2016 is far from over, but this does not mean that we cannot name the fastest growing, and at the same time, most important technologies for our future. Scientific American magazine has put together a dozen high-profile titles that we have written, are writing and will write about this year. Perhaps it is they who will change this world. Perhaps they will make the future what it should be.
Part one
On-Chip Bodies Discover New Views on Human Biology
Contrary to Hollywood stereotypes, you will not find living human organs floating in the laboratories of biologists. Even if we discard all the technical difficulties of maintaining an organ outside the body, whole organs are too valuable as transplants to allow them to experiment. Nevertheless, many important biological studies and practical tests of drugs can only be carried out by studying the organ in the process of its work. New technology can solve this problem practically: by growing functional human organs in miniature, on microchips.
In 2010, Donald Ingber of the Vissa Institute developed the light-on-a-chip, the first of its kind. The commercial segment quickly got involved in development, including Emulate, led by Ingber and others at the Wiss Institute, as well as DARPA. Since then, various groups of scientists have reported the successful implementation of miniature models of the lungs, liver, kidneys, heart, bone marrow, and cornea. Next will be others.
Each organ-on-chip is roughly the size of a USB flash drive. It is made of flexible translucent polymer. Microfluidic tubes, each smaller than a millimeter in diameter, are connected to cells taken from an organ of interest to scientists and work in a complex tandem with a chip. When nutrients, blood and test components like experimental drugs are pumped through the tubes, the cells repeat the key functions of a living organ.
The cameras inside the chip can be arranged to mimic a specific structure of organ tissue like tiny air sacs in the lung. Air passes through the channel and very accurately imitates human breathing. At the same time, blood filled with bacteria can be pumped through other tubes and observe how the cells respond to the infection, without any risk to humans. This technology allows scientists to observe biological mechanisms and physiological behavior like never before.
Organ microchips provide a breakthrough for companies that are developing new drugs. Their ability to emulate human organs allows accurate and realistic testing of possible drugs. Last year, for example, one group used a chip to mimic the way that endocrine cells release hormones into the bloodstream, and has done important research on a diabetes drug.
Other groups are exploring the use of organ-on-a-chip in personalized medicine. In principle, these microchips can be created from stem cells extracted from the patients themselves, and then tests can be carried out that will determine individual treatment methods that will have a better chance of success.
The hope remains that miniature organs could significantly reduce the dependence of the pharmaceutical industry on animal testing. Millions of animals are killed every year during such tests, which causes heated debate. But even if we don’t even talk about the ethical side of the issue, animal tests are simply ineffective, because people can react differently to the same drugs. Tests on the tiny organs of people can be much more successful.
The military also believes that organ-on-a-chip also has the potential to save lives, but is slightly different. An artificial lung, as well as other similar organs, can be the next major step in exploring how biological, chemical, or radiological weapons affect humans. Now, for obvious ethical reasons, such tests are impossible.
Perovskite solar cells are on the rise
Silicon solar cells, which currently dominate the global market, suffer from three fundamental limitations. A promising new way to produce highly efficient solar cells using perovskites instead of silicon can solve all three at the same time and significantly increase the generation of electricity from sunlight.
The first serious limitation of silicon photovoltaic cells is that they are made of a material that is rarely found in nature in the pure elemental form that is needed. Although there is no shortage of silicon in the form of silicon dioxide (sand on the beach), a huge amount of energy must be applied to rid it of oxygen. Typically, manufacturers heat silica to 1,500–2,000 degrees Celsius in an electric arc furnace. The energy required for the operation of such furnaces sets a fundamental lower limit on the cost of production of silicon photovoltaic cells and also adds greenhouse gas emissions during production.
Perovskites are a large-scale class of materials in which organic molecules, consisting mainly of carbon and hydrogen, bind to a metal like lead and halogen like chlorine into a three-dimensional crystal lattice. Their production can be much cheaper, and the emissions associated with it can be much less. Manufacturers can apply perovskites with a thin film to a surface of almost any shape without the need to use an oven. The film also weighs very little.
Which, in turn, eliminates the second big limitation of silicon solar cells: their rigidity and weight. Silicon photovoltaic cells are great for flat large panels. But to make large-scale installations of such panels is very expensive, so you usually see them on the roofs of houses and on “solar farms”.
