![topics about change topics about change](https://www.erm.com/globalassets/sustainability-report-2019/material-topics/material-topics---our-climate-change.png)
![topics about change topics about change](https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0195925519301301-gr4.jpg)
And scientists are even working on wireless brain implants that bypass the eyes altogether. Likewise in 2020, Belgian scientists developed an artificial iris fitted to smart contact lenses that correct a number of vision disorders. The implant also fuses naturally to human tissue without the recipient’s body rejecting it. When his bandages were removed, the patient could read and recognise family members immediately. In January 2021, Israeli surgeons implanted the world’s first artificial cornea into a bilaterally blind, 78-year-old man. A raft of technologies is coming to market that restore sight to people with different kinds of vision impairment. Artificial eyesīionic eyes have been a mainstay of science fiction for decades, but now real-world research is beginning to catch up with far-sighted storytellers. It’s legal in a number of US states and uses fewer emissions compared with more traditional methods. Another example is alkaline hydrolysis, which involves breaking the body down into its chemical components over a six-hour process in a pressurised chamber. Most alternative ways of disposing of our bodies after death are not based on new technology they’re just waiting for societal acceptance to catch up. The company claims its suit, made with mushrooms and other microorganisms that aid decomposition and neutralise toxins that are realised when a body usually decays. In 2019, the late actor Luke Perry was buried in a bespoke “mushroom suit” designed by a start-up called Coeio. Recompose, the company behind the process, claims it uses an eighth of the carbon dioxide of a cremation.Īn alternative technology uses fungi. Within 30 days, your body is reduced to soil that can be returned to a garden or woodland. Bodies are laid in chambers with bark, soil, straw and other compounds that promote natural decomposition. In Washington State in the US, you could be composted instead. The average cremation reportedly releases 400kg of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, for example. Sustainable living is becoming a priority for individuals squaring up to the realities of the climate crisis, but what about eco-friendly dying? Death tends to be a carbon-heavy process, one last stamp of our ecological footprint. Q Bio CEO Jeff Kaditz hopes it will lead to a new era of preventative, personalised medicine in which the vast amounts of data collected not only help doctors prioritise which patients need to be seen most urgently, but also to develop more sophisticated ways of diagnosing illness. It intends to use this data to produce a 3D digital avatar of a patient’s body – known as a digital twin – that can be tracked over time and updated with each new scan. The US company has built a scanner that will measure hundreds of biomarkers in around an hour, from hormone levels to the fat building up in your liver to the markers of inflammation or any number of cancers. Doing that in real life would, say the makers of Q Bio, improve health outcomes and alleviate the load on doctors at the same time. In Star Trek, where many of our ideas of future technology germinated, human beings can walk into the medbay and have their entire body digitally scanned for signs of illness and injury. The Q Bio dashboard where users can track their health © Q Bio Some products are already at market in the US, from companies such as Perfect Day, with ongoing work focused on reproducing the mouthfeel and nutritional benefits of regular cow’s milk.īeyond that, researchers are working on lab-produced mozzarella that melts perfectly on top of a pizza, as well other cheeses and ice-cream. Rather than grow it from stem cells, most researchers attempt to produce it in a process of fermentation, looking to produce the milk proteins whey and casein. It’s responsible for 4 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions, more than air travel and shipping combined, and demand is growing for a greener splash to pour into our tea cups and cereal bowls.Ĭompared with meat, milk isn’t actually that difficult to create in a lab. The dairy industry is not environmentally friendly, not even close.
#Topics about change cracked
And more than one think they’ve cracked it. You’ve heard of cultured “meat” and Wagyu steaks grown cell by cell in a laboratory, but what about other animal-based foodstuffs? A growing number of biotech companies around the world are investigating lab-made dairy, including milk, ice-cream, cheese and eggs.