Greenhouse Gases, Influenza, Earthquakes, Dementia, Energy Issues, And Environmental Pollution Are Among The Problems And Issues Considered Among The Major Challenges In The World Today. 

Since these problems are solved with technology, they can motivate startups.

Greenhouse Gases

Eliminating greenhouse gases is insufficient to prevent a sharp rise in global temperatures. We have to remove a lot of CO2 from the atmosphere, which is very expensive and leaves us with the complex problem of what to do with all that CO2.

Many startups are looking for ways to recycle carbon dioxide into products, including synthetic fuels, polymers, carbon fiber, and concrete. This is good work, but we need an inexpensive way to permanently store the billions of tons of carbon dioxide we need to remove from the atmosphere.

Grid-scale energy storage

Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are cheap and widely used. Still, when the sun is not shining, or the wind is not blowing, electricity is not produced, which causes the amount of power these sources can provide and the speed at which we move away from fixed bases.

Like coal and natural gas, the cost of building enough batteries to support entire grids and flags generating electrical energy from renewable sources can be astronomical.

Scientists and various startups are working on cheaper grid-scale storage forms that can last longer, including flow batteries or molten salt tanks. Either way, we desperately need a more affordable and efficient way to store large amounts of electricity.

Universal influenza vaccine

Pandemic influenza is rare but can be deadly. At least 50 million people died in the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic. Recently, the pandemics of 1957-58 and 1968 killed about one million people, and in 2009, with the recurrence of the H1N1 pandemic, half a million people lost their lives. Of course, recent deaths were somewhat lower because the viruses were milder. But we may not always be so lucky.

A much more potent strain of the virus can quickly replace proprietary vaccines and fight it off with vigor. The existence of a universal influenza vaccine that can protect a person against less dangerous types of the virus and can prevent a catastrophic outbreak in the century is considered a fundamental challenge in public health.

Treatment of dementia

More than one in 10 Americans over the age of 65 have Alzheimer’s; One-third of them are over 85 years old. With the increase in the life expectancy of people, the number of people struggling with this disease is increasing. Alzheimer’s is one of those diseases that is not well diagnosed.

A definite diagnosis of this disease is possible only after death, and even doctors disagree on the distinction between Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia. However, the progress made in neuroscience and genetics is promising. Knowing this disease can slow down the process or even reduce its devastating effects.

Ocean Cleanup

Billions of tiny pieces of plastic, so-called “microplastics,” are floating in the world’s oceans. Most of this waste results from plastic bags or decomposing straws over time. Microplastics poison birds, fish, and humans. Researchers believe that these plastic parts have harmful effects on human health and the environment.

It will take centuries to clean up the hundreds of millions of plastics left in nature. Because of the widespread distribution of this pollution, it is tough to clean it up. Although there are prototype methods to deal with this vast ocean garbage, there is no solution for beaches, seas, and waterways. Does not have.

Energy saving with desalination

The increase in world population and climate change will increase the drought, resulting in freshwater increasing on earth by 50 times that of fresh water. Some countries use reverse osmosis desalination facilities and get most of their water from the sea.

The new type of membranes can help in this field; Electrochemical techniques help make saline water suitable for irrigation. Regarding technologies adapted to climate change, creating potable water from the ocean should be one of our top priorities.

Safe driverless cars

Self-driving vehicles have been tested for millions of kilometers on public roads—navigation apps for delivery and taxi services in places like suburban Phoenix. But driverless cars are still not ready to hit the road. They have trouble dealing with traffic chaos and weather conditions such as snow and fog. If it is possible to make safe driverless cars, then we can think about a total redesign in transportation.

With the implementation of this technology, traffic will be eliminated, and cities will be able to witness new developments and evolution instead of becoming a place for parking cars. Most importantly, according to predictions, if self-driving cars are widely used, they could prevent more than one million two hundred and fifty thousand deaths from traffic accidents per year.

Artificial intelligence

Last fall, a video by the Boston Dynamics company appeared on the Internet, showing a robot jumping up the stairs like a commando. This video was published only two years after the AI ​​Alphago defeated the GO champion. Atlas, being a humanoid robot, cannot play Go (because it is AI (included) but is not intelligent), and AlphaGo cannot run (because it is brilliant in its own right but has no body).

What happens if we put AlphaGo’s mind into Atlas’ body? Many researchers say that the actual rate of artificial intelligence may depend on the ability to make connections between internal computational processes and natural things in the physical w say, and an AI can acquire this ability by learning to interact with the physical world, just like humans or animals.

earthquake prediction

In the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, more than 100,000 people lost their lives. In the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, one of the strongest earthquakes recorded in the world, almost 250,000 people from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and other countries were killed. Points were killed. We can predict hurricanes days and sometimes weeks in advance, but earthquakes always catch us by surprise. Earthquake prediction helps planners to find sustainable and resilient solutions.

Also, warning people a few hours before an earthquake occurs gives them enough time to evacuate unsafe areas, saving millions of lives.

Decoding the brain

Our brains are still full of mysteries for scientists. Everything we think and remember and every movement we make must somehow be encoded in the billions of neurons in our heads. But what are these codes? Many unknowns and puzzles exist about how we store and communicate our thoughts.

Decoding these codes helps better to treat mental disorders such as schizophrenia and autism. This will help us improve the interfaces that communicate directly from our brains to computers or others—an important and impactful development for those paralyzed by injury or degenerative disease.