Wired roads, brain-hacking, 8 more advancements in science and technology that you need to know
By fleme f | First Published Jun 20, 2017, 6:36 PM IST- Scientists are working on developing dissolvable needles and inhalable vaccines
- Elon Musk, Facebook and others are trying to hack your brain
- Soon a cracked smartphone screen will be a thing of the past
- Not to forget, you travel in a Hyperloop Hotel
1. REVERSING PARALYSIS
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According to a report in the , scientists are making great headway in using brain implants to restore the freedom of movement that spinal cord injuries take away.
The report says, in recent years, lab animals and a few people have controlled computer cursors or robotic arms with their thoughts, thanks to a brain implant wired to machines. Now researchers are taking a significant next step toward reversing paralysis once and for all. They are wirelessly connecting the brain-reading technology directly to electrical stimulators on the body, creating what French neuroscientist Grégoire Courtine’s calls a “neural bypass” so that people’s thoughts can again move their limbs.
2. HYPERLOOP HOTEL
Brandan Siebrecht, a graduate architecture student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas has designed what he calls the Hyperloop Hotel. It would feature a transit system and 13 hotels in different cities throughout the United States. The start up has said its goal is to deliver a fully operational system by 2020. For a flat fee of $1,200, Hyperloop Hotel guests would be able to travel quickly between the network of cities, all while never leaving their room, Siebrecht tells Business Insider. Siebrecht wants to combine a sustainable modular design with luxury accommodation while eliminating the need to buy separate travel tickets to most of the largest cities in the US. Luxurious guest suites would include an office, a living room with a flat screen TV, a bedroom, and a bathroom.
3. PAYING WITH YOUR FACE
Yes, face recognition is not a new technology but imagine your face as a walking ATM. A company in China, called Face++, is a startup that makes facial recognition technology used by Alibaba’s financial unit. The company’s tech is also used in Alipay’s “smile to pay” service, which lets customers authenticate payments with a selfie. So you see, this is already in motion.
4 ZERO MASS WATER
While we are fighting over water and looking for solutions to our drinking water problems, one company has gone ahead and found us a solution. Through this up-and-coming water innovation people could have control over their own drinking water supply. In recent years, the idea of pulling water vapour from the air and condensing it into drinking water is getting a whole lot more attention. Zero Mass Water has developed a "drinking water solar panel" that is a standalone system requiring no wired or water input connections. It generates its own electricity from a solar photovoltaic panel (and stores some of that electricity in an integrated lithium-ion battery for keeping water pressure up after dark), and uses that electricity to drive a cycle of condensation and evaporation that can produce 2 to 5 litres of water per day.
5. DISSOLVING MICRONEEDLES AND INHALABLE VACCINES
According to a study featured in , Transcutaneous immunization (TCI) is an attractive vaccination method compared with conventional injectable vaccines because it is easier to administer without pain. So this could be good news for hypochondriacs. The new microneedle patch is made of dissolvable material, eliminating needle-related risks. It is also easy to use without the need for trained medical personnel, making it ideal for use in developing countries, where healthcare resources are limited. According to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, a collaborative team from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and the National Institutes of Health have developed an inhalable vaccine that protects primates against Ebola. If this were to be developed further then immunisation would not need medical personnel and it will be needle-free as well.
6.ROADS WILL SOON POWER YOUR ELECTRIC CARS
India could well do with this technology. Already the electric car industry is slow in being taken up in India due to the lack of infrastructure, but if the roads itself would be able to charge the cars, then wouldn’t the environment improve considerably? Thanks to this technology, some electric cars can already be charged by parking them on top of charging pads, which can be as much as 20cm away from the receiving coil at the bottom of the vehicle. The next step is to wire-up the roads themselves with coils so that cars, buses, and even trucks could be charged while they move.
7. A PERMANENT SOLUTION TO CRACKED SMARTPHONE SCREENS
Researchers from the University of California, Riverside, report that they have developed a self-healing polymeric material with an eye toward electronics and soft robotics that can repair themselves. The material is stretchable and transparent, conducts ions to generate current and could one day help your broken smartphone go back together again
8. BRAIN HACKING TECHNOLOGY
Did you know? There are companies vying to hack your brain! In fact, do you wonder why people are hooked to their smartphones so much? According to a former Google product manager, Silicon Valley is engineering your phone, apps and social media to get you hooked. Elon Musk cannot be far behind. His tech called Neuralink is aimed at developing ultra high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces (BCI) to connect humans and computers. Initially, the BCIs will be used for medical research, but the ultimate goal is to prevent humans from becoming obsolete, by enabling people to merge with artificial intelligence. Facebook is also developing a tech which will allow people to type with their thoughts.
9. MAKING MONEY OUT OF CO2
Oxygen has been the star always and Carbon Dioxide declared the harmful one. But on May 31, a Swiss company has opened the world's first commercial facility that can extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and resell it. Climeworks — a spin-off company from the Swiss science, technology, engineering and mathematics university ETH Zurich is involved in it. Agricultural firm Gebrüder Meier Primanatura, which runs the greenhouse, will use the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). The idea is to use excess renewable energy from solar and wind power plants to produce hydrogen and then synthesize it with CO2 to create renewable hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline and jet fuel. Climeworks previously partnered with Audi to research whether the technology could be used to manufacture synthetic fuels from air-captured CO2. [Source: LiveScience]
10 TRAINS THAT DO NOT RUN ON TRACKS
This could very well be the future of rail transport. Chinese rail transit firm CRRC has developed driverless train or smart bus that can run without tracks. The vehicle is about 30 meters long and comes with sensors that can read the dimensions of roads and plan its own route, Xinhua News Agency reported. According to the government of Zhuzhou City in Hunan Province, a 6.5-kilometer ART line will be built through downtown Zhuzhou and operations will start in 2018, Xinhua added.
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