mole.

Uniquely, Paragraphica takes photos (or rather, creates images) by combining GPS positioning and artificial intelligence. Creator Bjørn Karmann explains how it uses “contextual data” to generate an image: first, it pinpoints the user’s location and surroundings, then it adds in environmental conditions such as weather and time. With this information, it can, fairly convincingly with AI, generate an image of what the user sees in front of him—except in the bizarro style characteristic of AIs like DALL-E. 

Pointless? Yes. But it’s only a prototype; it’s not on the market just yet. There is something appealing about it, though. Powered by a Raspberry Pi 4, it has several user-friendly controls, including three dials to fine-tune input data and AI output settings. For those interested, there’s also a virtual version online.

3. Touch Sight

Contrary to what you might expect, photography isn’t out of bounds for the blind. Historically, they’ve used their other senses as a guide for where to point—for example the smell of the sea, the sound of voices, or the feel of an unfamiliar object. Now, though, technology makes it easier. 

Apple’s VoiceOver screen reader comes pre-installed on iOS devices and can be used to make the camera more accessible—not only by saying aloud which buttons are which but also how many faces are in the shot, and by guiding the hand for panoramas. 

That’s nothing compared to Samsung’s Touch Sight, though, which is a camera designed specifically for the blind. Instead of the usual LCD screen, it features a groundbreaking Braille display—a flexible, embossable surface that represents photos in 3D. Another feature is to record three seconds of ambient sound as an auditory reference for each photo—which is crucial for organizing images. Unlike cameras for the sighted, the Touch Sight is designed to be held in front of the forehead, positioning the lens there like a third eye, and this is where users will also feel the photo they’ve snapped. Inspired by practices at the Beit Ha’iver (Center for the Blind) in Israel, this leverages blind people’s naturally heightened auditory and spatial awareness to help stabilize and aim the camera.

2. Flexible camera

Invisibility cloaks, whereby cameras and screens are used to display what’s behind an object on the front of it, would be easier with flexible cameras. We’d be able to wrap them around objects or make them into clothing. This isn’t necessarily what Columbia University’s Shree K. Nayar had in mind, but it’s probably the use to which his thin, bendable sheet camera will be put. This innovative concept can be adapted to various shapes and surfaces to shoot images that normal cameras cannot.

Crucially, its flexible lens array (made of an elastic material) is responsive, changing optical properties as the sheet bends to ensure high-quality images across a range of deformations. If the lenses were fixed, there would be gaps in the field of view when the lens sheet was bent.

Although it’s just a concept for now, Nayar and his team envision the technology as a low-cost, rollable sheet. 

Needless to say, one use they have in mind is surveillance, with the sheet allowing photography from otherwise impossible locations—literally, blanket surveillance. They also have the somewhat less sinister idea of a low-cost credit card-sized camera that changes the field of view when it’s flexed.

1. Quantum camera and holography

With all the cameras we already have and the novel cameras listed above, what could be the final frontier? What can’t we take photos of yet? One answer to this is objects in pitch darkness. Enter the quantum camera, which as the name suggests, relies on the quirks of quantum physics to encode information about an object into light particles that haven’t touched it. Invented in China, it could significantly benefit the study of delicate, light-sensitive materials, including in the body. It’s early days yet, but the concept is sound.

Another concept for the future of photography is synthetic wavelength holography. It’s based on interferometry, a technique for accurately measuring astronomical and microscopic phenomena. Similar to taking photos of objects light hasn’t touched, this basically allows us to take photos around corners (without a long stick). The concept involves firing laser beams with slightly differing wavelengths past obstructions to illuminate objects hidden from view. The reflected wavelengths are then captured and superimposed, creating an interference pattern—a kind of blueprint—showing the location and details of the object in question, with astonishing (and terrifying) precision and speed. It’s able to do this by requiring only two exposures, each lasting just 23 milliseconds, to scan a nearly hemispheric field of view. 

