Scientists hunt for “Kryptonite to stop CRISPR,” the world’s most powerful gene editing tool
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In time the cost and ease of modifying any living organisms genome and genetic makeup, for better and worse, will fall to almost zero, and as gene editing tools become democratised and sought after by Bio-Terrorists, researchers are trying to find the technology’s Kryptonite –...
Nanoscale Metalenses put Virtual Reality in perfect focus, and eliminate headsets
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today’s VR headsets are still low resolution and big, this technology would reduce them to just millimeters thick and make UHD resolution the norm. If wearing a Augmented Reality (AR) glasses or Virtual Reality (VR) headsets is ever to become commonplace then hardware manufacturers...
Scientists have unlocked the secret to whole body regeneration
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Humans genetic ability to regenerate body parts naturally was “turned off” millions of years ago, but now scientists have found a switch that turns it on – in worms. When it comes to regeneration some animals are capable of amazing feats. For example, if...
3D Printing with sound, new tech opens door to printed cosmetics, food, and drugs
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As 3D printing becomes more popular the ability to control the size of droplets opens the door to 3D printing everything from cosmetics and materials, to pharmaceutical drugs. Harvard University has announced that its researchers have developed a way to print objects using sound....
Rolls Royce is building cockroach like robots and snakes to fix airplane engines
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In the future we’ll see more maintenance jobs performed by robots of all sizes. Typically engineers want to get bugs out of their creations but that’s not the case for Rolls Royce, the engineering company who are building everything from autonomous cargo ships and...
Scientists turned live bacteria into the world’s first biological computer
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF You could argue that DNA is actually the oldest programming language on Earth, and today we’re starting to learn how to write and program it in new ways to create new a completely new class of living, biological computers. Hot on the heels of...
Scientists stored a movie inside a living bacteria, then replayed it
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today our computing platforms are mechanical and non-organic, but tomorrow’s will be biological, and immensely powerful, this is just one of a host of breakthroughs in the space. The bacteria E. coli might sometimes make us sick, but they have served as a workhorse in science...
Harvard’s Metalense breakthrough could pave the way for real invisibility cloaks
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Our ability to manipulate light is improving with every passing month, now a new Metalense breakthrough could help scientists create the first generation of genuine cloaking devices. For as long as human beings have been writing science fiction the dream of being able to...
Harvard revolutionises camera technology, invents Metalense
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Centuries after they were first invented most lenses are still made of plastic or glass and Harvard’s new metalense will revolutionise the industry and let us make cameras and lenses that, eventually, will be just atoms thick. Metalenses, flat surfaces that use nanostructures to...
MIT’s new Smart Tattoo is like having a doctor on your arm
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Wearables might not have taken off as much as anyone hoped but companies are still experimenting with new technologies that help us monitor and track our health better than before. Apparently there’s a common problem with health-tracking devices like smart watches and the other things that...
Google’s AI is helping scientists unravel the mysteries of the human genome
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF With the advent of personalised medicine and new revolutionary gene treatments, being able to interpret and make sense of the vast volumes of human genomic data in order to better predict disease indicators and outcomes, and provide patients with better treatments, will become increasingly crucial....
Researchers use 3D printing to create a soft electronic wearable
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Electronics are normally hard and that makes them difficult to integrate into wearable devices or clothing, but now new soft electronics could pave the way for a whole host of new applications The human skin, even 3D Printed artificial skin, is amazing, but in...
Harvard gets ready to geoengineer the Earth’s atmosphere
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Climate change still looks like it’s a runaway train, albeit that optimists think that hope is on the horizon, but there are still many people in the scientific community that think we need Plan B in case Plan A fails. In a first of its...
Nowhere to hide for Goldman’s elite as AI culls jobs
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Banking is one of the world’s oldest professions, but people only have a profession if they have a job, and as Wall Street drives to full automation there are fewer jobs to go round. At its height back in 2000, the US cash equities...
Researchers 3D print body parts that work like the real thing
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The ability to 3D print body parts, or parts of bodies, on demand changes the long term health and survivability prospects for every person on the planet. It will let us all live healthier, longer lives and is nothing less than revolutionary. Using 3D...
Scientists might have found the source of human conciousness
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF If humans can understand where consciousness comes from then it’s possible we can one day understand how it “works”, and once we understand how something works we can re-create it in, for example, an AI. Right now your eyes and your optic nerves are...
Harvard puts a 3D printed Heart on a Chip to make drug testing safer
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Organs-on-chips pave the way for faster, safer, animal free drug testing and will contribute to a healthcare revolution. Harvard University researchers have made the first entirely 3D printed organ-on-a-chip with integrated sensing. Built by a fully automated, digital manufacturing procedure, the 3D printed “Heart on a...
Scientists slam carbon out of diamonds to create the first quantum computing bridge
WHY THIS MATTERS New breakthrough paves the way for the first practical quantum computers. Quantum computers are a reality but unlike the first traditional computers, which were large enough to fill a room, most of today’s quantum computers are very small with one, five, or even 16 qubits at their...
Top scientists met in secret to discuss creating the first artificial humans
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Synthetic biology opens the door for custom designed humans whose only parents are a computer. Scientists can already produce viable artificial human eggs and sperm but earlier this month they took everything one step further when an invite only group of about 150 experts convened...
An AI upgrade for your brain, Elon Musk teases the Neural Lace
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Worried that AI’s one day could make us their pets Elon Musk is teasing a new brain-hacking tech. There’s no doubting that Elon Musk is one busy guy. Whether he’s trying to land on Mars with SpaceX, running Tesla, buying SolarCity, investing in the future of...
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