The third major limitation of traditional solar cells is their energy conversion efficiency, which has been at 25% for 15 years now. Perovskites initially promised much lower effectiveness. In 2009, lead, iodide, and methylammonium-based perovskite elements converted less than 4% of the resulting sunlight into electricity. But the pace of development of perovskites turned out to be phenomenal, partly due to the fact that this class of materials allows you to work with thousands of different chemical compositions. By 2016, the efficiency of solar cells based on perovskites has reached 20% - a five-fold improvement in just seven years with a doubling of efficiency over the past two years. Now they can compete commercially with silicon photovoltaic cells, and the limits of perovskite efficiency can still be much higher. The rapidly developing perovskite-based photovoltaic cells can very soon bypass the already mature silicon photovoltaic technology.
Scientists have yet to answer several important questions about perovskites, for example, how they will withstand long-term atmospheric influences and how they can arrange their production in such a quantity that they compete with silicon panels on the world market. But even a relatively small influx of these new elements can help provide solar energy to remote areas that are not yet connected to the grid. Combined with evolving battery technologies, perovskite solar cells can help transform the lives of 1.2 billion people who currently lack reliable electricity.
Metabolic engineering turns microbes into factories
Follow the path of the products that we buy and use every day - from plastics and fabrics to cosmetics and fuels - to their appearance and find that the vast majority of them were made from materials created in the deep underground. Factories that produce everything you need for modern life by and large produce it from a variety of chemicals. These chemicals are produced in factories primarily from fossil fuels - mainly petroleum products - which are broken down into many other compounds.
For the climate, and possibly for the global economy, it would be much better to produce many chemicals for industry from living organisms, rather than from oil, gas, and coal. We already use agricultural products in this way - we wear cotton clothes and live in wooden houses - but plants are not the only source of ingredients. Microbes can offer much more in the long run and make low-cost materials with a wide range of properties that we take for granted. Instead of digging raw materials from the earth, we can “cook” them in giant bioreactors filled with living microorganisms.
For a biological-based chemical production to start working, it must begin to compete with conventional chemical production both in price and in productivity. Thanks to the latest advances in metabolic engineering systems, which changes the biochemistry of microbes so that they spend their energy and resources on the synthesis of useful chemical products, this goal is within reach. Sometimes these settings include changes in the genetic composition of organisms; sometimes include more sophisticated engineering of microbial metabolism and adjusting system properties.
With the latest advances in synthetic biology, systems biology, and evolutionary engineering, metabolic engineering is now able to create biological systems that can produce chemicals that are difficult (and expensive) to produce in traditional ways. As part of a recent successful demonstration, microbes were set up to produce [poly (lactate-co-glycolate)], an implantable, biodegradable polymer used as a surgical suture material, for implants and prostheses, as well as for the delivery of anti-cancer drugs and infections.
Metabolic engineering systems have also been used to create strains of yeast that produce opioids for treating pain. These medicines are needed all over the world, especially in developing countries where pain is not effectively controlled.
The range of chemicals that can be produced using metabolic engineering is expanding every year. Although this method is unlikely to be able to reproduce all the products extracted from petroleum products, it will be able to discover new chemical substances that would never have been produced from fossil fuels - in particular, complex organic compounds that are currently too expensive because they need to be extracted from plants or animals, and even then in tiny quantities.
Unlike fossil fuels, chemicals from microbes are virtually unlimited and emit relatively few greenhouse gases; some of them can theoretically reverse the flow of carbon from Earth to the atmosphere, absorbing carbon dioxide or methane and incorporating it into products that will eventually be disposed of as solid waste.
As biochemical production for industrial use increases, you will also have to carefully monitor that accidentally do not throw engineering microorganisms into the environment. Although these finely tuned microbes will be at a disadvantage in the wild, it is best to keep them safe in their tanks, happily working on the production of useful things for the benefit of humanity and the environment.
Blockchain Enhances Data Privacy, Security, and Privacy
Blockchain, or a chain of transaction blocks, is a term known in digital currency Bitcoin: a decentralized public transaction network that is not owned and operated by any person, not a single organization. Any user can access the entire blockchain, and each transfer of funds from one account to another is recorded and verified using mathematical methods borrowed from cryptography. Since copies of the blockchain are scattered across the planet, it is considered an effective method of protection against hacking.
The problems that bitcoins represent for law enforcement and international currency control are constantly discussed. But blockchain is also used outside of simple cash transactions.
Like the Internet, blockchain is an open global infrastructure on which other technologies and applications can be built. And, like the Internet, it allows people to bypass traditional intermediaries by working with each other, thereby reducing or completely eliminating transaction costs.