Applications are likely to include examining human tissues obscured by bones or detecting tiny imperfections in machinery. It could also be used in self-driving vehicles to help navigate blind corners and fog. Probably, artificial intelligence will be used to filter out “noise” and enhance captured holograms—paving the way for real-time holographic streaming systems. Needless to say, all of these uses mean there’s plenty of funding. So although it’s still a long way off, the dawn of holography is coming—bringing with it a transformation in how we visualize and interact with the world (and a giant leap beyond Orwell in terms of governments’ surveillance capabilities).

China isn’t usually the country that comes to mind when we think of “environmental responsibility”. This is, after all, a country that loses 1.6 million lives each year to the toxins in its air.

See Also: 10 Animals That Surprisingly Benefit From Climate Change

Still, no country better understands the dangers of pollution than China – and that’s having an effect. While other countries have been slacking in their commitment to the world’s climate pacts, China’s actually been stepping up – and is on track to becoming the world leader in combating climate change.

It’s the last thing anyone ever expected. China has become our last, best hope for the environment.

How in the world did this happen?

10 The Chinese People Demand It

In 2008, the US Embassy in Beijing installed a little air-quality monitor on the top of their building and had it send out automated tweets reporting the daily level of air pollution. They weren’t out to be subversive, but they accidentally revealed a major issue.

The levels the embassy reported were much, much higher than the ones the Chinese government were reporting, and they made something painfully clear – the government wasn’t telling the truth.

Soon, Chinese citizens started tuning in to the embassy’s report instead of the government’s. The government tried to censor it, announcing that its “readings were illegal”, but the embassy went on tweeting anyway.

The people started getting worried. They complained about the “state secret” of environment pollution levels. Normally, complaining would have been dangerous, but the government’s a bit more forgiving when it comes to the environment, and so the complaints rage on.

Pretty soon, the government had to start giving out the real numbers. They had to change their approach due to the population – because the people wanted it. 90% of the country was willing to sacrifice economics for the environment, and the government had to follow suit.^[1]

9 China Is Calling For Bigger Emissions Cuts Than The UN

In 2011, China stood before the UN and declared that every major economy – including themselves – should be legally forced to curb greenhouse gas emissions after 2020. They proposed introducing consequences to countries that didn’t meet their targets and volunteered to sign up first, saying, “We accept a legally binding agreement.”

The world was confused. This was, after all, China, the pollution center of the world. Most of the world’s leaders just wanted to figure out what China was up to. As it turns out, though, China has actually followed through with its commitment. They have plans on lowering their reliance on coal over the next few years and have committed to making carbon dioxide emissions peak by 2030, with levels only going down after that.

And it’s working. Based on their progress so far, experts actually believe they’re going to do better than promised. There are people asking if China’s emissions have already peaked, 14 years ahead of schedule.^[2]

8 China Probably Isn’t The Worst Polluter

We usually think of China as the world’s biggest polluter – but people are starting to shift blame onto the US instead. And they might not be wrong.

Technically, China releases the most greenhouse gases per year, but from a historical perspective, they’re far from the worst. Between 1850 and 2011, the United States was the source 27% of all carbon dioxide emissions, while China only caused 11%.

Even today, the United States might actually be creating more pollution that China. China produces 8.5 billion tons of greenhouse gases annually, but that’s just because their economy relies on industry. 20% of those gases come from factories producing things for the United States.

American companies pay for these factories, but they put them in China instead of the US to keep their costs down. Still, the pollution is actually coming from American activities and interests. If we shift the responsibility for that pollution back to America, the United States’ annual 6.9 billion tons of greenhouse gases gets a lot higher – and it becomes a bigger number than China’s.^[3]

7 Reforestation Initiatives

One of the reasons the climate’s going up so quickly is because we’ve lost so much of the rainforest. You’ve probably already heard that the rainforest absorbs a massive amount of carbon dioxide, and that without it we’ve lost a major natural defense. You might not have heard, though, that China’s pretty much made up for it.

Ever since 1981, every Chinese student over the age of 11 has been required to plant at least one tree each year to encourage their role in taking care of the environment. It’s made a difference. In 2008 alone, China increased its forestage by 4.77 million hectares.

The biggest impact, though, is from the Great Green Wall they are planting in the Gobi desert. China is planning on covering a 4,500km area of desert with 100 billion trees.

