1 Microneedles Could Enable Painless Injections and Blood Draws
Barely visible needles, or "microneedles," are
poised1 to
usher2 in an era of pain-free injections and blood testing. Whether attached to a syringe or a patch, microneedles prevent pain by avoiding contact with nerve endings. Typically 50 to 2,000 microns in length (about the depth of a sheet of paper) and one to 100 microns wide (about the width of human hair), they
penetrate3 the dead, top layer of skin to reach into the
epidermis4. But most do not reach or only barely touch the
underlying6 dermis5, where the nerve endings lie.
2 Sun-Powered Chemistry Can Turn Carbon Dioxide into Common Materials
The manufacture of many chemicals important to human health and comfort consumes fossil fuels,
thereby7 contributing to carbon dioxide
emissions8 and climate change. A new approach employs sunlight to convert waste carbon dioxide into these needed chemicals.
This process is becoming increasingly feasible thanks to advances in sunlight-activated
catalysts9, or photocatalysts. In recent years
investigators10 have developed photocatalysts that break the
resistant11 double bond between carbon and oxygen in carbon dioxide. This is a critical first step in creating "solar"
refineries12 that produce useful compounds from the waste gas -- including "platform"
molecules13 that can serve as raw materials for the synthesis of such
varied14 products as medicines,
detergents15, fertilizers and textiles.
3 Virtual Patients Could Revolutionize Medicine
What if computers could replace patients as well? If virtual humans could have replaced real people in some stages of a coronavirus
vaccine16 trial, for instance, it could have sped development of a preventive tool and slowed down the pandemic. These are some of the benefits of "in silico medicine," or the testing of drugs and treatments on virtual organs or body systems to predict how a real person will respond to the therapies. For the foreseeable future, real patients will be needed in late-stage studies, but in silico trials will make it possible to conduct quick and inexpensive first
assessments17 of safety and efficacy, drastically reducing the number of live human subjects required for
experimentation18.
Imagine Martha, an octogenarian who lives independently and uses a wheelchair. As Martha moves from her bedroom to the kitchen, the lights switch on, and the ambient temperature adjusts. The chair will slow if her cat crosses her path. If she begins to fall when getting into bed, her furniture shifts to protect her, and an alert goes to her son and the local monitoring station.
The "spatial computing" at the heart of this scene is the next step in the
ongoing21 convergence of the physical and digital worlds. It does everything virtual-reality and augmented-reality apps do: digitize objects that connect via the cloud; allow
sensors22 and motors to react to one another; and digitally represent the real world. Then it combines these
capabilities23 with high-fidelity spatial mapping to enable a computer "
coordinator24" to track and control the movements and interactions of objects as a person
navigates25 through the digital or physical world. Spatial computing will soon bring human-machine and machine-machine interactions to new levels of efficiency in many walks of life, among them industry, health care, transportation and the home.
5 Digital Medicine Can Diagnose and Treat What
Ails26 You
A raft of apps in use or under development can now detect or monitor mental and physical
disorders27 autonomously28 or directly administer therapies. Collectively known as digital medicines, the software can both enhance traditional medical care and support patients when access to health care is limited—a need that the COVID-19 crisis has
exacerbated29.