2017 is another fruitful year for advancements. In line with this, expect for groundbreaking technologies that will soon dominate the world. No sooner than later, these technologies will take prevalence for everyone’s accessibility — all for the betterment of society. Can’t wait? If you want to know the details, take note of these top technologies emerging this 2017.
Solar-powered device to harvest clean water from air
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Fruitful future of water-extraction
Though harvesting water from air has been considered as nothing new, as previous techniques have been made, an emerging solar-powered device is purposively changing the game. As preceding techniques have shown, extracting water from air means requiring a lot of electricity and higher moisture levels. However, researchers from University of California, Berkeley and MIT found an all-purpose answer to this dilemma. After grave and extensive studies, the team has finally developed a process using porous crystals that can successfully convert water without the use of energy. The device can produce almost 3 liters of water out of the air. “It has been a longstanding dream” to harvest water from desert air — as stated by chemist Mercouri Kanatzidis — and finally, the dream has turned into reality.
Liquid biopsies for early cancer screening
Source: News-medical
Life-changing advancement for cancer screening
A new milestone for detecting early-stage cancer has been developed. Liquid Biopsies is now seen as a potential use for identifying cancer at an early stage wherein patients can have a better chance of coping up and surviving the disease. This finding is a significant step, which has been claimed by Dr. Victor Velculescu, an Oncology professor, as the first study that focused on early-stage cancers. Its discovery is a great advancement in helping people fight cancer. Liquid Biopsies are an alternative for tissue-based biopsies and deliver complete range of data unlike tissue samples. Additionally, the progression of disease or resistance to treatment can be rapidly spotted by concentrating in on ctDNA.
Advancements on visual tasks through deep learning
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Effective Visual Learning Approach
As technologies on artificial intelligence are continuously emerging, it’s not hard to notice how computers are slowly working like of humans. Computers are capable of successfully interpreting several kinds of images even without being programmed. The most recent progress that has surface in the deep-leaning approach or better known as CNN (Convolutional neural network) is about to make things more interesting.
CNNs have enabled machines to distinguish images in a seriously detailed specification, even more precise than people can at a first glance. Its competency includes categorizing down to the minutest features, classifying patterns, drawing inferences from images and learning more accurately and better. Moreover, it is very much capable of learning abstract and complex concepts. Deep learning’s prowess in computer-vision systems are seamlessly being developed in a much broader and advanced scope.
Turning carbon dioxide into liquid fuel through artificial leaf technology
Source: Scientificamerican
Productive and Smart Conversion
Aeveral brilliant advancements are being created by human beings at no end. Its genius extends on producing clean energy using artificial photosynthesis. Scientists have attempted to do such same thing and the result would be an energy-proficient liquid-storable solar fuel from water, sunlight and carbon dioxide.
Though completing this excellent task requires a tough and dedicated process. In order to produce solar fuel, which would be in the form of liquid hydrocarbons or hydrogen gas, it would include splitting water molecules with a catalyst over and done with the reduction of carbon dioxide. This is an extremely important milestone in stowing energy that could be well-benefited in the present and most importantly, for the future years to come. It can bring solution the major problem of wind and solar power and provide an excellent way of storing clean energy. As Michael Freund said,
“If we can reach these goals, the world would finally have a sustainable energy solution that could adequately fuel our growing population,” — bringing this to life would take a long and tenacious process, but the lasting product would definitely be worth the wait.
The impactful ‘Human Cell Atlas’ project
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Broader reference track for cells
With the existence of Human Cell Atlas, understanding human health as well as identifying, monitoring and curing diseases would be much easier and far-reaching. This is the result of the efforts done by world-leading scientists, a project which is composed of collections of maps of all the human cells. It gives a strong impact to many aspects in the field of medicine and biology, offering a richer comprehension about cells, and its corresponding basis to health and illnesses. The potential project addresses a lot of important and critical issues as well as provides transformative benefits. Not only does it provide reference maps for cells but it also helps elucidate genetic variants, offer direct vision of human biology and many other significant aids.
Emergence of innovative set of tools for precision farming
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Newer gears for Precision Architecture
The finesse of Precision Farming includes the convenience of reducing chemical and water use, producing more healthy and high yielding crops, improving time management and other benefits that contribute to the progress of farming. Thus, the arrival of new set of tools that will be provided by the Fourth Industrial Revolution is a great advancement to boost the quality of farming as well as ease the load of farmers and while increasing the work’s productivity. A lot of start-ups are developing newer sensors, data-analytics software, aerial-based data, robots, and many other tools for precision farming.
Cheaper catalysts for green vehicles
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Where affordability and functionality meets
Steps have been taken towards the prospect of a zero-emission technology. Battery-powered electric vehicles are slowly stealing the show. As it gives off no carbon dioxide, powered by hydrogen-fed fuel cells, it cannot be denied that the price still remains lofty. The challenge is to keep up with cheaper catalysts that would still cater the efficiency of green vehicles. The good news is that latest developments are taking action to design catalysts for affordable green vehicles to emerge. Collaborations are being done to make this possible — a design of an affordable fuel-cell vehicle with superiority and full-functionality.
