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.

Warfare has evolved quite a bit from the first time we looked at another group of people and decided to fight them. We’ve come a long way from charging headfirst into each other and hoping our weapons hit their intended targets. There may have been a time when just having superior battle tactics and higher numbers would have ensured victory, though now, a numerically inferior force could easily take on a much bigger one by just having a technological upper hand on the battlefield.

Nearly all of the biggest countries in the world are now working hard at gaining that upper hand, and some of the breakthroughs in military tech in recent times have started to resemble things straight out of science fiction. While we knew that these technologies would definitely be a regular part of warfare at some point in the future, we didn’t know that future would be here so soon.

10 EMP

The idea of a superpowered weapon that could theoretically release a burst of electromagnetic radiation (e.g. an electromagnetic pulse [EMP]) and incapacitate all electronics in a given area has existed in science fiction for a long time. Any army that has access to such a weapon would gain an automatic advantage in a battle, as even one working weapons system is better than thousands that are disabled.

Many countries have ongoing projects attempting to make such a thing, but it looks like the US Air Force already has it. Called the Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project, or CHAMP, the weapon was able to successfully target and disable the electronics of seven separate buildings during a test in Utah.^[1] Thankfully, it’s able to pinpoint specific targets instead of just bombarding a whole area with the pulse, ensuring that civilians won’t be affected during a live operation.

9 Hypersonic Missiles

The speed of sound isn’t anywhere close to the speed of light, and saying that overtaking it is any sort of a breakthrough in 2019 would be dishonest. We have many things that can breach the sound barrier like it’s nothing, though most of it is military tech, like jets and missiles, and also super-expensive to build. It’s not the same for hypersonic speed, though, which is at least five times the speed of sound and much more difficult to achieve.

It’s one of those things we thought we’d see farther in the future, but that was until China put its hypersonic missiles to the test.^[2] Unfortunately for all of China’s potential enemies, the tests were successful. Developing hypersonic missiles has been a top priority for the United States for some time now, so it would be interesting to see what they come up with now that China has seemingly taken the lead in that arms race.

8 Micro-Drones

Thirty years ago, few would have imagined that we’d have unmanned flying objects capable of carrying out military operations from a safe distance. Drones (aka UAVs) have already transformed the way we conduct warfare as well as other parts of life, like news reporting and drunken bets at tech school parties.

Despite their utility in warfare, there are some things that UAVs still can’t easily do, like carrying out an operation undetected. For that, they’d have to be minimized to an almost undetectable scale, something science fiction authors have played around with quite a few times. It sounds overpowered and kind of scary, as tiny armed drones no one can see could wreak havoc in the wrong hands. It’s a relief, then, that they’re still quite a bit away in the distant future, right? Well, no.

In January 2017, the Pentagon announced that it had successfully tested a group of 103 micro-drones, each about 16 centimeters (6 in) in length.^[3] They’re largely autonomous in nature and are capable of things like collective decision-making, changing formations according to situation, and “healing” themselves. And no, that’s not all; they also have plans to some day be able to fit advanced and deadly technologies on their minuscule drones, including tiny nukes.

7 Weaponizing AI

Many scientific and military experts have grave, and justified, concerns about artificial intelligence being allowed into the realm of warfare. Even if a full-fledged killer robot uprising isn’t really that big of a concern at this point, it poses many other ethical questions we need to answer first. How do we make sure that autonomous, self-learning weapons know the difference between combatants and civilians, when even we mistake the two every now and then? More importantly, how do we hold a machine accountable for its actions? Going to jail isn’t really a deterrent for it.

Despite those concerns, artificial intelligence is already a part of warfare to a larger extent than those concerned about it would be comfortable with. Take Israel’s “Harop” loitering munition system, which is essentially a suicide drone that can self-destruct if it’s able to lock on to what it perceives as a target, like enemy combatants or antiaircraft missile systems.^[4] It has already been successfully used on the battlefield, and the scariest part is that it’s capable of deciding what to dive-bomb entirely on its own. Reportedly, Germany also has completely automated missile systems capable of shooting down enemy missiles without any human intervention.

There’s a silver lining, though; AI developers aren’t as easily available for hire as general weapons experts, and many in Silicon Valley have explicitly refused to work with the military to try to ensure that AI’s use in warfare remains limited.

6 Mind-Controlled Weapons

Imagine simply linking your brain to a weapon, vehicle, robot, or what have you and being able to pilot it with a deftness and fluidity you’d never attain with a joystick, to be the fighter jet or Pacific Rim-style giant death robot. If you think that it’s safe to say that it’ll be some time before we can actually do that, you’d be wrong; the tech already exists.

In one study, neuroscientists developed something known as the “brainet,” where two monkeys were taught how to control a digital limb with the help of just their thoughts. While it has noncombat applications, especially in aiding people with brain damage or disabilities in their day-to-day tasks, it could also be used for military purposes. The US Department of Defense already has ongoing programs looking into creating mind-controlled weapons, and we could see them put to use quite soon.^[5]

5 Exoskeleton Suit

Anyone who has played first-person shooters is probably familiar with the concept of an exoskeleton suit, an exterior suit of powered armor that provides enhanced protection and capabilities. The idea, in various forms, has been explored quite a bit in fiction as well; just look at Iron Man.

While something as high-tech and awesome as Tony Stark’s duds will take some time to develop, an exoskeleton suit already exists. In 2018, Russia tested its RATNIK-3 prototype. The tests were largely successful; the tester was able to carry heavy loads and shoot a machine gun one-handed. The suit is made with a titanium framework to increase the soldier’s strength and stamina.^[6]

It has a limitation, though: It doesn’t have much in the way of energy storage, so it can only work for a limited time. They’re working on fixing that, though. Either way, the RATNIK-3 sounds like a working exoskeleton suit to us.

4 Seeing Through Walls

Gone are the days of face-to-face battles on large fields. The wars of today are largely urban in nature, which is partly due to the combatants being non-state actors and guerilla fighters. That also makes it all the more difficult, as booby traps and ambushes in densely populated urban battlefields can bring the best armies to a halt (as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan).

Many countries have been trying to perfect their own technologies for being able to scan an area before they move in, but that would require the ability to see through walls, and no one really has that. Or don’t they? Some recent breakthroughs have proven that not only is it closer than we thought, but the tech to see through walls already exists.

In 2015, a Czech radar manufacturer successfully built a device that can see what’s on the other side of the wall, as long as whoever is behind the wall is moving their limbs or breathing. If that’s not good enough, in 2018, a group of researchers from MIT developed an AI-type technology that can see anyone through walls with an accuracy of 83 percent, complete with a moving image of their stick-like form in real time.^[7]

In another breakthrough at the Technical University of Munich in 2017, researchers were able to do the same thing with Wi-Fi routers. We’re pretty sure we saw something like that in a movie once.

3 Seeking Bullets

You may not at all be surprised to hear that in a battle, enemy combatants, at least competent ones, are trained to make shooting them difficult. That’s exactly why a type of ammunition developed by DARPA, the research wing of the US Department of Defense, is so impressive and deadly. Known as EXACTO, it’s not just able to home in on a hard-to-hit, dug-in target; it also has the ability to change course midway depending on enemy movement and is accurate to a scary degree.^[8]

Not just that, they’re also actively trying to develop an auto-aiming rifle, which uses computation and advanced algorithms to only fire when the shot should hit, without the shooter having to rely on his judgement of wind conditions and visibility.

2 Freeze Ray

Unlike most other items on this list, which could aid good guys as well as rogue armies, the “freeze ray,” a weapon that can literally freeze someone in his tracks, has generally been portrayed in fiction as something villains use. Of course, we don’t really have anything that can do that from a distance and in a short burst of time, right? Well, a team from the University of Washington developed something along those lines in 2015.

It works by shooting a laser at a liquid and freezing it. We already had the tech to do this to solids in a vacuum, this was the first time it had been done to a liquid. Also, lasers generally heat objects up rather than cooling them down.

Future applications for technology of this sort extend far beyond freezing people in a battle, of course. The researchers think that it could theoretically be used to freeze and slow down the division process in living cells, possibly giving us a better understanding of the mechanisms behind aging and cancer.^[9]

1 Invisibility Cloak

The ability to become invisible whenever we want wouldn’t just be valuable for the military; a lot of us could make use of such an ability in many of our daily interactions. It has been imagined and discussed in science fiction since we started writing science fiction, and even in 2019, it still sounds like something from the future. Fortunately for military contractors as well as people who keep getting stuck in awkward conversations, invisibility cloaks are no longer the stuff of the distant future or science fiction. In fact, we’ve had at least one invisibility cloak since 2012.

A Canadian company called Hyperstealth Biotechnology Corporation has successfully built a material that can make you invisible. It’s also passive in nature, which means that it doesn’t reproduce your background on any kind of screen; it just “bends light around an object.”^[10] In other words, it’s an invisibility cloak exactly like you’d envision an invisibility cloak to be. The US military showed interest in purchasing it, because of course it did, and you might just see it deployed on a battlefield near you sooner than you’d have expected.

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, get in touch with him for writing gigs, or just say hello to him on Twitter.

Every generation has its own idea of what “futuristic” means. Fifty years ago, that would have been flat-screen TVs, 24-hour ATMs, and other things we take for granted today.

