- Rice University researchers transform dead spiders into mechanical marvels
- The world’s first sand battery unveiled in Finland
- E-skin lets you send a hug over the internet
- New device adds a sense of smell to virtual reality
- This technology allows tetraplegic patients to control a robot arm with their brain
- US startup QBio develops digital twin that can track your health over time
- Direct air capture — a new ally in the fight against climate change
- These smart bricks can store energy
- Swiss researchers develop technology that can convert air into hydrogen fuel
- NEI researchers create 3D-printed eye tissue
- Scientists construct artificial neurons on silicon chips that emulate real neurons
In a world where the wheels of technological innovation never cease to turn, it’s imperative to pause from time to time and take stock of the inventions poised to revolutionise our lives. The relentless pace of progress has us perennially perched on the cusp of the next big breakthrough — a reality where today’s science fiction becomes tomorrow’s convenience. With a barrage of updates on cutting-edge advancements and shiny new devices, it’s a challenge to discern which developments truly have the potential to reshape our world. That’s why we’ve meticulously assembled a curated selection of some of the most transformative technologies on the horizon. These are not mere incremental updates; they represent a seismic shift in our collective future. This article will serve as your compass to navigate through the eleven technological marvels that stand to redefine industries, societies, and even what it means to be human.
“Prior research has focused on bioinspired systems, where researchers look to nature for inspiration and mimic the physical traits of living organisms in engineered systems. Necrobotics, on the other hand, uses biotic materials, which are non-living materials derived from once-living organisms”.
Faye Yap, a mechanical engineer at Rice
1. Rice University researchers transform dead spiders into mechanical marvels
At Rice University in Texas, a novel and somewhat macabre form of engineering has taken shape. Termed ‘necrobotics’, this groundbreaking concept involves reanimating dead spiders and repurposing them as mechanical grippers that could herald a new frontier in delicate object manipulation. “Prior research has focused on bioinspired systems, where researchers look to nature for inspiration and mimic the physical traits of living organisms in engineered systems”, explains Faye Yap, a mechanical engineer at Rice and lead author of the paper. “Necrobotics, on the other hand, uses biotic materials, which are non-living materials derived from once-living organisms, such as the necrobotic gripper sourced from a spider in our work”.
Spiders rely on hydraulics to move their limbs, as opposed to humans and other mammals, which use muscles. When a chamber located near the spider’s head contracts, a rush of blood is sent to their limbs, which forces them to extend. Afterwards, the legs contract again once the pressure in the chamber is relieved. The researchers realised they could leverage this mechanism by inserting a syringe into a dead spider’s hydraulic chamber, glueing it in place, and then adding a puff of air to open its legs. These reanimated arachnids are capable of lifting objects that exceed their own body weight by 130 per cent or more, demonstrating a surprising strength in their post-mortem form. The potential applications of this innovative technology are vast and varied. “There are a lot of pick-and-place tasks we could look into, repetitive tasks like sorting or moving objects around at these small scales, and maybe even things like the assembly of microelectronics”, says Daniel Preston, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Rice University. “Another application could be deploying it to capture smaller insects in nature, because it’s inherently camouflaged”.
2. The world’s first sand battery unveiled in Finland
Tucked away in the quiet Finnish countryside, a short trip northwest of Helsinki, the Vatajankoski power plant is quietly revolutionising the way we store energy. It’s here that a commercial-scale sand battery, the first of its kind in the world, recently became operational. This stunning feat of engineering consists of two district heating pipes, a fan, and 100 tonnes of low-grade sand, all neatly enclosed within a 7-metre tall steel container. But how does it work exactly? First, renewable energy produced by solar panels and wind turbines is used to heat up the sand in the container to 600 degrees Celsius, effectively turning it into a battery capable of storing up to 8 MWh of thermal energy. Then, using the heat-exchange pipes, about 200kW of that energy is fed back to the grid at times when the demand for energy increases. This may not sound like much, but it can actually supply up to 100 homes with heating and hot water.
According to Ville Kivioja, lead scientist at Polar Night Energy, the company behind this innovation, the system requires very little maintenance, as the pipes and the sand don’t wear out the way other materials do, while the only moving component — the fan — can easily be replaced. Furthermore, sand does a great job of retaining heat, allowing it to store power for a very long time. “The sand has a very long lifetime: it can heat up and cool off any number of times”, says Kivioja. “It will get denser after a while, so it needs less space. At that point, we can add more sand”. There are other advantages too. Unlike conventional lithium-ion batteries, sand batteries don’t degrade over time, they aren’t flammable, and they are more environmentally friendly.
