MIT and Bill Gates release list of the most innovative technologies of 2019

As usual every university year Massachusetts Institute of Technology – MIT, one of the most prestigious institutions of higher education in the United States, released its list of 10 most innovative technologies of 2019. 

The difference this year came in the collaboration chosen to create the list. Bill Gates, the founder of ecosystem, participated in the election of the most innovative technology items of 2019 and enters the university's history MIT as the first guest curator on this list. 

“I wanted to choose things that not only make headlines in 2019, but also capture this moment in tech history,” he said. Bill Gates in your introduction in the list presentation. 

Check out the 10 items chosen by the university below. MIT e Bill Gates as the most innovative technologies of 2019: 

Technology for robotic dexterity 

Robotics is always an area of ​​great interest to technology lovers, mixing even a little fiction with reality. But the talk of robots stealing jobs from men has been going on for a few years now, even though these machines are still very inflexible and limited. 

But robots are evolving and starting to conquer the physical world. Now these wonderful machines can be programmed to understand how an object works, on the basis of virtual trial and error. 

One of the first items to break this barrier in robotics was the Dactyl, a robot of the company OpenAI who taught himself to turn a toy with his fingers, all this with virtual training that included elements of the physical world such as friction and different types of materials and textures, which gave the robot Dactyl a reading very close to reality. 

New wave of nuclear energy 

An expensive and unsafe, but always desired, energy source is nuclear energy. For some countries with few natural resources for other energy sources, such as Japan, this seems to be one of the only possible options.  

And now, with new designs that have come to the fore in the last year, nuclear power can gain traction as it becomes cheaper as well as safer. 

They are 4th generation nuclear fission reactors, evolutions of traditional designs, small modular reactors and nuclear fusion reactors, something until then practically impossible to accomplish, which should bring this technology into daily practice in the 2020s. 

predict premature births 

The birth of premature babies is still one of the biggest risks to the child's life, in addition to the health conditions that the baby may have for the rest of his life. 

In view of this, the bioengineer Stephen Quake developed a new test to identify the possibility of premature birth and the development of diseases resulting from birth before 9 months of gestation, such as Down Syndrome.  

And all this using so-called “floating” DNA and RNA, which are loose in our blood free from a cell. In pregnant women, this “loose” material is like a veritable soup of nucleic acids from the fetus, placenta and mother. 

The new test can identify mutations in DNA, while in RNA, the new test on material "loose" in the pregnant woman's blood can identify fluctuations in the expression of 7 genes that it has identified as being responsible for premature birth, identifying women who are predisposed to having it. the child before 9 months of pregnancy. 

With the alert, doctors can better prepare to give the child a better chance of survival. 

Intestinal exam in a pill

Intestinal diseases are still a serious problem, especially in underdeveloped countries, where children do not even grow properly due to the bad conditions that affect their digestive tract. 

And the examination to identify these diseases are still a real torture for the patient. 

But that could soon change, now that the pathologist and engineer Guillermo Tearney is developing a small device for examinations of the digestive tract, which, unlike endoscopy, can be used in primary patients. 

It is an easily swallowable capsule that contains several microscopes. The capsule is tied to a flexible cable that sends light and energy and through which the images are transmitted to the monitor. 

And this technology could have many applications, such as esophageal scanning, and an even smaller version is being developed for use in children, especially those in underdeveloped countries, where diseases of the digestive tract remain a major problem.

Customized cancer vaccines 

Cancer is still one of the biggest causes of death in the world. And vaccines and treatments are always under development by scientists from all over the planet. 

One of these vaccines works in a more personalized way, identifying each tumor's unique cell mutations and activating the body's natural defense mechanisms. If it works as expected, the vaccine could kill many types of cancer, using the body's defense system to destroy only cancer cells.  

The vaccine does not attack healthy cells and can still put the body's defense system on alert for a possible return of cancer cells after the initial treatment. 

hamburger without cow 

Vegan and vegetarian life is now quite widespread and there are several meatless burger recipes out there.  

But lab-grown beef could end up being an alternative source of animal protein for those who haven't adapted to the vegetarian lifestyle. And it's almost a reality. 

Lab-grown beef consists of extracting muscle tissue from animals and growing them in bioreactors. The texture, as scientists have analyzed, is practically identical to the natural one. The current barrier, however, lies in flavor, where scientists are hard at work. 

for researchers from Maastricht University, in the Netherlands, believe that the lab-grown beef hamburger may already be available next year. 

Despite efforts, a study of the World Economic Forum states that the reduction of gas emissions in the production of laboratory meat is only 7% lower than that of traditional production. 

carbon dioxide collector 

One of the biggest contributors to global warming is carbon dioxide. And to avoid an even greater increase in the planet's temperature, the United Nations (UN) concluded that the world needs to remove about a trillion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere this century. 

With this arduous mission in mind, the Harvard climate scientist, David Keith, calculated that machines could, in theory, do this work at a cost of $100 per ton. The technology for this is known as direct air capture. 

Once captured, the fate of carbon dioxide is still uncertain, but Keith also already has a plan: to use the material collected as the main ingredient to create synthetic fuels, such as methane. 

Electrocardiogram on wrist 

With the advancement of technology and items such as smartwatches e smartbands increasingly popular, it has become even easier to monitor health. Now, the new generation of these wearable tech items comes with even more health monitoring options. 

starting with the Apple Watch 4, the electrocardiogram should no longer be a grandiose exam to be performed in a hospital and become something as simple as checking the time on your wristwatch. 

After the successful launch of Apple , other smart watches and fitness bracelets are starting to include the electrocardiogram as another health monitoring item in their equipment. 

Despite the ease of the electrocardiogram at hand, the technology used today in these devices is still very simple, in relation to the official exam performed in a hospital. It is also worth remembering that the exam done by smart devices cannot identify a heart attack happening. 

Sanitation without sewers 

With the expressive growth of the population, especially in large cities, sanitation becomes a public health problem. And even with the best planning, problems can be encountered. 

But now, technology can solve that with the use of a toilet that handles the waste itself. 

Most “smart toilet” prototypes are identical to the traditional ones, but do not need sewers. The projects, created by different universities and researchers, range from items for use by a few people to toilets prepared for hundreds of users a day. All this without the use of sewers and treating waste autonomously. 

Artificial intelligence assistants with natural speech 

Artificial Intelligence assistants are already everywhere. Since the smartphones, from smart speakers to even more mundane items such as refrigerators and cars. 

But the speech of these technology items was still a barrier to a greater naturalization of their use. And that can change. 

New technologies capture the semantic relationship between words and are making machines equipped with these assistants better understand natural language. 

These improvements are putting personal assistants on a conversational level and not just carrying out simple pre-programmed commands. In the very near future, these AI assistants will even be able to answer calls for us, in addition to shopping online for themselves. 

Some of these technologies are already working in some places, such as Google Duplex, who can answer calls for you, so you can get rid of that pushy telemarketing, and can also make appointments on your behalf, such as restaurant and beauty salon reservations. 

Any of these 10 technologies identified as innovative for the next 12 months by the MIT e Bill Gates caught your attention? Tell us!