As technological growth is exponential rather than linear, “futuristic” in 2019 means quite a bit more than it did back then. All bets are off at this point as scientific progress is rapidly leaving even our imaginations behind. Most of us didn’t even know that these 10 futuristic technologies were in development, let alone already in existence.

10 Thought-Controlled Prostheses

Humanity has a long history of going out and doing things that take our limbs away. Compared to our early days, prosthetic limbs have a come a long way. They’re not just pieces of wood vaguely shaped like an arm anymore. Today’s prostheses almost look and operate like real limbs.

However, anyone who has lost an arm will tell you that prostheses aren’t anything like the real thing. No matter how advanced they get, they still can’t communicate with the brain and neural network.

Of course, that was until science decided that it was time to build thought-controlled prostheses—and did. In an experiment funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a man from Florida became the first person to be fitted with an artificial limb that can be controlled by thoughts, blurring the line between imagination and reality.

Even if he still can’t do everything he could with his real arm—like splash water on it or drive—the arm largely works as intended.^[1]

9 Full-Fledged 3-D–Printed Organs

3-D printers can print almost anything as long as the blueprint and material is available. From guns to musical instruments to clothes, people who’ve been experimenting with 3-D printing since the technology came out have done unbelievable things with it. Some of 3-D printing’s truly futuristic applications lie in medicine, like printing and replacing organs damaged during accidents.

Although we have previously discussed a San Diego research firm that successfully printed liver tissue, that was not exactly the same as 3-D printing organs because a human organ is much more than just tissue. Almost all our organs are so intricately designed that even our best machines haven’t been able to replicate them yet.

Until now. A researcher from Rice University recently printed a full-scale model of the lung—complete with air pathways and blood vessels mimicking the real thing.^[2] We’ve also come one step closer to perfectly replicating human tissue. In another lab, scientists were able to reprogram the cells of our tissues into stem cells and make a bio ink out of it. The ink could then be used to print a complicated organ—such as the heart—exactly like the real thing.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we’re now able to completely make a human body on our own, though these advancements are still something we never expected we’d be able to do so soon.

8 Working Retinal Implants

According to WHO estimates, around 1.3 billion people around the world are diagnosed with vision impairment. Many of them suffer from degenerative retinal diseases that cannot be cured. Completely curing blindness would certainly be considered a futuristic proposition, and thanks to groundbreaking research into retinal implants that perfectly mimic the human eye, we may already have the tech to do it.

Recently, scientists made a retinal implant that works exactly like the real thing and successfully tested it in rats. We’d like to note that eye implants already exist, though none of them could fix the damage done to the retina as it’s responsible for taking the information seen through the eye to the brain. This new tech can fix the eye and be used as a replacement for the retina and photoreceptor cells, something that wasn’t possible before.^[3]

In other research, scientists have created a 2-D material that could be used to make an artificial retina. Combine that with the above implants, and we may already possess the tech required to eradicate blindness. However, it will be at least a few more years until it’s perfected and made affordable enough for the masses.

7 Digital Tattoos

You may have heard of the various types of LED screens that scientists are working on, including superthin, foldable screens that we may be able to carry in our pockets like handkerchiefs. But you may not have heard that the same thing could be done to skin. Based on recent developments, we already have the material to do that.

We’re not talking about replacing actual skin. No, these would be tattoo-like augmentations to the skin that would double as displays. If one Japanese research team is to be believed, we’ve already developed the material with which it would be made.^[4]

It could be used for a lot of things, like monitoring heartbeats and other health readings while connected to an app on your smartphone, storing unlock codes for your various devices, or simply serving as over-the-top, bespoke tattoos for really fancy parties.

6 Grow Organs Of One Species In Another

One of the biggest problems with organ transplants is how choosy the human body is when accepting something it didn’t grow on its own. But there may be a way to get around that problem. In another organism, you grow the required organs that perfectly resemble those made by your own body and then transplant them.

If that sounds like something straight out of the distant future, we’re pleased to report that it isn’t anymore. In fact, scientists have already done it in mice. In a study published in Nature, researchers were able to grow pancreas cells for a mouse in rats. (And yes, they are completely different species.)

First, they injected rats with stem cells and did some other complicated science stuff. Then they transplanted the developed pancreas cells into mice with diabetes. To everyone’s surprise, the mice were cured and their sugar levels were kept down for one year. This technique could be used someday to grow whatever organs we need in other animals.^[5]

5 3-D–Printed Nanobots

Nanobots have been imagined in popular fiction as well as the daydreams of budding scientists for quite some time now. In theory, we’d be able to build robots so small that they could enter the bloodstream and carry out minute operations inside the body, like manually killing cancer cells.

We’ve discussed some progress in that field before, though these devices weren’t technically tiny robots. Instead, they were folded DNA strands from another organism, even if they could be called nanobots for all intents and purposes.

More recently, scientists from Hong Kong developed 3-D–printed nanoscale robots with stem cells, nickel, and titanium and successfully used them to deliver cancer cells to a specific location in mice. Of course, the end goal should have been removing the cancer, but that wasn’t what they were testing. They wanted to see if the bots could deliver a payload to a precise location and used cancer cells because they are the easiest to track.^[6]

4 Sending Taste Over The Internet

The Internet has transformed our lives. We can now see and hear what’s going on in different parts of the world by just clicking a few buttons on our smartphones. However, we can only send information that engages our senses of sight and hearing, and it’s still limited by the quality of the recording equipment and the skill of the person recording it. We have no way of sending, for example, what we smell through the Internet.

But we’re one step closer with taste. In a study conducted at the University of Singapore, researchers were able to successfully send a measure of sourness of a lemon drink to a glass of water in another location. They even had people test it out. Although most admitted that the virtual lemon taste was a bit less sour than the real thing, the participants were largely able to identify the taste.

Of course, this has only been tested on a lemon as of now and researchers cannot reproduce the real flavor without simulating olfaction. Still, it’s pretty unbelievable.^[7]

3 Self-Healing Skin

Wear and tear is a major problem for every industry, whether it’s manufacturing, architecture, or medicine. Everyone has to accept that things are going to break down with time, and we have to take that into account when designing things. The problem is especially noticeable in the human body, which gets weaker and more prone to injuries as we age.

If some recent developments are to be believed, we’re not going to have that problem for long. Scientists at the National University of Singapore recently developed a self-healing material that mimics the skin of a jellyfish. The skin is able to repair itself within minutes of being cut or torn and can even withstand coming into contact with water.

While those with more perverse minds could see this as the next step to building realistic sex robots, it has quite a few other uses as well. It can be used to create realistic prostheses, which could be combined with the previously mentioned thought-controlled mechanism to build artificial limbs better than our real ones. This electronic skin is also sustainable because a material that can heal itself doesn’t need to be discarded as waste.^[8]

2 3-D–Printed Food

In the machines vs. humans debate, it’s clear that we’re going to lose quite a few jobs to our metallic counterparts as time progresses. It’s not all misery, though. It’s just another part of the rapid technological progress of the last few decades, which has also helped us in many areas of life. However, we assume that some jobs will always be strictly human endeavors as machines would never be able to do them.

Cooking is definitely one of those jobs as there’s no way that a machine would have an idea of the right ingredients and proportions to make food taste good. However, machines have already proven they can do it as well as we can.

According to Natural Machines, a 3-D food printing company, we already have the technology required to 3-D print food items like burgers and pizzas. Foodini, as their machine is called, is capable of taking ingredients and turning them into dishes that taste as good as those made by people. The best part is that the company is now focusing on health food and fresh ingredients.^[9]

Many other firms are now developing machines that give you the option to 3-D print food items at home.

1 Remote Touching

A big limitation of getting things done is being there to do them. We know it sounds like a philosophical and edgy argument as you obviously have to go places to do things there (like buying groceries). However, many researchers are hard at work trying to overcome that limitation, no matter how impossible it sounds.

Imagine a world where you could have sex with someone across the world like you were there or conduct a remote conference with a version of yourself that could replicate everything you do, including handling things from far away. The concept is so futuristic that we aren’t even able to wrap our heads around how it could be possible. However, a technology developed by researchers at MIT is already able to do just that to a large extent.

Known as inFORM, it’s a shape-shifting interface that can take input from a remote location and precisely replicate those actions in another. inFORM is only the name of the interface, though, as they’re now building quite a few other applications on top of it.^[10]

Take Materiable, which is one of those applications that allows you to remotely handle objects and has even been successfully tested in the lab. It’s able to mimic the properties of a lot of materials found on Earth, like sand, water, and rubber.

Remote handling is only one of its applications as we don’t even know everything that it could be used for yet.

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, get in touch with him for writing gigs, or just say hello to him on Twitter.

Some modern technologies were invented to work or look one way but ended up getting modified. At other times, they were invented for particular purposes but were ultimately used in different ways.

This is true for several of today’s technologies—from our phones to USBs, air conditioners, sirens, and blockchains, which form the backbone of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Most were not invented for the uses they have today. And those that were didn’t end up as intended.

10 The USB Was Supposed To Be Flippable

The average person requires 2–3 tries to insert a USB into his computer. Ajay Bhatt, the inventor of the USB, was aware of this problem when he created the USB. He tried to avoid this by making the product flippable. That is, the USB could be inserted either way, the sort of thing we are seeing with USB Type-C.

