20 AMAZING INVENTIONS FOR THE FUTURE

June 2005

The atomic bomb. The birth control pill. The television. The candle. Crystal Pepsi.

What do these inventions have in common? At one time or another, optimists touted them as the greatest of all time – a risky gamble, to say the least. In the nineteenth century, many scientists scoffed at the potential of the internal combustion engine, even as they predicted that pneumatic tubes would carry passengers beneath the Atlantic. More misplaced optimism was lavished on Esperanto, Spam, the hydrogen blimp, the faxed newspaper, the 3-D movie, aerosol toothpaste, bottled water for pets, and most tragically perhaps, Betamax.

Laugh we may, but one day the joke could be on us. An MIT survey this year ranked High Definition Television (HDTV) and voice mail as two of the top twenty-five inventions of the past quarter century. One can only wonder if voice mail is as much an improvement over the answering machine as electricity over fire.

So don’t be pulled in by the hype. Historians often judge great inventions by how radically they transform our environment, but this age of unsustainable consumption ushers in a new criterion: how well does an invention preserve the world?

In amassing our own (by no means comprehensive) list, we’ve left out pneumatic transatlantic travel. With similar hubris, we’ve passed over HDTV. We’re confident that what remains will matter twenty years from now. If it doesn’t, we promise to eat our hats. Or a whole case of Spam.

Library In A Box: In the developing world, books and lighting are often unattainable luxuries—which helps explain why one in five humans can’t read. But an innovative new solution for reducing illiteracy blends cutting-edge technology and renewable energy: the Kinkajou, a solar-powered microfilm projector that MIT researchers are testing in Mali, is bright enough to be read in a classroom of 30 students. The projector’s designers expect it to reduce the cost of education materials in impoverished Africa by 60 percent.

New Meaning for Hands-Free: Since the 1970’s urban visionaries have fantasized about cars that can travel on automated rail lines and highways. Spurred by skyrocketing petroleum costs and urban sprawl, the dream is back. In the past two years, Danish scientist Palle Jensen has built prototype tracks for RUF (Rapid, Urban, Flexible), a car monorail system that travels at 80 mph. Toyota, meanwhile, has unveiled the Z-Capsule, a fuel-cell powered car that can travel on autopilot on dedicated highways, then switch over to manual mode (if necessary) on regular roads. Backseat drivers may soon find themselves unemployed.

Finally, A Meteorologist We Can Trust: Last year, the Japanese unveiled the world’s fastest supercomputer, so large it occupies an area equivalent to four tennis courts. The mammoth Earth Simulator Center can model the complex dynamics of the earth’s climate at a scale 1,000 times more detailed than that of previous supercomputers. By studying thousand-year cycles of ocean current movements, scientists hope to be able to forecast storm systems, earthquakes and tsunamis months in advance, and track the effects of pollution like never before.

Thirsty Thirsty Hippos: Millions of people (mostly women and children) in the developing world spend half their day carrying water for their daily chores over long distances—an effort that, in time, becomes literally back-breaking. At a cost of $35, the drum-shaped polyethylene hippo roller makes it a breeze to hand-transport 90 liters of water in one go, five times the amount an adult could previously manage. According to manufacturer Invubu, the hippo roller lowers the risk of injury from landmines and contributes to gender equality—even young South African men are now willing to fetch water, traditionally a woman’s task.

And What A View: The world’s tallest manmade structure may look like a gigantic inverted funnel, but the Solar Mission Tower, due to be finished in Australia later this year, is an ecological masterpiece. Hot air collects under a giant transparent canopy -- much the way it does in your car on a hot day -- that extends from the tower’s ground floor. Given hot air’s propensity for rising, it rushes along the canopy’s upward slope at 15 meters per second until it reaches the tower at the center, powering enough turbines to supply electricity for a town of 200,000 homes. The best part? The tower is at its most efficient on hot days, when the demand for electricity is highest.

Not Horsepower, Lung-Power: Much of the discussion of hybrid vehicles centers on fuel efficiency, but what about a car that needs no gas at all? Next year, the French company Moteur Development International will introduce its Air Car, a boxy six-seater that runs on compressed air. The surprisingly powerful sedan can achieve speeds of 70 miles per hour and can travel up to 124 miles after a four-hour fill-up using an air compressor in the owner’s garage. Critics worry that the car, like hydrogen fuel cells, merely transfers emissions from the car exhaust to the power plant; but as many of those plants go renewable, MDI’s innovation may prove more than hot air.

The Latest Quicker Picker-Upper: Cleaning up oil and tar spills is literally a sticky job, but Cornell University researchers have a new solution: nanosponges, or tiny molecules that scoop up contaminants in polluted soil and carry them to the surface. Chemicals called surfactants currently used in soil treatment work in much the same way as cat litter, clumping around waste for easier pick-up. Nanosponges, however, can be pumped through the soil much more efficiently—and the best part is they can be re-used after messy cleanups. Try doing that with your cat litter.

Thermoacoustic Chiller: The benefits of loud uninterrupted sound are well-known to fans of electronica and hip-hop, and now appliance makers are getting in on the act. Researchers at Penn State Applied Research Laboratory have invented a refrigerator with a built-in loudspeaker that uses 190-decibel sound waves (that’s louder than a Black Sabbath concert) to heat up inert gases. The heated gases are then converted into clean cooling power, sans the toxic hydroflourocarbons used in today’s fridges. Funded by the ice cream powerhouse Ben & Jerry’s, the refrigerator can achieve temperatures of -20 Celsius, researchers report. So why is it so hot in the mosh pit?