While it’s true that sand batteries can’t store as much energy as traditional batteries, they are up to ten times more economical than the equivalent lithium-ion ones, according to the company. Another potential obstacle is poor efficiency, as the technology is currently only capable of converting heat back into electricity with an efficiency rate of 30 per cent. This will need to increase to at least 75 per cent for it to become more widely adopted. Despite these limitations, it’s a very promising technology that could be used anywhere there’s a district heating system in place, from the bustling streets of New York to the historic avenues of Copenhagen. “It has far more potential beyond heating houses anyway”, says Liisa Naskali, the company’s project manager. “When scaled up, it will be available for use in all kinds of industrial processes that require high heat: bakeries, laundries, and steelworks”.
“With the rapid development of virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), our visual and auditory senses are not sufficient for us to create an immersive experience. Touch communication could be a revolution for us to interact throughout the metaverse”.
Dr Yu Xinge, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at CityU
3. E-skin lets you send a hug over the internet
In today’s world, we’ve gotten used to interacting with one another through screens and speakers, but the simple act of feeling the touch from someone far away has been out of reach — until now. A team of engineers at the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) recently unveiled something pretty remarkable: wireless e-skin that can let us send a hug to a loved one over the internet and receive one in return. “With the rapid development of virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), our visual and auditory senses are not sufficient for us to create an immersive experience. Touch communication could be a revolution for us to interact throughout the metaverse”, says Dr Yu Xinge, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at CityU.
Resembling a high-tech bandage of 7cm by 10cm, the e-skin houses 16 touch-sensitive actuators arranged in a 4×4 grid and employs electromagnetic induction to provide both touch sensing and haptic feedback. And here’s how it actually works: when you press on the e-skin, it picks up that pressure and sends an electrical signal to another e-skin patch, wherever that might be. That patch then vibrates, so the person wearing it feels the pressure you applied as if you were really touching them. “Our e-skin can communicate with Bluetooth devices and transmit data through the internet with smartphones and computers to perform ultralong-distance touch transmission and to form a touch Internet of Things (IoT) system, where one-to-one and one-to-multiple touch delivery could be realised. Friends and family in different places could use it to ‘feel’ each other”, adds Dr Yu. “This form of touch overcomes the limitations of space and greatly reduces the sense of distance in human communication”.
4. New device adds a sense of smell to virtual reality
Staying on the topic of multisensory virtual experiences, Dr Yu and his team at CityU have also developed a wearable olfactory feedback system that uses miniaturised odour generators (OGs) to incorporate a sense of smell into virtual reality, resulting in a much more immersive experience. “Recent human-machine interfaces highlight the importance of human sensation feedback, including vision, audio, and haptics, associated with wide applications in entertainment, medical treatment, and VR/AR. Olfaction also plays a significant role in human perceptual experiences,” says Dr Yu, who co-led the study. “However, the current olfaction-generating technologies are associated mainly with big instruments to generate odours in a closed area or room or an in-built bulky VR set”.
The new system comes in two different designs: one is a compact device resembling a skin patch that can be worn above the upper lip to provide instant scent delivery, while the other is a flexible facemask that offers a more immersive olfactory experience. Both designs are equipped with multiple OGs, which release different odours when the paraffin wax within the OG is exposed to heat. So far, the researchers have managed to produce more than 30 different scents by combining different paraffin waxes, ranging from more pleasant ones like rosemary or pineapple to those that are a bit more pungent, such as durian. Perhaps even more importantly, volunteers were able to recognise these scents with an impressive 93 per cent success rate.
According to researchers, this innovative technology could have a wide range of useful applications, including 4D movie watching, online teaching, and even medical treatment. “The new olfaction systems provide a new alternative option for users to realise the olfaction display in a virtual environment”, adds Dr Yu. “The fast response rate in releasing odours, the high odour generator integration density, and two wearable designs ensure great potential for olfaction interfaces in various applications, ranging from entertainment and education to healthcare and human-machine interfaces”.