At the time, Bhatt and his team did not make the USB flippable because it was an unproven technology. Before then, computer and gadget makers built different products to allow users to transfer files between their computers and other external devices. Bhatt wanted to standardize this with the USB.

However, the team was concerned with reducing the prototype production costs because they were uncertain that their product would become mainstream. The USB prototype would have required twice as many wires and circuits if Bhatt and the team had made it flippable. This would have made it more expensive to produce, which is the sort of thing you try to avoid when inventing an unproven technology.^[1]

9 The iPhone Was Never Intended To Support Third-Party Apps

Third-party apps are the mainstay of any mobile operating system today. In fact, they are a major reason that a new mobile OS cannot just arise out of the blue. Mobile phone users requiring an operating system outside Android and iOS will often need to reconsider their decision because most mobile apps are developed for these two operating systems.

Interestingly, we almost didn’t have the App Store. When the first iPhone was released in 2007, Apple only allowed developers to create web apps and not mobile apps. The web apps opened by default in Apple’s Safari browser. However, Apple started to reconsider its decision after developers raised concerns about creating web apps instead of mobile apps.

iPhone users also started to jailbreak their phones as they demanded more functionality, which could only be provided by mobile apps. Steve Jobs initially resisted the attempt to switch to mobile apps, even after several Apple executives saw the change as inevitable. Jobs was concerned about the quality of third-party apps. He later gave in, and the App Store was introduced in 2008.^[2]

8 Android Was Invented For Cameras

Android would have never been Apple’s rival if its inventors had followed their original plans of creating an operating system for digital cameras. Android was founded in 2003 by a four-man team trying to develop an operating system for digital cameras. The OS would have allowed photographers to connect their cameras to their PCs without any cables or to the cloud where they saved their photos.

The inventors maintained this vision until they started seeking funding from investors in 2004. They realized that the digital camera market was in decline. At the same time, sales of smartphones were going up. So they switched to developing their OS for smartphones. Android was later acquired by Google, which turned it into freeware for smartphone makers.^[3]

7 The Microphone Was Supposed To Be A Hearing Aid

The first microphone was invented by Emile Berliner in 1877. As with many other inventions, Berliner was not the only person working on developing the microphone at the time. In fact, Alexander Graham Bell (the inventor of the telephone) was also working on a microphone and even created a working prototype before Berliner.

However, Bell is not considered the inventor of the microphone because his device was not practical. Interestingly, Bell had a different reason for creating the microphone. While other inventors were probably interested in amplifying sound, Bell was trying to create a hearing aid that increased sound for people with hearing difficulties.

Bell got the idea to create a microphone when he visited his mother, who had hearing problems. He also worked around people with hearing problems. Bell had been involved with the hearing-impaired since he was young. As we mentioned earlier, his mother was partially deaf.

His father, Melville Bell, also invented a writing system called Visible Speech for the deaf. Alexander Graham Bell had worked as a teacher at Pemberton Avenue School for the Deaf in Boston. He later married Mabel Hubbard, who was one of his students at the school.^[4]

6 Blockchain Was Invented To Time-Stamp Documents

Most people do not realize that the blockchain—which powers cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin—was invented by Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta in 1991. The duo intended blockchain as a tool for time-stamping documents. However, the elusive Satoshi Nakamoto found other uses for it when he created Bitcoin in the late 2000s.^[5]

In their original paper, which was titled “How to time-stamp a digital document,” Haber and Stornetta wrote that the blockchain would not allow users to “back-date or to forward-date [a] document, even with the collusion of a time-stamping service.” They added that it would “maintain complete privacy of the documents themselves, and require no record-keeping by the time-stamping service.”

This is exactly how cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin work. Details about the owners of Bitcoins and their transactions are private even though others can see the transaction, which is the timestamp. Bitcoins are also almost impossible to forge. However, Haber and Stornetta believed that their blockchain would be used to prove that a document existed at a certain time, which is very useful in legal cases.

5 The Siren Was A Musical Instrument

Nowadays, sirens are considered the first sign of incoming danger. However, they were never intended to be warning systems. The modern siren was invented by Scotsman John Robison in 1799. He considered it a musical instrument even though it made the same sound as today’s sirens.

Frenchman Cagniard de la Tour also created a siren in 1819. However, he was only interested in using it for scientific experiments. Tour used his device to measure the average speed of a mosquito wing, the speed of sound underwater, and the frequency of musical notes. However, he noted that the siren could be used as a warning device on ships.

These devices only became warning signals during World War II when the British government used them to alert their people of German attacks. The US extended their use as tornado warnings after a devastating twister caused extensive damage and killed lots of people at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma in 1948. The US government turned to the already-proven siren instead of developing a new tornado warning system.

Curiously, the US government never issued tornado warnings before 1948 even though the authorities had once considered it decades earlier. In 1887, the government determined that tornado warnings were unnecessary over concerns that they could cause more confusion. The use of sirens was extended to warn of nuclear attacks when President Harry Truman passed the Civil Defense Act during the Cold War in 1950.^[6]

4 The Ice Machine Was Invented To Cool Hospital Patients

The ice-making machine was a spinoff of the refrigerator, which had been in development for centuries until William Cullen invented the first practical mechanical refrigerator in the 1720s. Several inventors improved on his design. This included Oliver Evans, who designed a refrigerator that used vapor in place of liquid for cooling in 1805.

In 1842, US doctor John Gorrie improved on Cullen’s refrigerator to create an ice machine. Gorrie used the machine to make ice to reduce the body temperatures of the yellow fever patients at the hospital where he worked. He got a patent for his invention in 1851.^[7]

3 The First Programmable Robot Was Invented For Die-Casting

The history of robots goes back centuries. However, the first digital and programmable robot was created by George Devol in 1954. He would later partner with Joseph Engelberger to found the first company dedicated to robotics.

The robot was called Unimate. It was a one-handed industrial robot, the sort used in automotive plants today. However, Unimate was not involved in building vehicles. Instead, it was used for the dangerous job of die-casting—that is, pouring red-hot molten metal into a preset mold.

The first Unimate was installed at a General Motors die-casting plant in New Jersey in 1959. Other automakers and businesses soon got the Unimate to do their die-casting jobs. A few years later, similar one-handed robots were created to do other tasks, including building vehicles from scratch.^[8]

2 The Steam Engine Was Invented To Pump Water Out Of Coal Mines

The steam engine was one of the most important inventions of the first industrial revolution. While considered archaic today, it was used to operate everything from factories, machines, mills, airships, trains, and boats a few centuries ago. This occurred even though the first practical steam engine was created to pump water out of coal mines.

The steam engine had been in development for centuries. However, like robots, early steam engines were not feasible to use. The first practical steam engine—which is actually considered a steam-operated machine and not an engine—was developed by Jeronimo de Ayanz in 1606. Ayanz created his steam machine to pump water out of coal mines.

Ayanz’s machine was not very efficient. In 1698, Thomas Savery stepped in to create what is considered the first steam engine. Like Ayanz, Savery developed his machine to pump water out of coal mines. However, his machine was not perfect, either. It could only pump water from shallow mines and was susceptible to exploding without notice.

In 1711, Thomas Newcomen improved on the steam engine to pump water from deep mines. His invention was inefficient even though it worked. In 1765, James Watt improved on Newcomen’s engine to develop an efficient steam engine. Watt’s steam engine soon found use in powering factories and, later, vehicles.^[9]

1 The First Air Conditioner Was Intended To Cool A Printing Plant

Willis Carrier invented the first practical air conditioner in 1902. Like the ice machine, the air conditioner was a spin-off of the refrigerator. Prospective inventors of the air conditioner were actually working on refrigerators when they discovered its air conditioning properties.

As mentioned earlier, Gorrie created the ice machine. He later improved it to develop a cooling system that worked like an air conditioner even though it was based on the principle of the refrigerator. However, he is not considered the inventor of the air conditioner because his invention was not practical.^[10]

In 1902, executives from Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company in Brooklyn, New York, requested a cooling system from Carrier for their factory. The inside of their factory often became humid, which destroyed the colors used for printing. Carrier got to work, and the result is considered the first air conditioner.

We know that science is constantly progressing behind the scenes, though most of us have no idea just how far it has come in the past few years. Many technologies that were once considered ‘futuristic’ and only existed in the realm of science fiction are now a reality – from invisibility cloaks to mind-controlled prosthetics to advanced autonomous weapons. 

10. Realistic Holograms

Holograms have actually been in use for a while in the form of holographic paper – a printing technique that uses light waves to create a three-dimensional look. They’re most commonly used as an anti-counterfeit measure for things like bank notes, tickets, ID cards, and product tags, among other uses. 

More recently, however, holograms have taken a much more advanced form, thanks to innovations in fields like augmented and virtual reality. Technologies like MIT’s tensor holography are now capable of using artificial intelligence and machine learning to render truly realistic holographs, which could in turn be interacted with in a variety of ways to make them more immersive. 

Once it’s fully realized, hologram technology could be used for a variety of purposes. Imagine being able to conduct a fully holographic conference call, with the participants located in completely different places around the world. It could also be used for monitoring remote objects in dangerous locations, like offshore drilling rigs, massively reducing the risks associated with the job. 

