Breakthrough healthcare test screens for all known diseases at once
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Up until know hospitals have had to run multiple tests to identify multiple pathogens, which takes time and can cost lives, now they just need one. Imagine being able to use one test to screen for every type of known and unknown human disease...
Researchers have found a way to successfully debug neural networks
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF A bug in your self-driving car’s AI software caused it to drive you off a cliff and you’re dead, you’re probably now wishing that it’d been debugged – and now it can be. If you listen to the venture capitalists in Silicon Valley then...
New synthetic muscle breakthrough will create better, nimbler robots
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We know robots are strong, but now a new synthetic muscle breakthrough means that one day they’ll be dexterous too, and that means another set of jobs could be automated. This week a group of researchers from the Columbia University announced that they’ve managed to...
Researchers use just 14 atoms to build the world’s first 0.5nm transistor
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As silicon based transistors, the bed rock of today’s modern computing platforms, near their theoretical limits we will see the birth of several new types of computing platforms that will dominate the decades to come. We are always being told that Moore’s Law is...
Scientists found a way to selectively erase memories forever
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Imagine being able to forget memories at the flick of a switch, and now imagine the impact that would have on your life, good or bad. As scientists unravel the mysteries of the brain one day this will become science fact. One thing that...
Space adventurers could be the first true ‘Designer humans’
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Space is the harshest environment known to man and the idea of creating the world’s first genetically altered humans who can survive its extremes “naturally” without the need to take their artificial environments with them is gaining traction. At last year’s International Astronautical Congress in...
Quantum computers with DNA and atom scale storage systems will rule the future
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Quantum computers look set to become the dominant computing platform of the future but today’s storage technology will need a major update too to keep up. We’ve all heard the hype around quantum computing, and we can all feel revolution in the wind, with the...
New storage breakthrough stores 215 petabytes on one gram of DNA
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF With so much new information being generated every day we’re already pushing the limits of today’s technologies, but now ultra-dense, ultra-efficient new forms of storage are appearing on the horizon. It’s long been known that today we’re generating more information, faster, than ever before....
The Creative Machines are coming
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Creativity is said to be a uniquely “Human” gift but while we can argue the semantics it appears that increasingly machines share the same gift, albeit algorithmic rather than chemical. Many people believe that creativity is a uniquely human trait but what about self...
Scientists turn to gene editing to reverse blindness in humans
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Scientists are using the revolutionary gene editing technology CRISPR, dubbed the “Genesis Engine,” to treat, cure, and reverse a whole range of medical conditions that range from Cancer and HIV to blindness and inherited syndromes and the results so far are staggering. Hailed as...