The impact will be incredible. Already, the Great Green Wall has offset 81% of the loss in above-ground biomass carbon lost to tropical rainforest deforestation since 2003 – and they aren’t even done planting yet.^[4]

6 Car-Free Cities

Cars are one of the biggest sources of air pollution in the world. Currently, the vehicles on Chinese roads are responsible for nearly a third of the toxins in the air – but they’re doing something about it.

China is currently working on a plan to take 5 million aging vehicles off of the road as part of a larger commitment to cut emissions by 17%. In exchange, more and more people are going with electric cars. In fact, sales of Tesla’s electric cars tripled in the last year.

The most interesting idea, though, is the Great City, China’s plan to create a town that doesn’t have a single car. The city will be able to house 80,000 and will be surrounded by a buffer green spaces that make up 60% of the area. It will take 20 minutes to walk across the city on foot, and people will have to use public transit to enter and exit the town.^[5]

5 Animal Rights Activism

China doesn’t exactly have the world’s best track record for animal rights, but it’s starting to get a better. They’ve made some major changes in how they harvest shark fins, and what’s interesting, for an autocratic country, is how it happened.

NBA All-Star Yao Ming launched a massive campaign to stop shark fin consumption in China. Before he’d started, the public was unaware of where their food was coming from. Shark fin soup, in China, is marketed as “fish wing soup”. Because of its name, in 2006, 75% of the people didn’t even know it came from sharks, let alone that crippled sharks were being tossed back in the water to die after their fins were harvested

That changed because of Yao Ming’s campaign. By 2013, 91% of the population of China supported a nationwide shark fin ban – showing that the people are really willing to fight for animal rights as long as they understand it.^[6]

4 China Bans Every Pollutant

China hasn’t banned shark fin soup yet – but they’ve banned an awful lot else. China can get away with limiting people’s freedoms in a way that democratic countries can’t, and they’re taking advantage of it in the war on pollution.

They are the largest country in the world to ban plastic bags, and, because of it, Chinese supermarkets have reduced bag use by 66%.

That’s just the start, though. They’ve also set limits on fireworks – which sounds like a silly idea, but actually makes a lot of sense. Fireworks create a lot more pollution than we realize. In an experiment, scientists lit off 3 fireworks in a 30-cubic-meter room and pollution went up to 40X the safe level. In China, where New Years means fireworks are being lit on every corner, it adds up a serious effect.

Anything and everything that adds to air pollution is being cut out of Chinese life. Smoking was banned in Beijing because of its contribution to air pollution. In some places, China even banned bacon for putting too many toxins in the air.^[7]

3 Carbon Trading

China has been looking into ways to stop just regulating and forcing people to stop polluting and start trying to find ways to make going green economically worthwhile. One of those is their new carbon market, which is going to be the biggest of its kind in the world.

Next year, China will open a cap-and-trade program to lower emissions from their most environmentally dangerous industries. The plan puts a cap on the six industrial sectors that create the most pollution. They aren’t allowed to go over their limits, but if they stay under, the can sell their extra permission to other industries.

They’re going to share power outside of the country, as well. China is currently working on setting up a super grid with India, South Korea and Japan that will let them share excess power with their neighbors, reducing energy waste and their impact on their environment.^[8]

2 They Are Sacrificing Their GDP To Help The Environment

China is committed to their new image. They have admitted that, in the past, “China’s GDP growth has sacrificed its environment,” but their plan has changed – and now they’ve pledged to put the environment first.

The country has set aside $6.6 trillion to meet their greenhouse gas reduction goals. They’re planning on going even further, too – they’re committed to regularly checking their progress and increasing their goals whenever possible.

When America started talking about dropping out of the Paris Agreement, China didn’t change their plans. Instead, they are filling the gap by putting $3.1 billion into helping other developing countries’ climate programs.

It’s a strange role reversal. Today, China is criticizing America for not doing enough to protect the environment. “If they resist this trend,” one Chinese politician warned, “I don’t think they’ll win the support of their people, and their country’s economic and social progress will also be affected.”^[9]

1 Soft Power

China’s doing all this for a reason – it’s for their own gain.

China has become a bastion of progressive environmental ideals because it’s in their best interest. They’re trying to win over the world through soft power, or, in other words, by expand their political influence. They’re fighting for a green future because it lets them take the moral higher ground in UN meetings on other issues.