9. Nanobots

Nanobots, also called nanorobots or nanomachines, have been a science fiction staple for as long as one can remember. These microscopic machines, capable of performing complex tasks at a cellular or molecular level, have been imagined as tiny medical assistants, self-replicating repair machines, and deadly weapons. In real life, however, nanobot technology has always been something that belongs in the distant future, until recently. 

In the past few years, many teams working in the field around the world have made significant strides in a variety of applications. In 2018, researchers from Hong Kong were successfully able to develop bots that can work at a cellular level to kill tumors. These were essentially reprogrammed strands of DNA loaded with chemotherapy drugs, specifically designed to seek out and destroy tumors that may someday turn into cancer. 

In January, 2020, another group of researchers from Tufts University went a step further and developed the first living nanobots in history. Built with stem cells taken from frogs, these tiny machines – also called xenobots – can move, heal themselves, and even clump together to make new bots all on their own. 

8. Lethal Autonomous Robots

Lethal autonomous robots is an umbrella term for weapons that can operate without human intervention. Using technologies like artificial intelligence and advanced remote sensors, these weapons of the future could be programmed to make targeting decisions entirely on their own, completely bypassing the need for soldiers on the ground. 

Worryingly enough, weapons with autonomous abilities have already started showing up on battlefields around the world. Both Russia and Ukraine have deployed autonomous weapons in their ongoing war, and a UN report alleged that Turkey had used their autonomous Kargu-2 drones to hunt down Libya’s soldiers during the Libyan civil war. Currently, nearly every major military power is working on its own lethal autonomous capabilities, despite strong opposition from rights groups and scientists seeking to limit the technology. 

7. Thought-Controlled Prosthetics

Prosthetics that can be instinctively controlled with your brain have only been imagined in science fiction, though some breakthroughs in recent years might just make them a reality sooner than we think. 

Ongoing research at the University of Michigan is responsible for many of those breakthroughs. In 2020, researchers from the university developed a technique to amplify faint signals from the amputated nerves to control a robotic hand in real time, complete with intuitive, finger-level control of the prosthetic. The approach involves tiny muscle grafts, machine learning algorithms, and electrodes implanted in areas of the brain that control movement and process the sense of touch from a natural limb. Based on that study, another team from the same university developed something called the Regenerative Peripheral Nerve Interface (RPNI) – a small muscle grafted at the end of the severed nerve. 

6. Invisibility Cloak

True invisibility cloaks have been featured in all kinds of fictional settings, possibly because they provide an easy mechanic to advance the story in a particular direction. If invented, they’d render many types of weapons systems obsolete, especially the ones that rely on visual confirmation. 

In 2019, a Canadian company specializing in military camouflage called Hyperstealth Biotechnology unveiled their own attempt at the concept – a material they call Quantum Stealth. Unlike other early prototypes of invisibility cloaks attempted so far, the material bends light around itself to make the object seem invisible to the naked eye, and it even works on infrared and ultraviolet imagers. It’s primarily targeted for military use, as the material could be deployed as a cloaking measure for battlefield equipment, making it near impossible to be targeted from the air. 

5. Reading Dreams

Reading dreams isn’t the sort of thing you’d imagine scientists can do yet yet, at least not in the way most of us imagine. Of course, you’d be wrong, as there have already been some decisive breakthroughs in that field. As of now, it isn’t just possible to see and hear – with considerable accuracy – the contents of someone else’s dreams, but also to alter them towards a particular theme. 

In a breakthrough study from Japan published in the Science journal, they revealed a technique to use MRI scans to show images of the subject’s dream with 60% accuracy. In another study done by researchers at MIT, the scientists developed a device called Dormio, that could deliver specific audio signals just before you fall asleep and change the content of your dreams.

4. Seeing Through Walls

The Xaver 1000 is a portable scanner developed by Camero-Tech – a military-tech firm based in Israel. It’s actually an imaging device that uses AI and complex imaging techniques – like its own ‘Sense-Through-The-Wall’ technology – to detect people and animals behind obstructive surfaces, like walls. 

The scanner works in a wide variety of situations, especially in cases that involve hostages and require a thorough mapping of the scene before any action by law enforcement. The device has a lot of military uses, too, as it’s immensely useful in close-quarters terrains like urban areas and dense buildings. It could also prove to be useful to save lives during natural calamities or other disasters. 

3. Self-Healing Material

Self-healing materials are another major innovation that would revolutionize the field of prosthetics, though that’s not their only application. As the name suggests, researchers have made many breakthroughs in the field in the past few years, to the extent that we may be very close to developing a truly-self-healing material that can mimic organic materials like skin. 

In 2008, researchers at PSL university in France developed a synthetic kind of rubber that can maintain and recover its properties even after being broken repeatedly. Building on that concept, chemical engineers at Stanford University designed a polymer that could repair itself even after being completely separated with a scalpel, retaining 98% of its original property. The best part is that it can be healed again and again, which hasn’t been possible to create in the lab until now. 

2. Mind-Reading Tech

Reading dreams is one thing, but what about reading an active, waking brain? Mind-reading tech could lead to military applications like mind control, or it could even be used for targetted advertising by big corporations. On the other hand, being able to read the mind has many potential applications in medicine, especially in cases where the patient is unable to communicate due to injury or disease.

Surprisingly, it’s not too far in the future, as we already have many technologies that can – to an extent – digitally replicate the inner contents of your head. In an article published in Nature in 2022, researchers at Radboud University in the Netherlands developed a technique to convert brainwaves into photographs. They took fMRI scans of the subjects and fed the results into an AI algorithm, which was then able to replicate it on a screen almost identically. 

1. Reverse Aging

Aging is a problem that has afflicted humanity for a pretty long time. Most people would agree that it’s an unnecessary feature that causes problems and ultimately death, though even our best scientists and doctors over the centuries haven’t been able to find a cure for it. 

As of now, we have no technology that could do that for humans, though it might be possible for rats. In a 13-year-long study conducted by Dr. David Sinclair – a professor at the Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School – researchers were able to reverse or accelerate the aging process among mice. In his studies, Sinclair had figured out that aging happens because of the loss of critical information in our cells’ genetic makeup, and not just due to accumulated damage over the years. 

His team demonstrated it in their experiments, where they successfully restored epigenetic information stored in the cells to either restore the mice to an earlier, younger state – complete with restored eyesight and younger muscles – or speed up their aging process prematurely.

What on Earth is Blockchain technology? More like what on the Internet. Blockchain is a system in which several computers linked in a peer-to-peer network maintain cryptocurrency transaction records. Simply put, blockchain technology is a decentralized, distributed ledger recording the source of digital assets.

Its incredibly transparent and fraud-safe reputation makes it a desirable advancement in money transaction technology, one that companies cannot resist. Originally devised specifically for Bitcoin, the technical community has taken blockchain and found other uses for it. Below are the top 10 blockchain technologies you can use today.

10 Coinbase

Founded in 2012, Coinbase is a fully regulated and licensed cryptocurrency exchange in 40 U.S. states. Initially, Coinbase only allowed users to trade Bitcoin, but the company soon expanded to other cryptocurrencies that fit its decentralized criteria. Coinbase offers various products outside of cryptocurrency investing, including an advanced trading platform, custodial accounts for institutions, a wallet for retail investors, and its own U.S. dollar stable-coin.

Users can access the Coinbase platform through Android or iOS devices. Trading is extremely easy and geared towards a beginner. It is browser-based, and it offers no downloadable trading software. Its more advanced trading platform, known as Coinbase Pro, offers a far larger trade experience. A standard Coinbase platform is a great tool to help people understand how easy it is to purchase, store, and move cryptocurrency. Coinbase Pro is better for people who want to actively trade or invest with lower fees and more features.

9 Mirror

Mirror is a digital ledger for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency transactions. The software provides a safe way to make or record all involved transactions, agreements, or contracts. The database is shared between several users so they can access the information of all the transactions from the beginning of the network. The network size varies with its number of users. Mirror is an effective tool against fraud since it provides ultimate clarity and transparency.

Thanks to its advanced blockchain technology, all transactions take place in a safe environment. Because Mirror shares its information with everyone on the network, if anyone wants to hack the system, they would have to access every computer in the network to make changes in the database.

8 BTC Jam

BTC Jam is an online community of investors and borrowers. Individual users can build a trustworthy personal profile, loan monies, and invest in other people’s ideas/concepts. BTC Jam gives borrowers an interest rate based on their profiles’ credit-worthiness, much like a traditional bank loan. Investors decide on a person’s worthiness rather than a traditional credit rating bureau.

Founded in late 2012, its first average loan size was $400-$600. In October 2013, the 500 Startups program accepted BTC Jam, securing seed financing from Ribbit Capital, 500 Startups, Funders Club, and Bitcoin Investment Trust. By 2016, the company issued more than 16,000 loans across 121 countries.

Anyone who wants to invest or borrow from the BTC Jam community must be as transparent as possible with your credit and loan history. Also, when someone invests, follow them and invest back into their profiles. This common courtesy helps you build a good reputation. Next time, the individual will not hesitate to invest in you. Lastly, use the money for its intended project as promised and provide proof of purchase or investments.

