《科学美国人》2020十大新兴技术 上

1 Microneedles Could Enable Painless Injections and Blood Draws

 

Barely visible needles, or "microneedles," are poised¹ to usher² in an era of pain-free injections and blood testing. Whether attached to a syringe or a patch, microneedles prevent pain by avoiding contact with nerve endings. Typically 50 to 2,000 microns in length (about the depth of a sheet of paper) and one to 100 microns wide (about the width of human hair), they penetrate³ the dead, top layer of skin to reach into the epidermis⁴. But most do not reach or only barely touch the underlying⁶ dermis⁵, where the nerve endings lie.

 

2 Sun-Powered Chemistry Can Turn Carbon Dioxide into Common Materials

 

The manufacture of many chemicals important to human health and comfort consumes fossil fuels, thereby⁷ contributing to carbon dioxide emissions⁸ and climate change. A new approach employs sunlight to convert waste carbon dioxide into these needed chemicals.

 

This process is becoming increasingly feasible thanks to advances in sunlight-activated catalysts⁹, or photocatalysts. In recent years investigators¹⁰ have developed photocatalysts that break the resistant¹¹ double bond between carbon and oxygen in carbon dioxide. This is a critical first step in creating "solar" refineries¹² that produce useful compounds from the waste gas -- including "platform" molecules¹³ that can serve as raw materials for the synthesis of such varied¹⁴ products as medicines, detergents¹⁵, fertilizers and textiles.

 

3 Virtual Patients Could Revolutionize Medicine

 

What if computers could replace patients as well? If virtual humans could have replaced real people in some stages of a coronavirus vaccine¹⁶ trial, for instance, it could have sped development of a preventive tool and slowed down the pandemic. These are some of the benefits of "in silico medicine," or the testing of drugs and treatments on virtual organs or body systems to predict how a real person will respond to the therapies. For the foreseeable future, real patients will be needed in late-stage studies, but in silico trials will make it possible to conduct quick and inexpensive first assessments¹⁷ of safety and efficacy, drastically reducing the number of live human subjects required for experimentation¹⁸.

 

4 Spatial¹⁹ Computing²⁰ Could Be the Next Big Thing

 

Imagine Martha, an octogenarian who lives independently and uses a wheelchair. As Martha moves from her bedroom to the kitchen, the lights switch on, and the ambient temperature adjusts. The chair will slow if her cat crosses her path. If she begins to fall when getting into bed, her furniture shifts to protect her, and an alert goes to her son and the local monitoring station.

 

The "spatial computing" at the heart of this scene is the next step in the ongoing²¹ convergence of the physical and digital worlds. It does everything virtual-reality and augmented-reality apps do: digitize objects that connect via the cloud; allow sensors²² and motors to react to one another; and digitally represent the real world. Then it combines these capabilities²³ with high-fidelity spatial mapping to enable a computer "coordinator²⁴" to track and control the movements and interactions of objects as a person navigates²⁵ through the digital or physical world. Spatial computing will soon bring human-machine and machine-machine interactions to new levels of efficiency in many walks of life, among them industry, health care, transportation and the home.

 

5 Digital Medicine Can Diagnose and Treat What Ails²⁶ You

 

A raft of apps in use or under development can now detect or monitor mental and physical disorders²⁷ autonomously²⁸ or directly administer therapies. Collectively known as digital medicines, the software can both enhance traditional medical care and support patients when access to health care is limited—a need that the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated²⁹.

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