The 10th anniversary edition of the World Economic Forum’s
Top 10 Emerging Technologies Report lists new technologies poised to impact the
world in the next three to five years.
Experts convened by the World Economic Forum and Scientific
American highlight technological advances that could revolutionize agriculture,
health and space. read more. webcomputerworld
Self-fertilizing crops, on-demand drug manufacturing,
breath-sensing diagnostics and 3D-printed houses are among the technologies on
the list.
At COP26, countries committed to new, ambitious targets for
reducing greenhouse gas emissions this decade. Delivering on these promises will
rely on the development and scale up of green technologies.
Two such technologies – the production of “green” ammonia
and engineered crops that make their own fertilizer – both aiming to make
agriculture more sustainable, made it onto this year’s list of emerging tech.
Top 10 Emerging Technologies
From breath sensors that can diagnose disease to wireless
charging of low-powered devices, this year’s list of top emerging technologies
is packed with inspiring advances related to the environment, health, infrastructure
and connectivity. Experts whittled down scores of nominations to a select group
of new developments with the potential to disrupt the status quo and spur real
progress.
Have you read?
Emerging technologies: 10 years of top tech trends and how they've
changed the world
Here are 2021’s top 10 emerging technologies:
Decarbonization Rises
A century since scientists proposed that excess carbon
dioxide in earth’s atmosphere would cause it to retain heat and cause planetary
warming, a global effort is underway to drive decarbonization in all aspects of
daily life. Governments and industries have made seminal commitments to reduce
carbon emissions.
Meeting those commitments will, over the next three to five
years, demand unprecedented innovation and scaling to industrial levels of
nascent technologies such as: mass energy storage, low/no carbon chemical
sources, revitalized rail transport, carbon sequestration, low carbon
agriculture, zero emission vehicles and power sources, as well as agreed-upon compliance
monitoring on a global scale.
Decarbonization Rises
A century since scientists proposed that excess carbon
dioxide in earth’s atmosphere would cause it to retain heat and cause planetary
warming, a global effort is underway to drive decarbonization in all aspects of
daily life. Governments and industries have made seminal commitments to reduce
carbon emissions.
Meeting those commitments will, over the next three to five
years, demand unprecedented innovation and scaling to industrial levels of
nascent technologies such as: mass energy storage, low/no carbon chemical
sources, revitalized rail transport, carbon sequestration, low carbon
agriculture, zero emission vehicles and power sources, as well as agreed-upon
compliance monitoring on a global scale.
Crops that make their own fertilizer
Today the world uses more than 110 million tons of nitrogen
fertilizer to enhance crop production annually. What if crops could capture
nitrogen on their own, "fixing" it to themselves in the form of
ammonia as legumes such as soy and beans do? Being one of the top emerging
technologies, researchers now aim to coax other crops such as corn and other
cereals to also self-fertilize.
In one approach, researchers are working to emulate the
symbiotic molecular communication between legumes and bacteria to create root
nodules—legumes’ natural fertilizer factories. In another, soil bacteria that
normally colonize cereal roots (but don’t normally create nodules) are taught
to produce nitrogenase, a key component that converts atmospheric nitrogen to
plant-compatible ammonia.
Diagnosing diseases with a puff of breath
Soon, testing for disease could be as simple for patients as
exhaling. New breath sensors can diagnose diseases by sampling the
concentrations of the more than 800 compounds contained in human breath. For
instance, elevated amounts of acetone in human breath indicate diabetes mellitus.
The sensors look for changes in electrical resistance as breath compounds flow
over a metal-oxide semiconductor. Algorithms then analyze the sensor data.
While this emerging technology needs refinements before it
can become widespread, in a March 2020 study in Wuhan, China, sensors achieved
a remarkable 95 percent accuracy in COVID-19 detection and 100% sensitivity in
differentiating patients. read more. healthnutritionhints