Using the blockchain, individuals can exchange money or buy insurance safely or without a bank account, even across the national border - this could be a breakthrough for two billion people in a world ruled by financial institutions. Blockchain technology allows strangers to conclude fast and reliable contracts without lawyers and intermediaries. You can sell real estate, tickets, stocks or another type of property or rights without a broker.
The long-term consequences of using the blockchain for professional intermediaries, such as banks, lawyers and brokers, can be very serious and not necessarily for the worse, because these intermediaries themselves pay huge amounts in the form of transaction costs for doing business. Analysts at Santander InnoVentures, for example, estimate that by 2022, blockchain technology could save banks more than $ 20 billion a year.
About 50 large banks announced an initiative to study and use the blockchain. Investors invested more than a billion dollars last year in startups that will operate blockchain for a wide range of enterprises. Tech giants like Microsoft, IBM and Google are already running blockchain projects.
Since blockchain transactions are recorded using private and public keys - long lines of characters unreadable to people - people can remain anonymous, allowing third parties to verify their digital handshake. And not just people: organizations can use blockchains to store public records and guarantees.
Perhaps the most encouraging advantage of blockchain technology is the incentive that it creates for participants: to work honestly and according to rules that are the same for everyone. Bitcoins have led to well-known abuses in the smuggling trade, and some malicious use of blockchain technology will be inevitable. This technology does not make theft impossible, it only complicates it. But, like any technology, the blockchain is being improved and improved, and in this its prospects are very bright.
Two-dimensional materials create new tools for technologists
New materials can change the world. We are not just talking about the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Concrete, stainless steel and silicon have brought us into the modern era. Now, a new class of materials consisting of a single layer of atoms is celebrating far-reaching possibilities. This class of two-dimensional materials has grown over the past few years and includes the lattice layers of carbon (graphene), boron (borofen), hexagonal boron nitride (white graphene), germanium (germanen), silicon (silicene), phosphorus (phosphorophene) and tin (sten) . Many other two-dimensional materials have been shown in theory, but have not yet been synthesized, like carbon graphane. Each of them has amazing properties, and various two-dimensional substances can be combined like LEGO cubes, creating new materials.
The monolayer revolution began in 2004, when two scientists created two-dimensional graphene using ordinary scotch tape - this is perhaps the first time that the Nobel discovery was made using a tool that can be found even in kindergarten. Graphene is stronger than steel, harder than diamond, lighter than anything else, transparent, flexible and conducts electricity perfectly. It is also impervious to most substances, with the exception of water vapor, which flows freely through the molecular network.
Initially, graphene was more expensive than gold, but due to improved production technologies it fell in price. Hexagonal boron nitride is also commercially available and follows a similar trajectory. Graphene has become cheap enough to be included in water filters designed for desalination and wastewater treatment. As the cost decreases, graphene can be added to concrete and asphalt to clean city air, because in addition to its strength, this material absorbs carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides from the atmosphere.
Other two-dimensional materials are likely to follow the trajectory of graphene and find application in various fields as production costs decrease, especially in electronics. Technologists are still discovering new unique properties of two-dimensional materials. Графен, например, используется для производства гибких датчиков, которые можно зашить в одежде — или напрямую распечатать в 3D-ткани, используя другую технику производства. При добавлении к полимерам, графен может сделать крылья самолета легче и прочнее.
Гексагональный нитрид бора совместили с графеном и нитридом бора для улучшения литий-ионных батарей и суперконденсаторов. Умещая больше энергии в меньших объемах, эти материалы могут снизить время зарядки, продлить жизнь батареи и снизить вес — это будет полезно везде, от смартфонов до электромобилей.
Всякий раз, когда новые материалы попадают в окружающую среду, возникают опасения на тему их токсичности. Десять лет токсикологических исследований графена не выявили ничего, что могло бы подогреть озабоченность на тему его влияния на здоровье и окружающую среду. Но исследования продолжаются.
Изобретение двумерных материалов создало новый ящик с мощными инструментами для технологов. Ученые и инженеры смешивают и сопоставляют эти сверхтонкие соединения — каждое с уникальными оптическими, механическими и электрическими свойствами — для производства материалов, оптимизированных для самых разных применений. Сталь и кремний, основы индустриализации 20 века, выглядят неуклюжими и сырыми по сравнению со своими наследниками.
The article is based on materials .
Comments
Post a Comment