Key Scientific Inventions of 2016 [For Prelims]

The role of science in inventions cannot be overlooked. From the spinning wheel and the steam engine to modern warfare and supercomputers, science and technology has profoundly influenced human civilization. Scientific revolutions have gained speed and have become more and more advanced  with every passing century, that today they have become an integral part of human life, with our fast changing needs, requirements and aspirations.
Some of the recent scientific advancements, in various fields, include:
Space Technology

• Space X’s Reusable Rockets: Space X has developed the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles, both designed to be reusable, and the Dragon spacecraft which is flown into orbit by the Falcon 9 launch vehicle to supply the International Space Station with cargo.This not only saves money and but also takes care of the ever-growing space debris.
• NASA’s Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarisation (CALIOP), a space-based sensor which uses a laser beam to map the ocean’s surface and immediate subsurface. It has monitored phytoplankton growth in Artic and Antartic oceans.
• China’s TanSat satellitewhich will monitor global carbon emissions, so as to understand climate change.  It also carries a high-resolution micro-nano satellite and two spectrum micro-nano satellites for agricultural and forestry monitoring.
• Asteroid 2016 HO3:An asteroid that has been confirmed by NASA, present in stable Earth orbit, making it a constant near-Earth companion, or a second satellite.
• ISRO’s LISS 3 and LISS 4, high resolution cameras from ResourceSat-2A has captured images of Vadodara, Daman and Jambughoda wildlife sanctuary and its surrounding areas in Gujarat. Surrounding reservoirs and lakes were also marked on the image.

Healthcare

• Ebola Vaccine rVSV-ZEBOV:  The first vaccine to block Ebola. During the trial which involved more than 11,000 people, including a list of people who had come in contact with the patient were randomly assigned to receive the vaccine. After 10 days, there were no cases of Ebola infection among those who were vaccinated.
• Electronic Tattoo:  The technology is  designed so that persons needing long term recordings of muscle activity could wear the thin, flexible electrode without inconvenience. It also displays the wearer’s blood oxygen level or heart rate.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) system to detect early forms of Alzheimer’s disease: It uses  artificial intelligence algorithms to MRI brain scans, automatically classifying which form of dementia patients have.
• Molecule, GK-PID :This ancient molecule is the reason single-celled organisms started to evolve into multicellular organisms, approximately 800 million years ago. It pulls chromosomes together to latch them onto the inner wall of a cell membrane when division occurs. This allows cells to copy properly and avoid becoming cancerous.
• Sub-optical phonon (sound) imaging:A nano-scale ultrasound technique which uses sound rather than light to see inside live cells, with potential application in stem-cell transplants and cancer diagnosis.
• Synthetically engineered T Cells:Such T cells are programmed so that they only kill when a specific drug is added, so as to target only dangerous cells. These types of T cells have already been used in trials to provide immune therapy for tumors of the brain, lungs and liver, and so far, some patients were killed during these trials.
• Cybernetic Implant: Once this small chip is implanted in the brain, it sends signals to a nearby terminal, which transmits that information to an electronic sleeve worn on the man’s arm. The sleeve then uses wires to stimulate specific muscles to cause the movement of the fingers in real-time.

Information Technology

• Conversational Interfaces:Voice-operated virtual assistants such as Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google Now come with most smartphones, and newer devices, like Amazon’s Alexa, offer a simple way to look up information, cue up songs, and even build shopping lists with your voice. These systems are hardly perfect, but they are improving steadily, and they offer a glimpse of a graceful future in which there’s less need to learn a new interface for every new device.
• Ambience Backscatter:This allows for wireless communications by leveraging the existing ambient radio frequency signals absorbed from the air, with existing power sources enabled by backscatter tags. They require no batteries, hence, are zero maintenance and last forever.
• Interscatter Communication:It converts Bluetooth signals into WiFi signals so that contact lenses and brain implants can send signals to smartphones. This could even help provide medical information to the wearer and immediate notice if they require treatment.
• Nano-structured glass for data storage:The storage device is a small glass disk that can hold 360TB of data and remain intact up to 1,000°C. Data is written on the device using an ultrafast laser via short and intense light pulses. Each file is written in three layers of nanostructured dots that are only 5 micrometers apart. When read, the data is realized in five dimensions: the three dimensional position of the nanostructured dots as well as their size and orientation.

Agriculture and Environment

• Genome Editing Technology, CRISPR: This gene-editing technique provides a precise way to modify crops in hopes of making them yield more food and resist drought and disease more effectively. It would also be critical in helping scientists keep up with the constantly evolving microbes that attack crop.
• Carbon Capture: Scientists in Iceland pumped carbon dioxide into volcanic rock, which sped up a natural process that turns basalt into carbonate minerals, which then become limestone. A process that normally takes hundreds of thousands of years was done in two years. The result is carbon capture into a rock that could be stored underground or even used as a building material so that the permanently captured CO2 never reenters the atmosphere and further harms the greenhouse effect.
• High Efficiency Solar Panels: Buffalo, New York is the site of the new $750 million SolarCity factory where the company will be able to produce 10,000 solar panels each day. It will be one of the biggest in the world, and will transform the way solar panels are currently made.
• Digital soil mapping: This is key to planning sustainable agricultural intensification and natural resources management. With open access, these interactive maps are publicly available to be explored on Google Earth.
• Such emerging technologies have been the key to opening up new opportunities worldwide. In India
• Project Aanch undertaken by Enactus, a group of students from IIT Delhi gave us “smokeless chulhas”. Though they work on wood and cow-dung, less smoke is emitted and an average chulhauses only 2/3rd of wood.
• A team at IISc invented a water purifying system that could even eliminate harmful bacteria at a nanoscale level.
• A joint effort by “Grey for Good“ and Neelvasant Medical Foundation and Research Centre created iodine patches known as the Life Saving Dotthat can be worn as a bindi. Once placed on the forehead, the daily required amount of iodine (150-220 mg), which is injected into the bindi, is directly absorbed through the skin.

This only reinstates the obvious- human beings are driven to invent, two of the prime reasons being necessity and curiosity. Today, there has been so much progress in various fields, be it healthcare, electronics and communication, arts and entertainment; that the very definition of necessity has assumed multiple dimensions- social, economic and political. But, mostly it is the goal to seek a life of ease and comfort which has led the human race to both invent and improvise. For instance – Social Media. It has brought the world more closer than what our predecessors might have imagined. But, there is no denying that it was their inventions that made our lives a lot easier. Similarly, whatever we have achieved so far will make the life of future generations much easier. Hence, the importance of “thinking what no one has thought”. Imagination which has undoubtedly helped mankind to invent, will keep the spirit of invention and innovation alive in generations to come. As they say, “all it takes is a good idea.”