The gunpowder fumes from the fireworks have now disappeared and most Christmas trees are already beaten up on the street. After looking back at 2017, the editors of NEMO Kennislink are taking a cautious look ahead:what will 2018 bring us for scientific breakthroughs?
A monster lives in the center of the Milky Way. A black hole that is about four million times more massive than our sun:Sagittarius A. It is betrayed by strong radio radiation that emits matter in orbit around Sagittarius. But astronomers want more, having combined eight radio telescopes - from the South Pole to Hawaii to France - into an Earth-sized telescope over the past year. This so-called Event Horizon Telescope is hopefully sensitive enough to detect a 'silhouette' of light orbiting the black hole. The data has now been received and is being processed. In 2018, according to Kennislink editor Roel van der Heijden, we may be looking a black hole straight in the eye for the first time.
Closer to home, the smartphone has become a kind of extension of our brain. Getting to know the digital world starts at a young age; toddlers swipe away. What does social media do to our brains and behavior? NEMO Kennislink editor Mariska van Sprundel expects neuroscientists to gain more insights in 2018 about the cognitive processes behind social media use. What motives drive people to use Facebook, Instagram and Twitter? What neural systems sustain the often excessive use of social media? Is looking at your phone for hours a day an emerging behavioral addiction? To what extent media use is harmful to children's development will probably be one of the most important research questions for 2018.
NEMO Kennislink editor Arnout Jaspers expects further breakthroughs in artificial intelligence in 2018. After a long period of stagnation, the field now seems to be gaining momentum. This was already apparent when Google's Alpha Go defeated the human world champion Go (after which its completely self-learning successor Alpha Go Zero turned out to be even stronger). But we also see it in practically usable computer translations (also live, of spoken language). Thanks to higher computing speed, cheap memory space and a lot of online training material (both speech, text and images), self-learning neural networks can provide sensational applications in the coming year.
In line with this, the emphasis is on 'big data', which shows a new trend in humanities research. NEMO Kennislink editor Mathilde Jansen points out that researchers increasingly have large amounts of data, which have been digitized in recent years. Using the computer, they can discover patterns in this data. This offers a new perspective on results gathered in previous research. Because the computer can oversee large amounts of data much better than humans. It shows a whole new research methodology that is becoming increasingly important.
Also within archaeology, new, advanced techniques have already resulted in major discoveries or established theories end up in the trash. For example, the age of Homo sapiens continues to shift backwards due to new finds and dating. But why did only Homo sapiens survive as a species and the other hominids become extinct? NEMO Kennislink editor Marjolein Overmeer does not expect scientists to provide a conclusive answer to this in 2018, but they will at least get a little closer to the answer.
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CRISPR CAS &Vaccines
Many of our current vaccines have a long production time and have a limited shelf life. Scientists want to change that. For example, by culturing the pathogens in efficient systems and by freeze-drying vaccines so that they can be stored longer. A second problem is that many people dislike injections and therefore sometimes do not get vaccinated. This is also being worked on. Last year, an edible vaccine against rotavirus showed positive results in clinical trials. And a vaccine patch against flu also achieved its first success in a small-scale study in humans. Also for 2018, NEMO Kennislink editor Elles Lalieu expects many new developments in the field of vaccines.
NEMO Kennislink editor Erica Renckens wonders aloud how long our thoughts will remain private. The techniques for reading brain activity are becoming increasingly sophisticated and will probably also increasingly be applicable outside the lab, for example to help locked-in patients communicate. But with these developments, all kinds of privacy issues also arise.
NEMO Kennislink editor Anne van Kessel thinks that in 2018 we will hear even more about gene therapy and the use of the crispr-cas technique. Last month, the first gene repair in a patient with Hunter syndrome was performed. In a few months we will know whether the procedure was successful and whether it was safe. If so, the biotechnology company that developed the therapy wants to apply it to other patients and other diseases, such as haemophilia. In the meantime, they are working hard in China to improve CRISPR-cas with which mistakes can already be corrected in embryos.
There are high expectations for crispr-cas in the coming years. However, some feel that this new powerful technique is moving too fast and advocate a slowdown. What do you think? Join the discussion on biotechnology.nl.
Sustainability still high on the agenda
According to NEMO Kennislink editor Esther Thole, the production of new molecular motors and machines will continue at full capacity in 2018. As well as those of new materials that exhibit special properties at the nano or micro scale and can respond to signals from outside. We will also see a lot of synthetic cells, where you can doubt the synthetic content and/or the resemblance to a cell. But breakthroughs? Esther hopes for some major breakthroughs in developing artificial enzymes that can carry out unnatural reactions in microorganisms. According to her, this would be a major step towards sustainable industrial production processes.
NEMO Kennislink editor Renée Moezelaar also has high expectations for sustainability in 2018, especially in the chemical industry. More and more people are realizing that we really need to be more economical with our raw materials; Electric driving is becoming more and more popular and recycling is now very common. That also has an effect on chemistry. Many chemists are already working on sustainable materials, batteries and fuels, but hopefully next year all this work will pay off. A new, improved battery for energy storage has been coming for a number of years. Perhaps this battery will see the light in 2018 and will make it easier to store sustainable energy and make electric cars more efficient.
Even more scientific predictions for 2018.