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Nanotechnologies offer a myriad of benefits and applications with more than 1300 nanotech-enabled consumer products from hair straighteners to cleaning fluids, but they also present several uncertainties and lack extensive regulation. As more products enabled by nanomaterials are released to the market, more workers risk exposure to potentially harmful materials—whether in a lab, a factory, or a construction site. Now, occupational safety and health agencies and researchers are providing more substantial guidance for handling nanomaterials at the workplace.

Sensory substitution is a method of replacing the information flow of one sense with that of another sense. The research dates back to the 1960s and has been used in various ways to help people with physical impairments. Biohackers and other researchers have recently adopted these techniques to enhance and extend the sensory experiences of the non-impaired with potentially practical applications, some of which might even enter the mainstream market.

The paperless society has been touted for decades, but paper’s use has been growing for millennia. With the growing capabilities, convenience and mobility, of new technologies reaching maturity, are we finally seeing a tipping point toward a society of less paper?

The Arctic has been warming twice as fast as the global average, and a new low was set for Arctic sea ice last year. Although the environmental concerns in the region are mounting, economic opportunities have also ramped up.

As implanted medical devices increase in variety and function and wearable computing draws closer, their energy needs have become paramount. Now, new sources are being found even as the devices scale down their energy requirements.

Just as modern technology has changed the way we interact with the world and our understanding of it, new technological solutions are also enhancing our legacy and our ability to rest in peace.

Taking care of the dead is an important part of any society, and the practice reflects the prevailing culture of the living. Social change is therefore reflected in funeral changes and some of the disruptions to its industry.

The internet of things has shipped out to sea. A number of remote sensing technologies have been employed to monitor various aspects of the ocean to improve weather forecasts, safer resource exploration, and climate change mitigation with benefits to companies, policymakers, and the planet.

With global warming implicated in current droughts, storms, impending extinctions, sea level rise, and other harbingers of climate change, some experts are looking past the debate for placing the blame on humanity and questioning whether technological solutions could improve or injure humanity and the ecosystem which protects us. With geoengineering, the manipulation of the planet’s environment on a large scale, scientists are trying to innovate on nature for the sake of human survival, but could these technologies actually do more harm than good?

Cities have long attempted to bring the rural into the urban, whether the Hanging Gardens of Babylon or Singapore’s new Gardens by the Bay, but urban agriculture is increasing with green roofs and other forms of urban farming as the population of cities continues to expand. Based largely on the theories of Dickson Despommier, architects have been designing the ultimate in city-based agribusiness, vertical farms inside of high rise buildings which some have dubbed plantscrapers.

The amount of data organizations are expected to manage for planning, transparency, compliance, etc. is expanding, but the amount of data which could benefit these organizations if analysed effectively is growing exponentially with the aid of social media, RFIDs, machine translators, and other tools. The total amount of digital data is growing exponentially leading to the coining of the term big data which has become a major buzzword in the enterprise and even in the general press, but what is the real value behind the hype?

Learning a foreign language is exceedingly difficult for many people, but digital technology is making modest translations of text and voice faster, easier, and more accessible. Machine translators (MT) have been around for years, but the level of availability and their quality continue to rise. They promise to cost-effectively unite the world even more than before with a variety of applications from tourism and social collaboration to business and politics.

It is a difficult time for regulators trying to make sense of nanotechnologies, the engineering of super-small particles to utilize their size and unusual properties. While environmental, health, and safety (EHS) concerns abound, so too do the technological and economic benefits which extend particularly to the electronics, green tech, and health industries. As regulators seek to protect the populace, they also need to avoid undue public backlash which could damage these huge benefits because of poor communication and limited scientific research.