The most impactful scientific breakthroughs and technological advancements of the past year. In short, the Greatest Ideas of the Year!
Picture of a Black Hole – There is still much we don’t know about the Universe and Black Holes are usually found near the top of that list. Is it really true that information can’t escape them? Are they clumps of Dark Matter and not holes at all? No one knows for sure. We don’t even know what they look like. At least we didn’t. Until now. Thanks to the biggest scientific breakthrough of 2019.
Prime Editing – Forget about ordinary, run of the mill CRISPR-CAS-9 gene editing. The capabilities of the new Prime Editing technique are light years beyond that, providing scientists with significantly more precision, enabling edits to be made quicker and with fewer mistakes. This means that scientists can now make virtually any edit – additions, deletions, swapping letters – without severing the famed DNA double helix. It’s like using copy and paste in a word processor instead of crude scissors. Already 89 percent of the mutations that cause human diseases can be fixed. The future of gene editing just got turbo charged.
Blue Origin’s Moon Lander – In May, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos unveiled a mock-up of his private space company’s moon lander, Blue Moon, laying the groundwork towards establishing a permanent human colony on the Moon. An important first step towards eventually making our way to Mars and beyond. All part of Bezos’ vision to move all mining and industrial operations on Earth to outer space. It may not seem like it yet but this news could be foreshadowing the Dawn of a New Era – the key moment in time when human civilization began its inevitable climb to the sky.
PDK Plastic – The creation of plastic in 1907 was a revolutionary breakthrough that altered society several times over. Nearly every industry has been touched by it from food to transportation. But sadly one of our greatest creations is also one of most troubling as we are now literally drowning in a sea of plastic and microplastic waste with a whopping 91% of plastic not even getting recycled and those that are taking over four hundred years to degrade. Thankfully there may be a solution on the way. A new kind of plastic, known as PDK, that would be 100% recyclable and reusable in a variety of ways. This massive reduction in plastic’s environmental impact can not be understated. At this point it would be nearly impossible to untether ourselves from our reliance on plastic. Now we won’t have to.
Wildfire Vaccine – As the Australian Brush Fires rage out of control, killing over 500 million animals, displacing thousands of people, and ruining air quality for everyone else, it becomes increasingly clear that we need new technological solutions to combating the devastating effects of Climate Change. Thankfully we may have one with a new gel capable of acting like a delivery system for fire retardant, in essence acting like a Wildfire Vaccine, thereby preventing fires from spreading in the first place. All we’d have to do is coat the world’s forests with the stuff.
Google’s Quantum Supremacy – Google’s quantum computer was reportedly able to perform a calculation in three minutes and twenty seconds, a calculation so complex that it would take the world’s fastest supercomputer, Summit, 10,000 years to complete! If that’s true then Google has achieved Quantum supremacy and the future of search, and everything else, will never be the same again.
Room Temperature Superconductors – One of the Holy Grails of Science is to create a room temperature superconductor, a breakthrough that could have far-reaching implications. A breakthrough that may now be possible thanks to a new design from Navy Scientist Salvatore Cezar Pais.
Drug Sponge – The ravaging effects of chemotherapy may be dampened in the near future thanks to a newly designed drug sponge that would sit inside a patient’s vein during treatment and absorb excess drugs, thereby minimizing side effects. A potential game-changer for cancer patients everywhere.
Borophene – As much as it pains me to say it may be time for Graphene to leave the spotlight and make way for another 2D material with exciting properties, Borophene. This single layer of Boron atoms that form various crystalline structures could eventually lead to a new generation of more powerful lithium-ion batteries among other uses that has got everyone from chemists to physicists excited beyond belief.
Self-Sovereign Identity – Instead of relying on Facebook and Google to authenticate our identities for us (allowing us to access various webpages) we may soon be able to control our own online identities enabling us to move across the web more securely. And even more importantly we may soon be able to give people without any kind of identifying credentials at all, the means to access financial services like opening bank accounts and securing loans. This idea of Self-Sovereign Identity, one of the holy grails of Internet Technology, may be the most important technological development of the last decide. Even more so than BitCoin, the Blockchain, or any other digital or cryptocurrency development.
Heliogen Solar – Bill Gates secretive clean energy startup is capable of capturing enough sunlight so as to create a “Solar Oven”, one capable of reaching temperatures at a rate that is an astonishing 1/4 of what the Sun can produce. This means that for the first time, concentrated solar can be used to create the extreme heat required to make cement, steel, glass, and other industrial processes, essentially enabling sunlight to replace fossil fuels. A revolutionary breakthrough in the fight against Climate Change.
Curing Cancer in Space – A team of doctors from Australia’s University of Technology believes that it may be possible to cure cancer in space since microgravity disrupts cells ability to detect their surroundings and communicate with one another.
2019 had no shortage of great ideas.
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