7 Hello-Bit

Founded in 2013, Hello-Bit is a San Francisco, California-based company with only ten employees. It mainly conducts money transfers built on the Bitcoin network. It provides a platform allowing users to send Bitcoin from anywhere in the world. Exchangers exchange this Bitcoin for cash. The company also offers services like person-to-person money transfer, financial services, and virtual currency. 

Anyone willing to send money to friends and family globally can use this platform. The recipients of the transaction can then pick-up cash from a trusted network of collaborative economy-based exchangers. Hello-Bit removes the inefficiencies and fees associated with traditional remittance businesses by using digital currency.

6 Romit

Formally known as Robocoin, Romit is a new global remittance platform leveraging blockchain technology. It does not use Bitcoin, however. Its remittance platform is fully automated to make running a money transfer business easy, with low and transparent fees. The company offers cheap, fast, and paperwork-free transactions that enable a better customer experience worldwide. In third world countries, Romit promotes entrepreneurship and other business developments.

On April 21, 2020, Romit launched its new remittance software. The software provides low-cost wealth storage as well as money sending options using a web-enabled computer. It pays 40% to sending operators and 40% to receiving operators. This is relatively high compared to other leading Money Transfer companies, which offer 10%-20% payouts. Romit engages in major convenience store networks, pawnshops, and even a state-owned bank. The company’s main targets include the Philippines, India, Mexico, and other remittance-heavy markets.

5 Align Commerce

Align Commerce was founded in 2014 and processes payments by specializing in international bank transfers. These transfers do not expose merchants to Bitcoin’s market volatility, although it puts Align Commerce in an unsettled regulatory territory in some markets. Currently, Align Commerce can process transfers between 60 countries.

Using Bitcoin’s blockchain, Align Commerce by-passes conventional banking networks. It does not require users to send, accept, or own any actual Bitcoin. Their website downplays its use of blockchain technology strongly, and it’s unlikely that most merchants have any idea that this protocol plays a role in their transfers. 

Publicly, there is less available information about Align Commerce’s pricing and contract terms. Very few user reviews mention exact fees, and the company does not disclose its transfer rates on its website. Several third-party sources indicate that Align Commerce charges between 1.5% and 1.9% per transfer. This is far less than the 3%-5% fees that are common for international bank transfers. The company does charge a flat $15 fee for same-currency transfers between two countries. Generally, Align Commerce offers its service at below-market rates with little to no long-term commitment required.

Despite the mystery surrounding fees, merchants using Align Commerce shouldn’t have concerns about security or legality. They only need to educate themselves on the regulatory climate surrounding Bitcoin.

4 Bitfury

Founded as a bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer in 2011, Bitfury offers a suite of blockchain services. These include the enterprise blockchain system Exonum, a layer-two payment system called Lightning Peach, an analytics platform Crystal, and a music platform Surround. In 2017 the firm was the third-largest bitcoin mining operation behind Bitmain and F2Pool. To develop blockchain solutions for various sectors, Bitfury signed a memorandum of understanding with multinational consulting firm Ernst & Young (E.Y.) in 2016.

The company launched its enterprise blockchain software, Exonum, in 2017. This software enables businesses and governments to secure private data on the public Bitcoin blockchain. Bitfury’s second-layer Bitcoin scaling solution is its Lightning Network. Also launched in 2017 for developers, the Network’s Lightning Peach is crucial. It offers tools to build on Lightning, a bitcoin wallet, and a suite of hardware and software solutions that let merchants accept Lightning payments.

In 2018, the Lightning Peach team created a coffee machine connected to the Lighting Network to test the feasibility of lightning-compatible vending. To process microtransactions successfully, the device integrated a Raspberry Pi computer and a unique circuit board.

3 ABRA

The name ABRA is an abbreviation for “A Better Remittance App.” The company offers financial services and technology by operating an all-in-one, custodial cryptocurrency wallet and exchange. Abra is at the frontline of the Centralized Finance and Decentralized Finance spaces. It offers high-yield interest rates for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Stellar Lumens, USD Coin, among other cryptocurrencies.

Worldwide, Abra has over 1 million downloads and is available for download in over 150 different countries. The app is available on both iOS and Android platforms. Abra App users can deposit, withdraw, exchange, and hold four native coins: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ethereum. The app also allows users to exchange and hold over 80 different cryptocurrencies.

2 Chain Inc.

Launched in 2014, Chain Inc. is a blockchain development company specializing in building a cryptographic ledger system for financial services companies. Using its blockchain-based tools, the company helps banks, stock exchanges, and credit-card companies secure, trade, and manage financial assets. Big financial companies like Citigroup, Visa, Capital One, NASDAQ, Orange, and others have partnered with Chain Inc. For secure token transactions, the company created a sequence ledger-as-a-service that works with the private ledger and public networks. You can use this technology for mobile wallets, a ride-sharing app, and a crypto-exchange platform. It also takes part in the development of blockchain, cryptography, payment systems, distributed system, ledger technology, etc.

Chain Inc. offers education on blockchains, including talks suitable for the general public and other, more technical ones. It also connects enthusiasts and beginners with blockchain experts. For experts, Chain Inc. provides them with information on how they can ramp up and see the bright ideas already evolving in the industry. This gives them a fantastic opportunity to meet business people and companies willing to venture into the blockchain investment.

1 Consensus Systems

Consensus Systems (ConsenSys) is a blockchain software technology company founded to develop decentralized software services and applications operating on the Ethereum blockchain. Launched in 2015 by Joseph Lubin, it has headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, and additional offices in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Among multi-agent systems such as cryptocurrencies, this fault-tolerant mechanism is used in computers and blockchain systems to attain the necessary agreement on a single data value or a single state of the network.

Decentralized, self-regulating public blockchains work on a global scale without any single authority. Hundreds of participants work on verification and authentication of blockchain transactions and block mining activities. Within this framework, ConsenSys operates on two different principles:

• The Proof of Work: This consensus algorithm requires a participant node to confirm that the submitted work qualifies them to receive the right to add new transactions to the blockchain. It is mostly used by the most popular cryptocurrency networks like Bitcoin and Litecoin.
• The Proof of Stake: This consensus algorithm involves responsibility allocation in keeping the public ledger to a participant node according to the number of virtual currency tokens held by it. It evolved as a low-cost, low-energy consuming alternative to the P.O.W. algorithm. Its major drawback is promoting cryptocurrency saving instead of spending.

https://youtu.be/zElSfuFz6dl

Conclusion

Blockchain technology is the backbone for a new type of internet. Should you use any of the ten technologies mentioned above, you are taking part in modern ingenuity at its finest and peering into the future of money and investments.

New and advanced devices are always coming up in a technologically dynamic world. Ultimately, this renders older ones obsolete. You might agree that technological advancements happen fast—computers and mobile phones are excellent examples. But the irony is, while technology keeps advancing in leaps and bounds, some primitive methods and devices have managed to stand out, some even better than their ultra-modern advanced counterparts.

Let’s take a look at the 10 best primitive technologies that are better than their advanced counterparts. We just have to warm up our time machine.

10 The Wired Telephone

Alexander Graham Bell invented the wired telephone in 1844. Alexander’s telephone was undoubtedly a magnificent invention of the 19th century and still stands out for its peculiar features, most notably its rotary dial. With this dial, a user has to turn the dial for every digit of the phone number they want to call. Despite many writing off wired landlines as a thing of the past, the phone is remarkably better than its advanced counterpart, considering durability and other features. It’s not as “private” as the modern smartphone, but while “public,” it was way more affordable.

After over a century of use, modern phones—which we effortlessly carry around today—replaced the pioneer telephone. Although we can easily buy and replace a modern phone, between the 19th and 20th centuries, the wired telephone stood out as the best way people could communicate; and you definitely didn’t have to worry about cracked screens or people bothering you all the time! 

9 The Swamp Cooler

The swamp cooler, also known as an evaporative cooler, cools the air by evaporating water. It’s one of the earliest “primitive technologies,” invented before the modern air conditioner. The swamp cooler is different from air conditioning systems that use cycles of absorption refrigeration (or vapor-compression). It also tends to absorb a lot of heat for evaporation. They also offer similar services to evaporative cooling systems without using complex equipment or ductwork.

Swamp coolers minimize dry air temperature by the phase transition of water-to-water vapor. This means the swamp cooler can cool air with less energy than refrigeration, especially in arid climates. In non-arid climates, the swamp cooler can condition the air without adding to the humidity (this favors the occupants).

8 Beepers and Pagers

Have you ever heard of pagers? Well, if you haven’t, buckle up. Also called beepers, pagers made their debut in the 1950s, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that they gained traction and popularity. It’s a one-way communication device that you can use for emergencies. For example, it’s an excellent device for doctors and security personnel who must be reachable at all times.

Pagers have contributed to improved technology; a striking case in point is the smartphone’s invention. Of course, it’s the need for better communication devices that prompted such innovations. Despite this, the smartphone’s arrival (at the beginning of the millennium) made beepers and pagers decline drastically. However, pagers are durable, resilient, serve a singular purpose, and offer better coverage. Unsurprisingly, they’ll remain relevant for years.