That’s not an opinion – that’s a quote. China’s senior climate talks negotiator, Zou Ji, has directly said, “taking action against climate change will improve China’s international image and allow it to occupy the moral high ground.”

Winning the moral high ground on the environment, Zou Ji said, will “spill over into other areas of global governance and increase China’s global standing, power and leadership.”

So, China’s doing this for crass, political reasons – not out of the goodness of their hearts. But in a weird way, it actually might be our best hope. China’s the one country we can count on to hold up their promises – because it’s worth their while.^[10]

The last decade may have been amazing for scientific progress – as we made unimaginable strides in fields like bionics, space exploration and finally verifying whatever Einstein was talking about – though 2020 is still far from the idea of ‘future’ most of us grew up with. While we do now have many of the technologies we couldn’t even dream of a hundred years ago, progress on the cooler and more-visible fictional technologies of the future – like flying cars – seems to have been rather slow.

One reason we believe that is because the fictional tech we’re looking for – like, again, flying cars—is almost always inefficient and unnecessary. Truly groundbreaking and futuristic technologies are actually getting developed as we speak; we just never get to hear about them because they don’t sound as cool. In the spirit of consistently reminding everyone just how scary science is turning out to be, here are 8 recent breakthroughs that prove that we’re already living in the future.

See Also: 10 People Who Claimed To Have Traveled To The Future

8 AI Doctors

Medicine is one of the fields that we assume would never be fully automated, as you’d always need a human brain to diagnose the wide variety of things that can go wrong with the body. That argument definitely holds water, though only if we assume that the robots used to replace the real doctors aren’t going to learn from their experiences, too. With machine learning and AI, robot doctors on the field are already matching—and in some cases surpassing – the extent of our medical knowledge.

Take the British National Health Service (NHS), where the chatbots recently deployed to remotely diagnose problems were found to outperform their human counterparts quite a few times, especially in the cases of abdominal diseases. As per the company’s own tests, its accuracy rate was much higher than us, too.

That’s not it, AI-driven machines have decisively outperformed their human counterparts – at least in the field of medical diagnostics—in a lot of recent studies. Due to our inherent distrust of machines and robots, however, their adoption in hospitals and government facilities around the world has been rather slow.

7 Bringing The Dead Back To Life

Reanimating the dead has been a staple of popular fiction in some way for as long as we can remember. It mirrors humanity’s fundamental desire – above all else – to free itself from the shackles of death, even if it’s often inexplicably expressed through monstrosities like Frankenstein’s monsters and zombies. While we know that we’d some day be able to reverse death in some way, no one expects that day to come any time soon.

According to a recent study, though, we’re not just close to being able to reverse death, but we may even have already learned how to do it. Some researchers at the Yale School Of Medicine were successfully able to reanimate the brains of 32 pigs well after they were declared dead. They put all the brains together into a mega structure called BrainEx, and injected them with a solution to mimic the natural blood flow of the body. To their surprise – and possibly horror – the brains started functioning as normal. Some of them had even started responding to drugs exactly like a normal, non-zombified animal brain.

6 Nuclear Fusion

Most of us think of nuclear fission to be a more powerful form of reaction than nuclear fusion, and it makes sense, too. To a layman, something splitting apart has to release more energy than something being put together, no matter the science behind it. In reality, nuclear fusion isn’t just much, much more powerful, it’s also the primary source of power for our Sun (and all the other stars). It’s also a much cleaner source of energy, though also much more difficult to achieve. Despite our best efforts to replicate that on Earth for our ever-growing energy needs, harnessing the energy of nuclear fusion like the stars has always been a dream of the distant future for our scientists.

While there’d still be some time before we can truly replace the Sun with an energy source of our making, a recent study in China proved that the conditions required for nuclear fusion on the Sun could be recreated on Earth.

Working at the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor in Hefei, China, the team of scientists managed to simulate an artificial Sun with the help of nuclear fusion. They were able to attain temperature levels of over 100 million Celsius, which was enough for it to turn into plasma. That’s right, some scientists from China just found a way to recreate the SUN on Earth, complete with plasma.

