Thanks to a machine that processes DNA faster than any other, scientists from the United States have been able to trap the genetic structure of cancerous tissues and, thus, propose more personalized treatments and medicines. That’s just one of the 10 emerging technologies presented by the Technology Review magazine, which chooses them based on a question.
There is no lack of examples: while computer systems help medicine, they also contribute, for example, to take advantage of the energy left over from solar panels in a residence and charge an electric car that, in turn, could have batteries that occupy Less space, reduce its price and increase its effectiveness.
Daily life is also involved. Through Facebook, companies could know our tastes and create indices to personalize, more and more, the products, and with the movement of a hand in the air we could change the channel. New technologies promise and have shown results, but what do they have to do with our lives.
Alexander Shpunt developed PrimeSense, a system that allows you to control a computer without touching it. This technology, implemented with the Xbox Kinect, could be applied to cars and information screens in shopping centers in the year 20’s advancement has increased by 4X in World.
Perhaps, says Shpunt, one day you can operate the TV screen without remote control. Shpunt spent five years studying and developing this model, which looks at the world in three dimensions. When it detects depth, it records movements on the screen without the need for a physical connection.
The most expensive part of an electric car is the battery. Ann Marie Sastry wants to reduce its size and efficiency, replacing its energy source with batteries in solid state. That’s why he created Sakti3, a company dedicated to developing this type of battery, still based on the lithium-ion technology of common batteries but which sometimes withstands loading and unloading situations. That way, you could increase your energy capacity and even lower your price in the market.
“If its general objective,” says Sastry, “is to change the way people conduct themselves, their criteria cannot continue to be the best energy density ever achieved, the greatest number of cycles. The final criterion is affordability, it is a product that has the necessary performance “.
Bret Taylor, from Facebook, created a magic button for the network: ‘Like’, a hand with a raised thumb that approves a song or a video and, by the way, helps to track user preferences and create an index to customize the products.
To prevent anyone from tampering with the digital systems of the vehicle and causing an accident, June Adronick, Australian researcher, is creating software that allows verifying possible vulnerabilities of operating systems every year technology has increased 4 times.
To win the career of the human genome, Craig Venter imposed a practical method: breaking all the DNA into small pieces, deciphering each fragment and then assembling the puzzle. The problem, in the eyes of Stephen Quake, a biophysicist at Stanford University, is that he forgot that the DNA of human beings comes packaged in paired chromosomes, like the white and black keys of a piano, and when read it is It is necessary to separate from each other to understand the way they interact.
To amend the reading error, Quake works on the design of a tiny chip, which looks like a complex labyrinth of small channels, cameras and pumps, connected to thin plastic tubes that control more than 650 valves. The objective: to capture each chromosome and then sequence it.
No one had been able to create a complete genome. Daniel Gibson, in his lab at the J. Craig Venter Institute, succeeded. Gibson has a culture of bacteria with a completely artificial genome, which he created after uniting DNA fragments with yeast cells. His colleagues are using this method to produce flu vaccines. If they made more extensive DNA chains, they would create cells that produce biofuels and medicines. “We’re still in the early stages and we do not know what the limits are,” Gibson says.
With a machine that reads DNA thousand times faster and at lower cost, the Genome Institute of the University of Washington drew the genetic structure of several cancer-causing tissues to search for mutations. In this way, the researchers, led by Dr. Eliane Mardis, would help identify the most appropriate treatments and medications for each patient.
It is already a common technique in oncology. If Mardis and his team manage to determine the mutations that feed cancer, without confusing them with the frequent errors that occur during sequencing, it would also reveal something more interesting.
Steve Perlman developed Autodesk Maya, which from a cloud on the web downloads programs to tablets or smartphones. Thus, for example, a video editing program could be used from a tablet without taking up too much space or a video could be seen as on a DVD.
For this, it would be necessary to respond to the user’s gaze in less than 80 milliseconds. If you move an image and it is delayed, “the brain deviates”. Over time, according to Perlman, “any mobile device will be able to offer a high level of computing power to anyone.”