7 Telegram

Today we have the internet, but years ago, people had telegrams. And we’re not talking about the Telegram app you can find in the Google Play Store. No, this was different—it was more like physical mail with detailed information from the sender transmitted by Morse Code. And the message could be about anything. Why, your aunt or uncle could send you a telegram about their ongoing projects and pet crocodile—if they had one.

The telegram offered more fun than our 21st-century email. Watch an old film, and you’ll quickly realize how the telegram had a mysterious beauty that Microsoft Outlook’s clumsiness couldn’t seem to muster. The telegram certainly had a sense of elegance and drama to it. The telegram messenger approaches your door, knocks, you open it, and they say, “Telegram!” Talk about nostalgia.

What’s more, modern email, in comparison, excludes all the anticipation that the telegram brought to senders and receivers. It also takes less skill to send an email than a telegram. The telegram will surely remain one of the best primitive technologies ever invented. Although we have a billion people using the internet, you simply can’t compare it to the telegram.

6 Dumb Phones

Dumb phones existed way before smartphones came into the picture. With growing technology and advancement in mobile software, such as Android and iOS, they are quickly becoming a thing of the past. In fact, it’s almost unthinkable for anyone to use dumbphones. These phones are old-fashioned; obsolete.

Dumb phones are basic cell phones. You could make phone calls, send texts, and if you were lucky enough, you could find one with a cheeky game of “Snake” to play when you were bored at home or at work. They are the precursor of modern mobile phones and were beneficial during their time. They significantly improved communication during the late 20th century, and they could run for days without needing a charge.

Our smartphones’ batteries are a joke compared to a dumb phone battery. And so are smartphones’ durability. Dumb phones are known to withstand a good drop or two, but there are never any guarantees that your smartphone will survive a fall, even from 6 inches high. Without a doubt, dumb phones have proved that some primitive technologies are even better than their advanced counterparts.

If you want to buy a dumb phone to experience how good they are, do a little research online. Companies still sell them—you can get a throwback Nokia. Unfortunately, it’s hard to adapt them to the current growth of technology. But hey, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to keep one in your collection, right?

5 Typewriters

If you are a writing nerd or enthusiast, you probably know about typewriters and what they do—or used to do—way back before the invention of computers. You can use a typewriter to type up anything, from novels, essays, or propaganda handouts. The inventors produced the first typewriter back in 1575 and were, essentially, a step up from the traditional pen and paper. They opened up enormous possibilities for writers. But the advent of computers made them obsolete.

A unique factor about the typewriter is that it doesn’t come with distractions the way a computer does. Having your laptop logged on to the internet while still working on your novel can pose a challenge. Why? You can be distracted by the latest trending news, log on to social media—do everything but work on your novel. With typewriters, you can focus on whatever you’re working on and produce excellent work, along with that satisfying sound of the keys hitting the page.

4 Digital Audio Tape (DAT)

Remember when Sony’s digital audio tape (DAT) hit the market? It was the real deal. The DAT came with a digital audio recording similar to a cassette but in a smaller format. The great thing about the DAT was that it could record better than a CD. It could also assign a number to the tracks and easily skip whatever you wanted it to, just like a CD. The only disadvantage with the digital audio tape was its prohibitive costs, making it most helpful (exclusively) to the professional markets.

Interestingly, the digital audio tape was also used in the professional market as a data storage medium. Since 1987, it has recorded some 660,000 sales. In 2005, Sony announced plans to stop producing the machines. The announcement was earth-shaking.

The invention of hard disk drives and memory cards (which superseded the machines) came with incredible portability and efficiency. This quickly made DATs redundant. However, some people still use digital audio tapes due to their ease-of-use and reliability. DAT is also durable and can last for years, unlike memory cards and hard disk drives.

3 Video Home System (VHS)

The video home system (VHS) is another primitive technology that stands tall compared to its advanced counterparts. VHS are small reels of magnetic tapes wrapped in a plastic housing. It became popular back in the ’80s, and many used it to record videos or watch the latest movies. The VHS had a significant disadvantage that many who grew up with them remember quite well: you had to rewind it.

Then came the DVD. Many considered DVDs to be much more efficient and convenient than VHS. This caused households to switch from VHS players to DVD players. By 2008, DVDs had almost wholly replaced VHSs. This massive shift eventually led to the demise of VHS. However, many still respect it as one of the best ways to watch and record films. In its heyday, VHS was simply the best!

2 Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)

Many analysts recognize the personal digital assistant as the forefather of the modern mobile phone. A personal digital assistant is a small, handheld device that offers computing, information, and data storage. You can use a personal digital assistant to schedule important events or activities and keep address information. It also comes with a retrieval functionality for users. It offered similar access to many things that we enjoy today, including the internet, touchscreen functionality, and word processing.

PDAs became popular in the early ’90s and 2000s, but smartphones later replaced them. Some PDAs featured small physical keyboards; others had an electronically-sensitive pad and stylus for handwriting. The term personal digital assistant was later recycled in 2010 to refer to software that recognizes a user’s voice and responds to queries through artificial intelligence.

Today, you rarely see someone using a PDA, but they’re still useful. 

1 Floppy Disks

Floppy disks came around in the 1970s and were primarily a data storage medium. The devices featured an 8-inch floppy disc and stored 80 kilobytes of data. With time, floppy disks got smaller, and their storage capacity grew larger. By the mid-’80s, there was a 3.5-inch floppy disk that could store 1.44 MB of data. By 1990, there were software-size prompted floppy disks in many applications. One example is Adobe Photoshop that required many disks to run. However, floppy disks were vulnerable to heat and magnets. They were also easily corruptible, which made them unsuitable for use. CD ROMs soon became popular and took over.

Currently, floppy disks live as save icons for many software applications. Despite their benefits, floppy disks have mostly become obsolete.

5G in telecommunications is the recently launched fifth-generation technology and is the latest standard for broadband cellular networks. 5G enables a novel kind of network specifically created to connect virtually everything and every person, including machines, devices, and even objects.

5G wireless technology will potentially deliver ultra-low latency, higher multi-Gbps peak data speeds, more reliability, greater network capacity, increased availability, and a more even user experience to its users. The world can see how higher performance and improved efficiency will empower new user experiences and even connects new industries through 5G.

A couple of cellular phone companies began to deploy 5G worldwide in 2019, and this new technology is the planned successor to the now popularly used 4G networks. However, these ten technologies will also benefit from 5G.

10 IoT 

IoT is fast advancing, and 5G is going to accelerate its development and use further. IoT will benefit from 5G because of the network’s latency and bandwidth improvements. Many IoT opportunities will benefit from 5G mobile, and cellular connectivity and farming are among them. Additionally, 5G could make new and developing use cases and applications a reality for the first time, like connected cars requiring lightning-fast, low-latency tech.

Studies from IDC project IoT devices to generate over half of the global data by 2025. In other words, transmitting and utilizing that data will demand the 5G wireless capacity, which is 1000x greater than 4G.

9 Connected Communities  

It is no news that smart cities are a major IoT trend, especially as metro areas globally equip indoor and outdoor spaces with different sensors. These sensors gather data and gain insights on how to manage their resources, assets, and services effectively.

5G is the best technology that smart cities and connected communities need. The existing 4G networks are great, but this network is limited in its high-power consumption, support for simultaneous connections, and high price per bit. On the flip side, the tech world expects 5G to drive smart city applications by addressing these drawbacks and, in return, utilizing the newly captured data for better city operations.

8 5G And Security

The increase of 5G implementations will make the need for adequate security even more critical. Carriers, such as T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon have been fortifying their next-generation networks with extra encryption and added defenses at the edge of the network.

However, unlike its predecessors, 5G will be made up of a predominantly software-based network, so it becomes a different endeavor securing 5G. The applications set to ride on top of the 5G network, such as smart city apps and IoT, will also require extra security layers to lock down the connections and new devices joining the network.

7 Edge  

The connection between edge computing and 5G is all about latency. The 5G network promises to promote innovation at the edge by powering possible brand-new use cases, enabling increased data collection and even swifter processing than ever before, while offering businesses and organizations another option for connectivity.

By combining edge computing with 5G, organizations will set up devices like smart cameras and sensors to gather more data, promoting increased compute-use cases at the edge. This will provide expanding opportunities for solution providers in collecting data at the edge.

According to research firm IDC information, the global edge computing market should get to approximately $250 billion in 2024 per projections, with a 12.5 percent compound annual growth rate over the next four years. Furthermore, 5G technology is likely to act as a catalyst for the projected market growth.

6 Cloudification

Cloudification is a technology that enables network operators to initiate new and enhanced services and meet market demands with the versatility and scalability of a cloud computing company. In other words, network cloudification is the system of extending cloud platforms, virtualization capabilities, and technologies throughout a communications network to make it flexible, more agile, and scalable.

To drive network traffic from a myriad of connected nodes and the coming stream of new compute-intensive 5G technologies and applications, networks have to transform. They need to deliver lower latency, faster speeds, and more capacity. Cloudification is ready for 5G’s 10x less latency, 100x swifter pace, and 1,000x more capacity, preparing the basis for revolutionary business efficiencies, customer experiences, and products and services.

