From biodegradable cling-wrap to microscopic robots made of stem cells, here are seven inventions that could change the way we live. | Tony Davis
High-tech does not have to involve nanotechnology or robotics. There is something beautiful in finding everyday, natural materials that can replace plastics, for example.is selling a biopolymer resin cling-wrap based on potato waste. It breaks down into carbon and water within six months in a compost pile, cutting back on the 150,000 tonnes of the plastic variety that goes into Australian landfill each year.
Israel’s Eviation is one of many companies vying for a piece of the action. Although competing with Boeing, Rolls-Royce and Airbus, Eviation has a head start with its Alice prototype, which is fully electric rather than hybrid. California-based SpinLaunch has been investigating how to deploy satellites using centrifugal energy rather than vertical thrust.
“In our first paper,” says co-developer Joshua Bongard, a computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont, the artificial intelligence figured out “how to combine skin and heart cells [which act as small motors] to make a walking xenobot. In our third paper, we showed that it could combine just skin cells into a Pac-Man shape that allowed xenobots to create copies of themselves.
It’s hoped that it will allow tetra-plegic people to regain some of their lost dexterity and, eventually, be used to control a wheelchair.The WISAMO project is said to cut fuel use by up to 20 per cent.Later this year, the French merchant ship MN Pelican will travel twice a week between Spain and Great Britain, testing an old maritime technology made new again that could slash carbon emissions.
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