10 global problems that technology is solving today

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Decoding the brain, storing energy, and other issues in which new inventions are indispensable.

1. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

To eliminate the greenhouse effect, it is not enough for humanity to just reduce harmful emissions. It is also necessary to somehow get rid of the gas that is already in the atmosphere. For example, through carbon sequestration - the process of converting carbon dioxide into organic matter.

This is an incredibly resource intensive task. However, scientists are already trying different ways to convert carbon into useful products. So, using catalysts made from nickel and phosphorus, researchers are converting Researchers Just Found a Way to Turn CO2 Into Plastic With Unprecedented Efficiency carbon dioxide into different polymeric materials. Several institutes are working on CO processing at once₂ into synthetic fuel. Using special algae, carbon is converted by Algae used to convert CO2 into carbon fibers into carbon fiber. There is also a way to make Turning Carbon Dioxide into Concrete from harmful emissions of concrete: limestone is used for this.

2. Energy storage

People are learning to get more and more energy from renewable sources. Wind turbines and solar panels are becoming cheaper, but they have a serious drawback: when the sun sets or the wind stops blowing, they do not work.

This is one of the reasons why humanity cannot yet abandon more stable sources - coal and natural gas. A way must be found to store energy on a large scale. So much so that you can feed the metropolis all night, for example. Modern batteries are not very suitable for this, at least because of their high cost.

Fortunately, scientists and companies around the world are working on this issue. Promising developments include, for example, Toyota and Panasonic Agree to Establish Joint Venture Related to Automotive Prismatic Batteries, which are based on a liquid or gel electrolyte, and An ultrafast rechargeable aluminum-ion battery, based on aluminum. The advantages of these inventions are that they allow you to store more energy, but at the same time they do not burn, unlike lithium-ion batteries, and they charge quickly.

3. Influenza

Pandemic flu is rare, but very dangerous. In 1918, more than 50 million people died due to the H virus₁N₁, then about a million in 1957 and 1968 and about 500 thousand in 2009.

The virus is constantly changing and old vaccines stop working. Therefore, one of the important tasks of scientists and inventors is to create a universal vaccine that will protect both from less dangerous versions of the virus and from catastrophic epidemics. Work on this is already underway by Universal Influenza Vaccine Research: scientists are testing several vaccines at once. One is based on ferritin, a protein that can assemble into nanoparticles. The other includes four types of hemagglutinin (one of the constituents of the influenza virus), which are designed to stimulate the body's immune response.

4. Dementia

About a third of people over 85 suffer from dementia. Over time, life expectancy becomes longer, and the number of people susceptible to the disease also increases. At the same time, not a single really effective way of dealing with this ailment has yet been invented.

Advances in neuroscience, neurology and genetics are helping us better understand what causes Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. Perhaps with the advent of more advanced devices and technologies for studying the brain, scientists can find ways to slow down or prevent the progression of the disease.

Technology is helping to make life easier for people with memory impairments right now. For example, the How Do I? reminds you of daily tasks such as putting the kettle on or washing the dishes using short rollers. And in the UK, scientists are working Launching: UK DRI Care Research & Technology at Imperial on smart device systems that can automatically monitor the condition of dementia patients and notify relatives if a person is in danger.

5. Ocean pollution

The world's oceans are filled with billions of pieces of plastic - microplastics. They appear when things created from this substance fall into water and disintegrate over time. Microplastics are very dangerous for marine life, birds and people, they poison the water and the products that we extract from it. So, in 2018, a dead whale was found in Indonesia with 6 kilograms of plastic in its stomach. Research also shows that 90% of seabirds consume some amount of plastic during their lifetime.

To continue living on Earth, humanity will have to cleanse the ocean of debris. This could take hundreds of years with current technology, but the future is likely to have the potential to recycle hazardous substances on a gigantic scale. Already, The Ocean Cleanup systems are being tested in the form of huge autonomous networks that allow plastic to be collected at relatively low cost.

6. Deficiency of fresh water

Fresh water on Earth is much less common than salt water. Moreover, it is unevenly distributed among the places of residence of people: for example, there is very little of it in Africa. The planet's population continues to grow, and soon we will need energy efficient and cheap ways to desalinate water.

These can be new types of filters or electrochemical technologies. For example, researchers at Columbia University came up with the New desalination method could get industry - and the environment - out of a very salty pickle to use a special solvent that floats above a layer of salt water. The water rises to the solvent, which separates the salt from it, and the fresh liquid, due to the change in density, sinks to the bottom.

7. Unsafe self-driving cars

Dozens of companies are developing unmanned vehicles: Ford, Waymo, Audi, Google, Yandex. Cars are driven around the streets, trained and tested, but they are not yet mature enough to be put into production. Artificial intelligence has a hard time coping with difficult traffic situations, traffic jams and poor visibility.

Over time, however, drones will surely become safe and transform Self-Driving Vehicles Will Change The World In Some Unexpected Ways a modern city. Autonomous taxis will emerge, making people less likely to use their own cars. The number of parking lots and accidents on the roads will decrease, and traffic jams will form less frequently.

Engineers from various brands are working to improve the behavior of self-driving cars. One way to achieve this is the development of Improving Self-Driving Car Safety And Reliability With V2X Protocols V2X protocols, thanks to which cars can notify each other about their location, as well as exchange data with traffic lights, barriers, gates and even buildings.

8. Materialization of artificial intelligence

Today, advanced artificial intelligence and advanced robotics exist almost separately from each other. Robots can do a lot, even twist somersaults, but they have not been very successful in thinking and learning independently. But neural networks and programs run on stationary machines are excellent at this.

However, sooner or later, artificial intelligence and artificial body will connect. There will be robots that can freely interact with objects of the real world, calculate actions and their consequences. This will change the industrial world The Role Of Robots In Industry 4.0: robots will be able to work where humans cannot survive, they will not need to sleep and eat.

9. Unpredictability of earthquakes

Humanity has learned to predict hurricanes and other weather disasters days or even months before they occur. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for earthquakes. Every year thousands of people are killed, injured or lost property due to tremors and subsequent tsunamis.

The development of devices that scan the earth's crust and software for processing the received data will help to alert of these disasters in advance. Programmers and researchers are already working on Neural Network for Earthquake Prediction Based on Automatic Clustering in Indonesia on neural networks that can theoretically predict earthquakes. For example, Indonesian scientists have created a neural network that can predict the occurrence of aftershocks after earthquakes. So far, she is best at predicting shocks with a magnitude of six points or more.

10. Decoding the brain

Despite hundreds of years of advances in medicine, biology, and anatomy, we still know very little about how the human brain works. All our thinking, motor activity, memory and skills are recorded in neurons using a certain code. The clue to this code will not only explain how we think, but will also allow Brain Decoding to more effectively treat mental disorders and neurological diseases.

There are already promising developments in this area. For example, researchers have already learned Scientists have found a way to decode brain signals into speech to recognize speech from brain signals. And Elon Musk's Neuralink company is working Elon Musk's Neuralink implant will "merge" humans with AI on a system of wireless chips that will be implanted into the brain and will control technology with the power of thought.