5 Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence, also called AI, is a broad set of computer sciences designed to mimic human-like abilities such as logic and learning. AI is a continuously evolving field. It uses several techniques like reinforcement learning and deep learning to progress toward generalized intelligence. You may already tell that AI holds the potential to collect business insights from formerly indecipherable data to promote operations and raise the bottom line.

Two-thirds of the world’s current data didn’t exist half a decade ago, and predictions reveal that the datasphere will grow over 5X by 2025, per IDC. 5G networks will make available the scalable bandwidth and remote computing power needed to collect and process the rising volumes of data that will promote AI’s proliferation, thus distributing intelligence everywhere.

4 Broadband ISP and services landscape

Another prominent industry that the 5G NR technologies will redefine is commercial and residential broadband internet services. Especially in under-served areas with difficulties with last-mile connectivity and legacy cable/fiber internet operators, 5G technologies bring hope. 5G will enable multi-gigabit internet services and wireless gigabit in your home or office, without the requirement of WiFi, or in-collaboration with WiFi-6, and always-connected.

 My favorite of all the burgeoning aspects of new technology is 5G’s fixed wireless access. The wireless access will trigger new levels of competition between ISPs and carriers and high-speed connections for cloud computing, new services with much lower latency, gaming, and more. You will see gaming services like Google Stadia and Microsoft xCloud thrive when 5G fixed wireless access is a reality.

3 Transportation industry

Transportation technology worldwide is continually improving, and innovations could help increase speed and reduce accidents. Countries like South Africa with a high rate of road accidents will benefit from using 5G technology. Furthermore, 5G in transportation will be beneficial in many ways as it will allow for real-time data collection and analysis via car sensors. The next step in advancement is the introduction of self-driving cars, an incredibly transformational innovation within the public transport sector. Self-driving cars are part of the IoT, which means that they’ll be especially powerful with this new network.

2 Manufacturing and Industrial Automation

5G is about to enable machine-to-machine communications on a larger scale, allowing for a reduction in possible human error and increased automated processes. In fact, manufacturing and industrial automation with the use of 5G is already a reality. Ericsson had already published their implementation of 5G to accelerate the four stages of their manufacturing process, which are design, deployment, operations, and maintenance.

1 Energy

A report made available by Ericsson and Arthur D consulting firm valued the 5G market at a whopping $1.23 trillion by 2026. 20% of this market, which happens to be the highest portion, was attributed to Energy utilities. The energy sector is a very dynamic one that faces a ton of challenges and opportunities. However, 5G will tackle much of the energy challenges with enabled services and applications.  

As global energy grids get smarter, 5G will function as the critical link to encourage machine-type communications (MTC) to control and protect the grid. As the energy sector experiences growth in the number of smart meters, each with its unique communication demands, only infrastructure with high capacity and high bandwidth can adequately support them.  

Additionally, the growth in this sector will continue as electric vehicles become mainstream. For example, Volvo has announced the end of its combustion-engine-only car production as the company makes a shift to all-electric in 2019. You can look out for growth in charging points designed for electric vehicles in your neighborhood soon. 

Customers will enjoy real-time information on energy usage at work and home and make efficiency adjustments using that information. This allows utilities better balance the available energy resources.

There’s a reason the state can’t defeat the cartels—and it’s not just that people love drugs. It’s also about technology, which the state no longer controls. 

Over the past decade, technologies developed and even invented by Mexican and Colombian cartels have come to challenge not only the state’s monopoly over drug pushing and violence but its monopoly over citizens as well. Some drug lords are de facto regional governors and cartels are now parallel states.

From weapons factories to surveillance networks, here are ten ways they’ve gone about it.

10. Tire punchers

Although primitive, especially for state-building, tire punchers get a place on this list. Police can use them to stop you from escaping, but cartels have reversed this dynamic. In a pinch, they’ll drop spikes from tubes on customized cars to send pursuers spinning out of control.

Known as ponchallatas, these spikes can be quite sophisticated. Some are just sharp nails welded together like jacks, so however they land one always points up. But others are cut from sheet metal, and some even have hollow spikes and holes to maximize the deflation of tires. 

The use of ponchallantas is most associated with southern Texas, the stomping grounds of Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel. Between 2008 and 2013, they used tire punchers 80 times to stop police dead in their tracks.

9. Drones

In 2021, drones were used by members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel to drop explosives on poilice officers in Michoacan. Each of the drones was fitted with a remote-controlled hook carrying a container full of plastic explosives and ball bearings, complete with a cup to serve as a parachute.

Drone bombings are as much a status symbol or display of strength as anything else, and are filmed for broadcasting online.

Usually, though, drones are just used for surveillance, deployed to monitor rivals and police, or to carry small cargoes of drugs.

8. Tanks

Another weapon of the road pioneered by Los Zetas is the monstruo, or “monster”—a custom-built narco-tank with gun turrets, battering rams, and steel-plate armor four inches thick. Some are built from scratch, while others are converted from pickup trucks; but they’re all a brutal menace to the state. In fact, with their up-to-date camouflage, they’re indistinguishable from the tanks of the Mexican army (which is kind of apt given the number of special forces recruited to Los Zetas). They’re basically immune to anything the police have to throw at them.

Also known as rinocerontes (rhinoceroses), they’ve become popular with many cartels, not least as status symbols—hence the display of their initials on the shells (e.g. CJNG for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel). 

Despite each one costing more than two million pesos ($117,000), payable to cartel mechanics, monstruos have exploded in number. As of 2015, 40 had been seized nationwide; since 2019, however, 260 have been seized in Tamaulipas alone. 

7. Cannons and catapults

Sometimes the old ways are best. To get drugs over the border, smugglers have been known to just shoot them over the fence. One “medieval-style” catapult was actually welded onto it, and capable of firing loads up to 300 meters. It’s a tactic also used in Afghanistan, to smuggle opium into Iran.

Another method deployed by cartels in Mexico is the compressed air cannon, which is both faster and further reaching—something like 700 meters at 300 miles per hour. It’s not ideal, but it’s a good last resort for when other supply routes are closed.

6. Tunnels

In 2015, drug lord El Chapo humiliated the Mexican government by escaping from his prison cell through a tunnel underground. Complete with lights, ventilation, and a motorbike on rails, the mile-long passageway was a feat of clandestine engineering. 

But narco-tunnels are routinely used for smuggling. While it’s unknown (of course) how many there are, law enforcement has busted 15 over the last couple of decades. 

One of the most impressive ran from Tijuana to San Diego, 35 feet underground, allowing vast quantities of drugs to pass unimpeded under one of the most fortified stretches of the US border wall.

5. Stealth Aircraft

Between 2006 and 2011, authorities seized more than 400 aircraft from cartel drug smugglers—more planes than there are in the Mexican Air Force. They also destroyed more than 2,000 unregistered airfields. Most of these are single-engine, high-wing planes like Cessnas, suitable for landing on dirt roads and deserts. Some have modifications, such as metal plates under the nose to protect engines from gravel or big tires for landing on rocks.

Increasingly, though, low-flying ultralight aircraft are used to evade radar detection. Fitted with steel baskets for carrying drugs, they look like motorized hang gliders from the ground—if they’re seen at all. Usually, they’re painted black and fly at night without lights. Pilots wear night vision goggles or follow the routes of main roads, releasing their loads at illuminated drop zones. Extra fuel tanks keep them airborne for longer than ordinary ultralights.

Although they’re able to carry much less weight than larger planes, ultralights can’t be shot down by authorities—not legally anyway.

4. Arms

When you make everything yourself, it’s hard for the state to control you. Guns, in particular, from a cartel’s perspective, are better assembled in-house. They’re not easy, though. Authorities were taken aback by the sophistication of a gun factory busted in Jalisco. Hidden between a couple of farmhouses, it had, according to the Attorney General, “highly sophisticated machinery” and “very precise software”, allowing cartel armorers to make untraceable components for AR-15s from unfinished aluminum blocks.

But they also cobble together assault rifles from components smuggled in from the US.

It’s thought the next step for gunsmiths will be 3D printing, assuming they’re not there already.

3. Submarines

Luxury undersea superyachts aside, when you think of submarines, you think of the state—or the military anyway. Rarely are they used by civilians. In 2019, however, a fiberglass sub with a crew of three (an amateur boxer and two Ecuadorian cousins) was scuttled in Spain after four weeks at sea. Carrying three tons of coke, the 21.5-meter submersible, which belonged to the Colombian Gulf Clan cartel, had traveled 3,500 miles from a shipyard in the Amazon rainforest. 

Conditions on board were awful. Most of the space was for cargo and fuel, so the cabin itself was tiny. It was also dark, noisy, and smelly. The crew lived on energy bars, rice, and sardines, crapped in trash bags, and fretted constantly about leaks, betrayal, and detection—not to mention their health.

Still, it was the first narco-sub to reach European waters, hence its revolutionary nickname, Che.

2. Surveillance

Free trade and firepower can only get you so far. When you’re up against the state, you also need to know what it’s doing; you need eyes and ears everywhere. 