5 Detecting Parkinson’s Through Voice

Parkinson’s disease comes from a class of serious disorders we don’t entirely understand – another one being Alzheimer’s. It’s not caused by any external body and is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, though that’s pretty much all we know about it. We still don’t know exactly what causes it, or if it’s even a normal disease like we understand diseases or something wholly different, like prions. Moreover, detecting it has always been as difficult as understanding it, as symptoms show up slowly and over a long period of time. There’s quite a bit of debate on what those symptoms are, too, as patients don’t have any clear biological markers.

While we’re far from figuring out and eradicating Parkinson’s, we can now detect it much earlier—thanks to some recent research. In a clinical first, researchers from three universities developed a method to detect Parkinson’s with just voice samples. It’s not really available for medical use yet, but their system was able to detect Parkinson’s with an accuracy of 87%. As it’s based on machine learning, it would only get better at it, too.

4 Robots That Can Follow Orders

If you think about it, robots have hardly made any impact on modern life. Sure, robots combined with other technologies like VR and AI would probably definitely play a big role in the future, though on their own, they’re not of much use. Despite being around for decades now, they’re hardly a part of daily life like the fictional works of twentieth century predicted. What gives?

One of the biggest reasons is their inability to understand what we’re saying. Robots are still not commonplace because they don’t have the cognitive skills required to process our instructions in real time. While we have designed robots that could do backflips and run as fast as a human, it’s incredibly difficult to code them to process any instruction you throw at them.

While there would still be some time before robots could understand and talk just like a real person, we’ve made some unprecedented progress in their cognitive abilities in recent times. The U.S. army has recently developed software that could program field robots to understand verbal instructions, carry them out, and report back without any supervision. They’d also be equipped to machine learn, making them learn from their mistakes and get even better at their jobs as they go.

3 Quantum Entanglement

Quantum Entanglement is one of the most important and mysterious phenomena in Quantum Physics. It’s the theory that a pair of quantum particles will always affect each other regardless of the distance or type of active forces between them, which has also been touted as the solution to everything from faster-than-light-travel and quantum networking. While it has been theoretically proposed as well as observed on small scales in the past, we haven’t yet been able to determine if it’s possible over large distances.

That was until a team of Chinese scientists, for the first time in history, beamed entangled pairs of photons over a distance of more than 1,200 km (around 750 miles). In simple words, they proved that the state of a particle could be changed depending on another particle thousands of miles away, regardless of any other factor. As you’d expect, it has applications in a wide variety of fields. China is well on its way to develop a censor-proof quantum network, which would be leaps and bounds faster and more secure than anything we have. It also enables other breakthroughs that were previously thought to be impossible – like faster-than-light communication.

2 Eye Tribe

The possibility of using just your eyes to control a computer sounds like a futuristic (and rather awesome) proposition, though somehow, there haven’t been many efforts to turn it into a reality. If developed, it has quite a few applications in a wide variety of fields, especially for the disabled. It would fundamentally change how we interact with our devices, and something that a lot of us don’t even think is possible.

While it’s true that no technology of the sort exists right now, it did for a brief amount of time. Eye Tribe was a short-lived startup that had – according to their videos – successfully built a prototype device that enables you to control any screen with just your eyes. Of course, the number of things you could do was clearly limited, as it was less of a finished product and more of a developer prototype to build on. The possibilities were endless, and it really was something straight out of a science fiction book.

Unfortunately, the company ceased all operations in the middle of it for unknown reasons, and was soon bought by Facebook’s Oculus.

1 Converting Brain Signals Into Audio And Images

If you told a person in the nineteenth century that in about two hundred years, we would have the ability to read other people’s thoughts, he’d probably laugh at you. That’s still the case, as it’s still something so futuristic and unrealistic that even science fiction hasn’t used it too often. Scientifically speaking, there should be no way to look into what someone else is thinking, for the simple reason that thoughts are nothing but electrical waves the brain can decipher. Also, privacy.

If recent research on the subject is anything to go by, we already have the ability to read people’s thoughts to a great extent. A team of neuroengineers from Columbia University recently built a system to convert brain signals into audible speech, and it’s surprisingly accurate. Other studies have proven that brain signals could be turned into images, too, which is honestly something we didn’t even know could be done.

