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Future Tech: Sci-Fi Innovat...
Explore a curated list of articles that delve into bleeding edge technologies that feel like they belong in science fiction. Discover cutting-edge advancements that challenge our understanding of reality and push the boundaries of innovation.
- Google Quantum AI’s 105-qubit Willow processor crosses the error-correction threshold, demonstrating exponential error suppression and keeping logical qubits coherent twice as long as their best physical qubits—a milestone toward fault-tolerant quantum computers.
Google’s Willow Chip Shows Error-Corrected Qubits That Improve With Scale
Google Research Blog | 9 Dec 2024
- NC State and Johns Hopkins engineers built dendricolloid polymer networks that let DNA simultaneously store, rewrite, and process data—running Sudoku and chess on molecular hardware and hinting at computers the size of an eraser.
DNA Becomes a ‘Store-and-Compute’ Engine
SciTechDaily | 22 Aug 2024
- Northrop Grumman’s modular, extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicle finished full-scale tests, proving it can be shipped in pieces, self-assemble, and glide for long-duration missions—bringing autonomous submersibles out of sci-fi and into service.
DARPA’s Manta Ray Drone Completes Ocean Trials
DARPA News | 1 May 2024
- Labs worldwide are growing increasingly realistic stem-cell-derived human embryos, pushing developmental biology forward while raising complex ethical and legal questions about how far such synthetic life should be taken.
Human Embryo Models Edge Closer to Reality—And to Ethical Gray Zones
Nature | 11 Sep 2024
- The Quantum Gravity Gradiometer Pathfinder will fly ultra-cold atom interferometers to map tiny variations in Earth’s gravity from orbit—opening sci-fi-like abilities to locate hidden water, minerals, and even study other worlds.
NASA Plans First Space-Based Quantum Gravity Sensor
NASA JPL News | 15 Apr 2025
- UC Davis researchers have created a speech neuroprosthesis that converts brain signals to spoken words in ~10 ms, letting a paralyzed ALS patient vocalize with pitch and emotion—far faster and more flexible than previous text-based BCIs.
A Neural Brain Implant Provides Near-Instantaneous Speech
Ars Technica | 29 Jun 2025
- Gene-editing firm Genus won US approval for pigs engineered to resist a deadly virus, pushing genome-rewritten livestock from lab to supermarket—a milestone that feels like science-fiction agriculture.
FDA clears CRISPR-edited pigs for the dinner table
2025-05-02 · MIT Technology Review · Synthetic biology
- Scientists built a nanoscale robot whose gold-iron body is ‘clutched’ by programmable DNA strands, letting them start or stop its microscopic motor on command—miniature machines worthy of Fantastic Voyage.
Nanobot uses a DNA clutch to engage its engine
2024-02-16 · New Scientist · Nanorobotics
- Venus Aerospace ignited shock-wave combustion in flight, a propulsion concept that could send hypersonic planes or deep-space craft roaring at unprecedented efficiency—technology long relegated to sci-fi novels.
Rotating-detonation rocket engine completes first flight test
2025-05-18 · Space.com · Advanced propulsion
- The Space Solar Power Demonstrator unfurled lightweight arrays and wirelessly beamed power while circling Earth, nudging a long-imagined orbital solar farm closer to reality.
Caltech’s SSPD-1 tests space-based solar power in orbit
2024-04-11 · IEEE Spectrum · Space solar power
- After net-gain shots at the National Ignition Facility, several labs plan demo reactors expected to exceed break-even. Harnessing star-power on Earth—once purely speculative—is suddenly on the engineering roadmap.
Fusion sparks an energy revolution
2024-06-19 · Wired · Fusion energy
- Researchers entangled photons across existing telecom fiber in three real-world cities, teleporting quantum states over several kilometres. It’s a tangible step toward an ultra-secure quantum internet that has lived in science fiction for decades.
‘Quantum internet’ demonstration in cities is most advanced yet
2024-05-15 · Nature News · Quantum communication
- Startup Xanadu unveiled “Aurora,” a modular photonic quantum computer that slots into standard data-center racks and runs at (mostly) room temperature. Using light instead of superconducting qubits hints at scalable, fiber-linked quantum machines worthy of a sci-fi data center.
This quantum computer built on server racks paves the way to bigger machines
2025-01-30 · MIT Technology Review · Quantum computing
- Neuralink released footage of its first human volunteer moving a mouse cursor and playing chess just by thinking, thanks to a wireless brain-computer implant. Seeing a paralyzed person control a laptop purely with thought feels straight out of cyberpunk fiction.
Neuralink video shows patient using brain implant to play chess on laptop
2024-03-21 · The Verge · Brain-computer interface