5. This technology allows tetraplegic patients to control a robot arm with their brain
Once confined to the realm of science fiction, brain-reading technology has advanced considerably over the years, offering a glimmer of hope for people with tetraplegia. One of the most impressive developments in this field comes from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), where a team of researchers led by Aude Billard and José del R. Millán recently developed a computer program that can use electrical signals from a tetraplegic patient’s brain to control a robot arm. Of course, there is nothing particularly novel about the idea of using a brain interface to control machinery, which has been attempted multiple times in the past, with varying degrees of success. But what is novel about this new technology is that it doesn’t require any direct input from the patient to achieve its goal. To make this possible, the researchers put an EEG cap on the patient’s head, which scans the brain’s electrical activity and sends the data to a computer. This data is then analysed by a machine-learning algorithm and used to adjust the robot arm’s movement.
In one of the tests, the researchers programmed the robot arm to move towards a glass, while the patient wearing the EEG cap watches from the side. If the patient thinks that the arm is too close or too far away from the glass, the algorithm picks up on the signals sent by the patient’s brain and adjusts the movement accordingly, repeating the process as many times as it takes to find the optimal route. While this technology could have a number of useful applications, the EPFL team is particularly interested in implementing their algorithm into a wheelchair, allowing people in wheelchairs to control their movements and speed with greater precision — using nothing but the power of their brains. “It’s interesting to use this algorithm over using speech, for instance, because there are things that you cannot necessarily easily articulate”, says Billard. “A layperson may not be able to articulate that they don’t like the acceleration of a wheelchair, for example. What is it that you don’t like exactly? How does that translate into a control parameter afterwards?” This is what makes this technology a game-changer. It’s not just about giving back movement; it’s about providing a deep, intuitive understanding of the complexities of human thought, offering a level of autonomy that redefines what’s possible for people with mobility challenges.
“The doctor’s time is really the most precious resource we have in healthcare because the population is growing faster than we create doctors. Doctors are getting burned out. What we need is the ability, without any skilled labour, to stratify risk in a population”.
Jeff Kaditz, the CEO of QBio
6. US startup QBio develops digital twin that can track your health over time
For decades, the world of Star Trek has served as an endless source of inspiration for real-world technological advances, from the flip-open communicators that foreshadowed modern-day smartphones to the tablet-like computers that would eventually become embodied in iPads. The last in a long line of these sci-fi-inspired gadgets is a groundbreaking health scanner that works similarly to Star Trek’s medical tricorder. In less time than it would take you to watch an episode of the iconic TV show, the device scans the patient’s whole body and measures hundreds of biomarkers in the process, including hormone levels, liver fat buildups, inflammation markers, and even signs of cancer. This data is then used to create a digital twin, which is essentially a 3D model of the patient’s body. This model is continuously updated after each new scan, allowing the patient to track their health over time and identify potential issues before they become serious.
The company hopes that its innovation will enable us to address some of the main inefficiencies of our existing healthcare system. “The doctor’s time is really the most precious resource we have in healthcare because the population is growing faster than we create doctors. Doctors are getting burned out. What we need is the ability, without any skilled labour, to stratify risk in a population”, says Jeff Kaditz, the CEO of QBio, the US-based startup behind the device. “The opportunity here is if we can gather enough information, we can say, ‘Here’s the 200 patients you need to see as soon as possible. The rest of them you probably don’t need to see this year.’ Right now, healthcare is first come, first serve, which is really bad”. Having such vast amounts of patient data at doctors’ disposal will not just revolutionise how they diagnose illnesses but also allow them to make better-informed decisions about which patients to prioritise, ushering in a new era of preventative medicine that is tailored to each patient’s individual needs.
7. Direct air capture — a new ally in the fight against climate change
Despite our best efforts to come up with a technological solution to climate change, trees remain our most potent ally in this fight, using photosynthesis to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, that may be about to change thanks to a new technology called direct air capture (DAC), which promises not just to be more effective at absorbing CO2 but to do so without occupying as much space. Basically, DAC technology works by sucking up carbon dioxide directly from the air, which is then either stored below the ground in deep geological caves or used to produce synthetic fuels by mixing it with hydrogen. The first and largest direct carbon capture and storage plant in the world is run by the Swiss company Climeworks. Located in Hellisheidi, Iceland, the Orca plant went online in 2021 and is capable of removing up to 4,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere every year, according to the company. “Orca, as a milestone in the direct air capture industry, has provided a scalable, flexible, and replicable blueprint for Climeworks’ future expansion”, says Jan Wurzbacher, the co-founder and co-CEO of Climeworks. “Achieving global net-zero emissions is still a long way to go, but with Orca, we believe that Climeworks has taken a significant step closer to achieving that goal”.
