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5 Tech Concepts You Should Know About

Anthropomimetic Machines

Regardless of how closely a robot might resemble a human from the outside, if you crack one open.. the jumble of wires and circuits is highly unlikely to bear much resemblance to human biology. A group of researchers from Europe are trying to bridge that gap -- robot prototypes that are anthropomimetic, or that "mimick the human form." Skeletons made from thermoplastic polymer, actuators that correspond to muscles, etc. The goal is to create a more human-like robot that interacts and responds in environments much the way that we do. This technology, when coupled with the miraculous open ended deep question answering displayed by IBM's Watson, points toward an incredible future in robot technology.

(Direct) Carbon Fuel Cells

A new generation of "direct carbon" fuel cells pull their power from an electrochemical reaction between oxygen and crushed coal (or some other source of carbon, like biomass). What does this mean? Carbon-based energy that requires absolutely no combustion, which allows it to operate at nearly twice the efficiency of modern coal-fired power plants.

DNA Origami

Say what? Caltech's brightest have been folding microscopic strands of DNA into weird and goofy shapes for the past couple years. A cool (albeit increibly geeky) party trick for sure. However, a breakthrough last summer suggested that these folded strands could actually be used to create ultra-small computer chips. That's when IBM researchers teamed up and proved recently that they could strategically position these folded DNA shapes along silicon wafers used in traditional microchips. What's this all mean? Using pieces of DNA strands as anchor points for tiny computer chip components could be built as little as about 6 nanometers apart -- a huge improvement over the current standard of 45 nanometers.

Osseointegration

The ideal prosthesis would behave like a natural part of the body. Osseointegrations allows prosthetic limbs to fuse with living bone, working by taking advantage of the fact that bone cells attach to titanium. This technique has already been used for small-scale dental and facial implants, and researchers are now bringing it to full-scale limb prosthetics. After a successful implant in 2008 on Cassidy (a German shepherd pictured above), the next big challenge is implementing this technology in human limbs.

Ultracapacitors

The largest current challenge for electric cars is energy storage. Batteries are expensive, slow to charge, and have fairly limited life spans. The solution to this may very well be ultracapacitors, which hold less energy than batteries but have virtually none of their drawbacks. This means longer life spans, no messy/dangerous chemical reactions, and significantly greater durability. MIT is currently working on nanotube-based ultracaps, while Argonne National Laboratory is exploring battery-ultracap hybrids.