In a year when science has become both our saving grace against a global pandemic and a target of political pundits, it might be a good time to look back at all the good that science has done for us these past few years.

Whether making discoveries that can change little aspects of our daily lives or finding cures for diseases that have hounded humanity, scientists have been hard at work trying to push us toward a brighter future.

10 Recent Scientific Breakthroughs And Discoveries

8 mRNA Vaccines

Although most people know that DNA is the genetic material inside our cells, the role of mRNA may be less understood. DNA contains instructions that guide our cells to make the proteins we need. As DNA is so important, the one copy of DNA we have in each cell cannot be damaged.

To prevent any damage from happening, our cells make many copies of the sections of DNA that they need to guide their protein making. These copies are called mRNA copies. If they get damaged, they are just discarded.

With that in mind, scientists have found a way to use mRNA to make a new type of vaccine. Viruses infect human cells by injecting their DNA into the cells and forcing our cellular machinery to make viral proteins using this DNA.

Most vaccines involve taking whole inactivated viruses or pieces of the viruses and injecting them. This teaches our bodies how to make antibodies against the virus.

A new vaccine in clinical testing eliminates the need for viruses in the vaccine. Instead, the new Moderna vaccine aims to tackle the virus causing COVID-19 by injecting us with a small piece of mRNA that teaches our cells how to make a spike protein found on the outside of the virus. When our cells make this protein, our immune system attacks it by producing antibodies, giving us the same type of protection we would get from exposure to the virus.^[1]

This method has greatly simplified the vaccine development process, which normally takes over 10 years. It took a little over two months to go from the planning phase to the first clinical trial of Moderna’s vaccine. If all goes well, it may be the vaccine that ends the coronavirus pandemic.

7 Mind-Controlled Prostheses

In 2016, a team from the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), and the University of Chicago gave one man the gift of a lifetime. Paralyzed after a car accident in 2004, Nathan Copeland lost full use of his body from the chest down. Amazingly, he is now able to both feel and control a prosthetic limb with only his mind.^[2]

This huge scientific leap was made possible by implanting electrodes in the areas of Copeland’s brain that control movement and touch sensations. When Copeland thinks about moving his arm, these electrodes interpret the activity from his brain cells to move the robotic arm. When something touches the robotic hand, sensors send electrical signals that stimulate Copeland’s brain to feel the touch.

The National Institutes of Health is providing a combined $7 million to Pitt, UPMC, and Chicago to continue the research.

6 Understanding Autism

Autism has long been a misunderstood disorder as the cause has been difficult to trace. This has led to an influx of theories, ranging from the scientific approach of suggesting it is a genetic disorder to the Facebook groups and bloggers blaming it on vaccinations. People with autism generally lack social and verbal communication skills or exhibit repetitive behaviors. The extent of the symptoms can vary widely, making it a spectrum disorder.

By analyzing the DNA of autistic children against the DNA from their parents, scientists at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto have made an important discovery. There are regions of DNA in the body called tandem repeats. They are a pattern of the DNA sequence that is repeated multiple times.

These Toronto scientists discovered that autistic children often have double or triple the number of tandem repeats that their parents have. The larger these tandem repeats are, the more they impair the function of the gene. In autistic children, tandem repeats have been found in genes related to brain function.^[3]

By identifying this strange phenomenon, scientists may now have a new way to diagnose autism. In addition, this provides a clearer understanding of what causes autism, meaning new treatments may be on the horizon. Some scientists also believe that a similar type of tandem repeat expansion may be the cause of epilepsy and disorders like schizophrenia.

5 A Treatment For Alzheimer’s Disease

In the brain, the tau protein found in neurons helps to hold their axons together. Neurons are nerve cells, and they send signals across their axons. By sending these signals, we experience sensations like touch.

In people with Alzheimer’s disease, tau proteins are tangled up inside the nerve axons. This prevents signals from traveling down the axons and leads to problems with brain functioning. In addition, the buildup of another protein called beta-amyloid forms clumps between neurons, also limiting neuron functioning.