Crossing the Digital Divide: Despite the democratic nature of the Internet, computers remain unaffordable throughout much of the world. Nicholas Negroponte hopes to change that: the MIT Media Labs chairman is developing a laptop that sells for under $100. Using a relatively sluggish processor, a Linux-based operating system, and the same rear projection display found in televisions, Negroponte hopes the system will become as ubiquitous in the developing world as cell phones.

Home Voltage Regulator: Every happy family may be alike, but they don’t necessarily get the same amount of electricity. People living closest to substations—the facilities that control electrical power flow and deliver energy directly to consumers—can have 126 volts or more flowing to their homes during power surges, even though most appliances require only 114 volts. Think of those extra volts as extra pressure in a hose that keeps feeding your swimming pool, even after it’s full; if you can’t turn off the hose, the water is simply going to be wasted. So how do you slow the flow down? A simple device called a home voltage regulator. According to manufacturer MicroPlanet Ltd., the HVR reduces power consumption 10 to 20 percent and eliminates greenhouse gas emissions by one-fifth, thereby extending the life of all our appliances—not to mention the planet.

Making Popeye Proud: Remember using potatoes to power light bulbs back in high school science class? Scientists have long dreamed of using photosynthesis to generate electricity, but the salt and water contained in plant matter corrode electronic systems. Scientists at MIT recently found a solution. By encasing ground spinach in an insoluble protein membrane, they have created a solar-powered battery that may one day run your laptop and cell phone – no photovoltaic cell required.

Like A Canary In A Coal Mine: One of the few species to benefit from the degradation of streams and rivers is the midge, a gnat-like fly that grows more abundant when its freshwater habitat is polluted. Pollutants create modifications in the midges’ DNA, making them an ideal indicator of a damaged environment. Until now, however, it hasn’t been easy getting DNA samples from large numbers of midges. Fortunately, researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a microarray, or nanosized DNA litmus test, that glows when mutations are present in the midges. If all goes well, the microarray will tip off scientists before environmental damage can be detected by ordinary chemical tests.

CyberTracker: No, it’s not the FBI’s latest computer surveillance project, but a handheld device that allows park rangers and even ecotourists to report what they see out in the field. The Tracker, developed by South African conservationist Louis Liebenberg, has an easy-to-operate pictorial menu that allows users to record their sightings of flora and fauna onto a GPS-equipped electronic map. With the uploaded data, scientists have already been able to track endangered species and monitor the spread of disease in over thirty countries – an environmental neighborhood watch program for the entire world.

A 20-20 Solution: For eye doctors in the developing world, maintaining a full inventory of corrective lenses is not only wasteful but economically impossible. MIT doctoral candidate Saul Griffith recently won the prestigious Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for inventing a portable lens molder that can produce any prescription lens in ten minutes. To make his device even more useful, Griffith invented a pair of prototype goggles that automatically monitors the wearer’s eyesight and determines the correct prescription accordingly.

Zeer Pots: In wartorn Darfur, Sudan, where starvation is a constant threat, raising crops is only half the problem. The other half is storage: staple vegetables such as tomatoes and okra typically last only two to three days in the hot dry climate, and electrical refrigeration is rarely available. But Nigerian teacher Mohammed Bah Abba has found a novel solution: by packing a clay pot full of produce inside a larger pot, using wet sand as an insulator, vegetable vendors can store 12 kilograms of their product for 20 days at a cost of less than $2 per pot.

Don’t Try Sniffing This: Paint may smell noxious, but British scientists have developed a paint that actually makes the air cleaner. Millenium Chemicals’ Ecopaint uses nanoparticles of titanium dioxide to break down nitrogen oxide (a smog trigger) under ordinary sunlight. The byproduct? Nothing more than water, plus small quantities of carbon dioxide and harmless calcium nitrate. Trials using the paint in Milan found that it reduced street-level nitrogen oxide by sixty percent. There’s only one drawback: for the moment, Ecopaint is only available in white.

Fuel Cells Get in Through the Front Door: Even if fuel cells aren’t in our cars yet, they will soon be in our garages. In February Japanese company Tokyo Gas launched a home fuel cell system that generates two-thirds of a house’s electricity needs by extracting hydrogen from natural gas, thereby reducing power plant carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent. Though the fuel cell system won’t allow its owners to go “off the grid”, it will eliminate most of the energy loss that occurs during electrical transmission from the power plant to the home, reducing emissions by yet another 20 percent and saving the average family of four $400 a year on its utility bills. The system costs $4,000 at present – little more than the average Tokyo salaryman’s annual bar budget.

Breathing Evian: Twenty years ago, inventor James Reidy was pouring out the water produced by his dehumidifier when the muse struck: why not do something with the water he was pulling from the air? Now commercially available for just over $1,000, Reidy’s AirWater machine charges all day in the sun, then condenses and sterilizes 20 liters or more of water from cool and moist nighttime air. Considering how much most people spend on bottled water, it might just make sense to start drinking what we breathe.

Putting The Hydro Back Into Hydroelectric: With global energy consumption expected to increase 40 percent by the end of the decade, Australian renewable energy company Seapower Pacific has a remarkable idea: using the power of the ocean to run a desalinization plant, then applying the excess power to generate electricity. While wave power plants already exist, Seapower Pacific’s will become the first dual-use plant, purifying water to quench a thirsty population and supplying energy to an even thirstier power grid. It is set to begin operating later this year.