In Mexico, cartels use clandestine CCTV networks to monitor the competition—hooked up to the enemy’s own telephone poles. It’s not known whether these are centrally coordinated by some kind of narco-NSA, but individual cartels do have intelligence services. The Gulf Cartel, for instance, in the city of Reynosa, has an “intelligence and command and control faction” called the Ciclones. Thought to be operated “via an encrypted and anonymized system”, 39 of their cameras were discovered by police and taken offline in 2015. While operational, they provided clear views of government and military buildings, police stations, and the attorney general’s office, as well as civilian areas.

At the US border, another kind of surveillance is used. In 2011, at the height of the “drug war”, up to 300 cartel scouts were deployed on ridges and mountain top spy posts or “spider holes” to watch the movements of government agents. They relayed this intel to smugglers on the ground over an encrypted radio network set up by kidnapped engineers.

1. Propaganda

To really evade the law, you have to supplant it. You have to get the masses on side. Following the state’s example, cartels feed propaganda to kids—and TikTok is the place to recruit them, especially for the forward-thinking Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Videos of exotic pets, dancing gangsters, wads of cash, assault rifles, tanks, cars, and poppy fields, as well as daring Grand Theft Auto-style airdrops and speedboat chases—all to playful Mexican soundtracks—glamorize the cartel lifestyle. The clips get millions of views, not only in Mexico but around the world as well. TikTok tries to take down the videos, but supply and demand remain high. The result is a steady stream of youngsters only too eager to join. It also leaks into mainstream popular culture, with shows like Narcos on Netflix.

Within Mexico, infowar tactics deployed by cartels resemble those widely used by the state. Journalists and editors critical of cartels, for example, are kidnapped or murdered, forcing others to censor themselves. Nowadays, many outlets simply print cartel press releases as news. Sometimes it really is news, such as highlighting human rights abuses by the state, but always with a pro-cartel agenda.

Other means of propaganda include narcocorridos (folk songs or ballads glamorizing cartels), graffiti, blogs and other social media, banners, demonstrations, and flyers.

History slowly and inevitably decays into mystery. As time passes, we lose knowledge and culture to the invisible realm of the forgotten. The more we dig into history and the more we uncover, the more we realize how much we’ve already lost. Much of the evidence for lost ancient technologies and artifacts suggest that our development as a species may not have been strictly linear.

Early civilizations have repeatedly made discoveries and invented techniques that we still can’t quite reproduce, even with all of our modern technology and insight. This list is dedicated to those ancient wonders and highlights ten of the most surprising, ingenious, and fascinating ancient technologies that remain a mystery.

Related: Top 10 Ancient Constructions With Fascinating Tales And Riddles

10 Greek Fire

Greek Fire is an interesting historical technology in that it sounds fantastic, was completely real, and its composition remains a mystery. This ancient weapon was used primarily by the Byzantine Empire between the 600s and 1200s. It consisted of a pipe mounted to Byzantine ships that sprayed a thick, gel-like fire at enemy vehicles. Dozens of relatively reliable sources attest to its existence, but by the 1300s, all accounts of the weapon stopped.

It’s thought that the recipe was lost due to either the empire’s gradual decay or its loss of territory with the necessary ingredients, but either way, Greek Fire fell into mystery. Due to its ability to keep burning on the surface of water and the difficulty in putting it out, most experts believe it was at least somewhat similar to modern napalm.

9 Lycurgus Cup

If there were nothing else to it, the fourth-century Lycurgus cup would be an amazing piece just for the ornate decorative glass cage surrounding it, depicting a mythical scene of King Lycurgus. But beyond surface-level beauty, the Lycurgus cup’s core composition is a genuine ancient wonder and leaves today’s experts scratching their heads.

The cup’s glass is dichroic; it appears red when lit from behind and green when lit from the front. There are very few other examples of this effect from the time period and none which are as large, complete, or striking in their color differential. That’s because the process used to create that dichroic effect requires the precise and measured manipulation of gold and silver nanoparticles. Nanotechnology was likely unknown to the Romans, as we only discovered it in the 1970s, so archaeologists are left with the unsatisfying assumption that the dichroism was likely formed accidentally.

8 DaVinci’s Tank

Leonardo da Vinci was perhaps the single smartest human being ever to live on this green earth, which is why it’s so baffling that he designed an armored war vehicle that didn’t work.

Dubbed “Leonardo’s fighting vehicle,” the heavy proto-tank had a conical shell of armor and looked a lot like a giant turtle. Perhaps too like a turtle, as the vehicle’s schematics suggest it would be too heavy and too slow to be effective in any form of combat. Further adding to the mystery, the gears necessary to power its movement were designed in reverse order. This mistake seems unlikely for the brilliant engineer da Vinci, and some historians think he deliberately sabotaged the vehicle’s design to prevent its use.

7 Oxford Electric Bell

Unlike most entries on this list, scientists could probably figure out how the Oxford Electric Bell works tomorrow if they tried. The problem is that this would entail ending the Bell’s 181-year experiment, which otherwise shows no signs of stopping.

The Bell has been ringing since 1840. Built by the London firm Watkins and Hill, two dry pile batteries power this swinging instrument. You would usually expect such primitive batteries to die long ago, but the unique composition of the Bell’s batteries has kept it going strong. Though scientists are desperate to figure that composition out, the Bell is one of the oldest ongoing experiments in the world, and ending it prematurely is too great a cost.

6 Nepenthe

Nepenthe was a drug used by the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians to produce happiness and ease pain. Both history and mythology from that era reference the drug by name, a name which translates to “that which chases away sorrow,” or more literally, “anti-sorrow.” It’s clear that Nepenthe was some form of anti-depressant or opioid, but historians have no idea which one and if we even know about it.

Theories abound on the exact nature of Nepenthe. They include wormwood, hemp, and opium, which is the most common. However, the issue with that hypothesis is that opium was known to the Greeks already and used all throughout the ancient world; they even depicted their gods of sleep holding poppies. Why, then, would they create a new term for a common drug and only use it in select sources?

5 The Antikythera Mechanism

It would be hard to write an article on mysterious, surprisingly advanced ancient technology without mentioning the Antikythera Mechanism. Found in a shipwreck off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera, scientists have assembled and inferred enough pieces of the mechanism to reveal its use. They’re fairly certain that the mechanism is an orrery or a mechanical solar system model. The mystery is that it was made in the first or second century, and clockwork that sophisticated had never been seen in history until 1200 years later.

The mechanism had at least 37 intermeshing gears, and all its moving pieces combined to predict the movements of celestial bodies fairly accurately. Though other similar devices were mentioned in various texts from that era, none have ever been found with anything but a small fraction of the Antikythera Mechanism’s mechanical complexity.

4 The Rocks at Sacsayhuaman

Sacsayhuaman is an Incan fort from the 1400s, located just outside of Cusco, Peru. What makes the site so impressive and so enigmatic are its walls, which are built from stacked stones that each weigh roughly 100-120 tons. On top of that, the massive stones have smooth, polished finishes and fit neatly together, suggesting they were melted and re-hardened inside a type of kiln. No kiln could ever be that big, especially not 600 years ago.

Researchers are divided as to how the stones were molded. Some suggest complex systems of mirrors and glass to harness and magnify solar energy, but no record of such a system exists. Others have suggested that the walls were originally more jagged until natural fires partially melted the stones together. However, experiments have shown that regular, non-insulated fire could not get hot enough to affect the stone.

3 The Pyramids of Giza

Like the Antikythera Mechanism, the Pyramids of Giza are a necessity when talking about ancient technological mysteries. The Great Pyramids have perplexed the world for thousands of years, and in all that time, no one has ever been able to conclusively determine how they were created.

The structures are made from millions of stone blocks, all weighing tens or hundreds of tons apiece. In trying to explain how the ancient Egyptians moved, shaped, and stacked these stones, scientists have developed dozens of theories. So many theories, in fact, that they are grouped into categories for easier comparison. There are the straight ramp theories, the zigzag ramp theories, internal ramp theories, water-based theories, concrete theories, and even some that posit unusually complex, large machinery whose designs were lost to time.

2 Damascus Steel

Damascus steel was a metal used in the Middle East in the Middle Ages with a legendary reputation for hardness and the ability to be formed into the sharpest of edges. Despite the relatively wide proliferation of the blades in the ancient world and despite their roughly 1,100 years of manufacture, the formula for creating the blades has been lost to time.

Many theories have attempted to address the technique’s gradual demise, usually focused on the secrecy of the process and the increasing difficulty in procuring the necessary ores. Likewise, many modern sword-smiths have attempted to recreate the blades’ unique properties to varying levels of success. None have considered their results perfect yet.

1 Stradivari

Topping the list are the most famous musical instruments in history—the few string instruments confirmed to have been made by master craftsman Antonio Stradivari (and family) in the 1600s and 1700s. Stradivari are known for their peerless sound quality, and the vast majority of the best players in the world use them as their primary instruments. Around 600 of them survive to the present day, with more and more succumbing to the perils of time each year and the formula for reproducing them lost.

The instruments have been the subject of intense scrutiny for centuries, as various researchers attempt to either explain their unique qualities or debunk them entirely. There is still intense debate over whether or not the instruments are genuinely superior or just the products of learned bias. Recent studies, using more sophisticated technology than previously available, such as X-rays and CT scans, have indeed found some unusual properties in the finest of the Stradivari. Most commonly, it seems that their wood is unusually dense, which may contribute to a superior resonance.