In 2019, NeuroEM Therapeutics, Inc., tested a wearable cap that sends electromagnetic waves through the brain to break apart the buildup of these proteins. The first clinical study of eight patients found that seven experienced a return of some cognitive function. More extensive studies are underway to try to confirm these results.^[4]

Independent laboratories performed similar experiments on mice and found that cognitive function was improved from exposure to electromagnetic waves. Although it is still early days for this treatment, it may provide a ray of hope to those suffering from Alzheimer’s. So far, drug treatments for Alzheimer’s disease have done little but mildly slow down its progression, so finding new approaches to this problem is always exciting.

Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs Of The Month (March 2019)

4 Universal Flu Vaccines

We need to get flu shots every year because flu virus strains change annually. Flu vaccines produce an immune response against the head of a protein on the flu virus. (The protein is called HA).

The problem is that the HA head changes often because it can mutate rapidly. As a result, we need new flu shots every year to provide immunity against the new HA head.^[5]

This problem may soon be eliminated. It turns out that the stem of the HA protein, which holds the head, does not change. It is relatively constant among strains of the flu.

A new vaccine created by the scientists of NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center has just entered clinical testing, and it targets this stem instead of the head. If this is successful, a single vaccine would make us immune to most strains of the flu for a much longer time. It will likely be a while before we know the effectiveness of this vaccine. But it is a big step toward finding a universal one-time-only flu shot.

3 The Medusavirus Discovery

A new virus isolated from a hot spring in Japan has been dubbed the “Medusavirus.” This name comes from the mythical monster Medusa who would turn her victims to stone when they looked into her eyes. In similar fashion, the Medusavirus turns its amoeba hosts into stone by hijacking their cellular machinery.

Luckily, this virus cannot infect humans. But it does have a rather interesting set of proteins called histones. They are used to package DNA in the nuclei of cells. However, viruses do not have nuclei, and the Medusavirus is no exception.

Scientists believe that this may provide insight into how eukaryotic life came to be. Eukaryotes are cells with nuclei, like the ones that make up our bodies. When viruses infect host cells, they tend to leave a mark on the surviving host cell’s DNA. The virus sometimes picks up DNA sequences from the host as well. Basically, the host and virus evolve together.

Thus, figuring out how the Medusavirus obtained these histone proteins could give us insight into how early cells evolved to become the complex modern cells of today.^[6]

2 Metal-Eating Microbes

For years, scientists and engineers have wondered why lumps of manganese oxide collect on the seafloor and why this compound seems to build up in water pipes. Caltech scientist Jared Leadbeater finally answered some of these questions when he left glassware containing manganese carbonate to soak in his sink while he was away on a work trip.

When he returned, the normally cream-colored manganese carbonate had turned into black manganese oxide. After replicating the situation in an experiment with both sterilized and unsterilized jars, Leadbeater found that only the unsterilized jars had turned black. This means that some sort of microbe caused the reaction.

After further testing, Leadbeater and his team narrowed the list down to two microbes. They discovered that these bacteria cells could eat the electrons in manganese to make their own energy. This leaves manganese oxide behind.

It is the first time that scientists have found microbes that can use manganese as an energy source. This discovery may help us to understand how manganese, a very common element, helped to shape the evolution of the planet.^[7]

1 A Cure For Ebola

Although we are in the midst of a new coronavirus pandemic, it was not too long ago that pandemic fears were focused on Ebola. This viral illness starts off with fevers and the shakes. It can then progress to uncontrolled bleeding and organ failure.

This often-fatal disease has been researched for years. In 2019, a clinical trial identified a new drug therapy that reduced the death rate from 75 percent without treatment to 29 percent with the new therapy. If Ebola is treated very early, the death rate dropped all the way to 6 percent.

This new drug by Regeneron contains a mixture of antibodies, which are made by our immune cells to clear infections from our bodies. These antibodies specially attack the Ebola virus.

It is difficult to make antibodies in a lab as they need to work in the human body without being attacked by the immune system. In addition, the Ebola virus can change shape. This is why a mixture of different antibodies must be used in the treatment. This new therapy is currently being tested and may soon become a lifesaving tool.^[8]

Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs Of The Month (May 2019)