On the outside, the Orca plant looks like an ordinary warehouse. It consists of one central building surrounded by eight massive boxes that resemble shipping containers. These are equipped with multiple fans that suck in air around the clock, which then passes through a porous filter that traps CO2 molecules. Once the filters reach their capacity, the containers are heated to 100 degrees Celsius, which releases the CO2 and transports it through a pipe to the next stage, called ‘liquefaction’. Here, as the name suggests, the CO2 is turned into a liquid, after which it is transported once again using the pipe system, this time all the way to the basalt rock formations deep underground, where it eventually turns into stone. All of the electricity and heat required for this process is supplied by the nearby geothermal power plant, essentially making it carbon-free. Not everyone is convinced, however, that direct air capture is the way to go, citing prohibitive costs associated with this technology, especially compared to alternative methods like reforestation or capturing emissions directly from the emission source. While Wurzbacher acknowledges that DAC is both more challenging and more expensive than the alternatives, it does have one major benefit in that it’s not limited to where emissions occur. “When you do direct air capture, you don’t need to go where the CO2 is, because air is everywhere,” he adds.
“The most attractive aspect about this technology is that it enables people to make electrodes as large as they want, by just stacking bricks”.
Hongmin Wang, a Washington University graduate student
8. These smart bricks can store energy
For centuries, the humble red brick has been the cornerstone of construction, forming the backbone of cities and homes around the world. Made from clay and baked in a kiln, this ubiquitous building material has sheltered humanity through countless seasons. But now, this unsung hero of urban landscapes, prized for its durability, affordability, and timeless aesthetic, is getting a long-overdue makeover that could redefine its role in modern society. A team of researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have found a way to turn a regular red brick into a smart device capable of storing energy — essentially, a battery made of brick. “Our method works with regular brick or recycled bricks, and we can make our own bricks as well”, explains Julio D’Arcy, assistant professor of chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis.
To make this possible, the researchers coated the bricks with a special conducting polymer called PEDOT, whose nanofibres pass through the brick’s porous structure over time. Once this happens, the polymer coating basically becomes an ion sponge, allowing the brick to store and conduct electricity like a supercapacitor. This groundbreaking technique will not only enable us to repurpose the vast existing infrastructure of brick buildings, but it also proposes a novel concept in energy storage, potentially adding a new dimension to architectural design. “The most attractive aspect about this technology is that it enables people to make electrodes as large as they want, by just stacking bricks”, says Hongmin Wang, a Washington University graduate student who led the study. “This is hard to achieve with conventional batteries because batteries are pressurised, and when stacked, that may cause an explosion”. As promising as it sounds, it may be a while before this technology is ready for the real world. The current energy storage capacity of these modified bricks is just 1 per cent of what a lithium-ion battery can hold. However, the research team hopes to be able to increase the capacity by infusing the bricks with manganese or another transition metal.
9. Swiss researchers develop technology that can convert air into hydrogen fuel
Taking a page out of nature’s playbook, a team of engineers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) recently unveiled a solar-powered device that can pull water out of thin air and turn it into hydrogen fuel, similar to the way plant leaves extract moisture from the atmosphere. Central to the new device’s design are innovative electrodes, which are both porous and transparent. This allows them not only to maximise the absorption of water from the air but also to maximise the amount of sunlight that reaches the semiconductor layer underneath. “To realise a sustainable society, we need ways to store renewable energy as chemicals that can be used as fuels and feedstocks in industry”, says Kevin Sivula, the head of the Laboratory for Molecular Engineering of Optoelectronic Nanomaterials at EPFL. “Solar energy is the most abundant form of renewable energy, and we are striving to develop economically competitive ways to produce solar fuels”.
The researchers created the electrodes by exposing glass fibres to high temperatures and then fusing them together to form platelets. These are then coated with a thin layer of fluorine-reinforced tin oxide, a material that is not only highly conductive but also sturdy and easy to produce. A thin film of semiconductor material capable of absorbing light forms the last layer. Unfortunately, like various other innovations in this article, this technology is still far from ready for real-world applications. It demonstrates relatively modest efficiency in harnessing sunlight to produce hydrogen, which the EPFL team hopes to improve in the future by experimenting with the size of the fibre and the pore. They also plan to try different materials to see if they can improve the results.
10. NEI researchers create 3D-printed eye tissue
In a significant leap for regenerative medicine, scientists at the National Eye Institute (NEI) in the United States have pioneered a groundbreaking method that uses patient stem cells to create 3D-printed eye tissue. This innovative method, which involves 3D bioprinting three different types of immature choroidal cells onto a biodegradable scaffold, could potentially allow the scientists to produce an inexhaustible supply of tissue that mirrors a patient’s own biological makeup. It also brings new hope for people suffering from degenerative eye diseases like age-related macular degeneration (AMD) by enabling doctors to gain a better understanding of the mechanism underlying these common conditions. “Our collaborative efforts have resulted in very relevant retina tissue models of degenerative eye diseases,” says Marc Ferrer, director of the 3D Tissue Bioprinting Laboratory at NIH’s National Centre for Advancing Translational Sciences. “Such tissue models have many potential uses in translational applications, including therapeutics development”.
AMD is a condition that robs people of their central vision, often leaving them unable to read or recognise faces. Its onset is influenced by a confluence of factors, including ageing, genetic predisposition, hypertension, and nutritional habits. These factors lead to the buildup of tiny fat and protein deposits, known as drusen, which disrupt the delicate balance of nutrients and waste within the eye. Over time, this disruption causes the retinal pigment epithelium to break down and ultimately results in a loss of vision. Despite knowing what triggers AMD, doctors have long been baffled by its progression — until now. “We know that AMD starts in the outer blood-retina barrier”, explains Kapil Bharti, who leads the NEI Section on Ocular and Stem Cell Translational Research. “However, mechanisms of AMD initiation and progression to advanced dry and wet stages remain poorly understood due to the lack of physiologically relevant human models”. The NEI team hopes that 3D-printed eye tissue will enable them to unlock the mysteries of AMD. However, they don’t plan to stop there. In the future, the team also plans to expand their research to other types of cells, including immune cells, which would allow them to create tissue that are even closer to the real thing.
“Until now, neurons have been like black boxes, but we have managed to open the black box and peer inside”.
Professor Alain Nogaret from the University of Bath Department of Physics
11. Scientists construct artificial neurons on silicon chips that emulate real neurons
For many years, the medical community has been engrossed in the quest to engineer artificial neurons that could potentially replace their damaged or diseased biological counterparts. The ultimate goal was to forge elements that could communicate with the body’s nervous system, with an eye toward remedying a range of conditions, including traumatic injuries and neurodegenerative diseases. Due to the complexity of neuronal biology and the unpredictable nature of neural responses this is an enormous challenge. Recently, however, there has been a spectacular breakthrough. Scientists managed to successfully construct artificial neurons on silicon chips that not only emulate the behaviour of real neurons but do so with a minuscule fraction of the power required by traditional microprocessors — one billionth, to be precise.
This landmark invention is the brainchild of an international research consortium led by the University of Bath, with pivotal contributions from the Universities of Bristol, Zurich, and Auckland. By accurately modelling biological ion channels and developing equations to describe neuronal responses to electrical stimuli, the researchers were able to overcome previous barriers. The artificial neurons they crafted can accurately respond to diverse stimulations, just like living neurons, offering hope for repairing diseased bio-circuits and restoring bodily functions that have been compromised by neuronal damage or degeneration. “Until now, neurons have been like black boxes, but we have managed to open the black box and peer inside”, says Professor Alain Nogaret from the University of Bath Department of Physics, who led the project. “Our work is paradigm-changing because it provides a robust method to reproduce the electrical properties of real neurons in minute detail”.
Closing thoughts
As we wrap up our exploration of these 11 tech developments, it’s clear we’re witnessing just the tip of the innovation iceberg. It’s a testament to the times we live in — where ideas can traverse the globe at the speed of light, igniting innovation and collaboration across continents. Right now, in every corner of the world, the next generation of thinkers and creators are likely laying the foundation for discoveries that we can’t yet imagine. With each scientific breakthrough, we inch closer to transforming our collective dreams into reality. The sheer potential of these advancements to upend our way of life is both staggering and inspiring. So, as we look ahead, we can be sure of one thing: the future is unwritten, and it’s ours to discover. It’s an exhilarating time to be alive, standing at the frontier of a world where innovation knows no bounds and every new development has the potential to alter our world forever.
