Top 5 Emerging Technologies of 2020

《科学美国人》月刊评出2020年五大新兴技术

1. Microneedles Could Enable Painless Injections and Blood Draws

微针可实现无痛注射和抽血

Barely visible needles, or ‘microneedles’, are poised to usher in an era of pain-free injections and blood testing. Whether attached to a syringe or a patch, microneedles prevent pain by avoiding contact with nerve endings. Typically 50 to 2,000 microns in length (about the depth of a sheet of paper) and one to 100 microns wide (about the width of human hair), they penetrate the dead, top layer of skin to reach into the epidermis. But most do not reach or only barely touch the underlying dermis, where the nerve endings lie.

几乎看不见的针头，即“微针”，将带来无痛注射和验血的时代。微针可连接注射器，也可连接贴片，它能避免与神经末梢接触，从而防止疼痛。微针一般长50微米至2000微米（大约相当于一张纸的厚度）、宽1微米至100微米（大约相当于人的头发粗细），它穿透细胞已死亡的皮肤最上层进入表皮，但大多数微针不会抵达或者只是稍稍接触到下面的真皮，也就是神经末梢所在的地方。

2. Sun-Powered Chemistry Can Turn Carbon Dioxide into Common Materials

光催化技术将二氧化碳转化为普通材料

The manufacture of many chemicals important to human health and comfort consumes fossil fuels, thereby contributing to carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. A new approach employs sunlight to convert waste carbon dioxide into these needed chemicals.

许多对人类健康和舒适十分重要的化学品在生产时要消耗矿物燃料，从而会增加二氧化碳排放，加剧气候变化。一种新的方法是利用阳光将废弃的二氧化碳转化成我们需要的这些化学物质。

This process is becoming increasingly feasible thanks to advances in sunlight-activated catalysts, or photocatalysts. In recent years investigators have developed photocatalysts that break the resistant double bond between carbon and oxygen in carbon dioxide. This is a critical first step in creating “solar” refineries that produce useful compounds from the waste gas—including “platform” molecules that can serve as raw materials for the synthesis of such varied products as medicines, detergents, fertilizers and textiles.

得益于光催化技术的进步，这个工艺越来越可行。近年来，研究人员开发出了能够还原二氧化碳中碳和氧的光催化剂。在此基础上就能创建“太阳能”提炼厂，用废气生产有用的化合物，包括可用于合成药物、洗涤剂、肥料和纺织品等多种产品的“平台”分子。

3. Virtual Patients Could Revolutionize Medicine

虚拟患者能彻底改变医学

What if computers could replace patients as well? If virtual humans could have replaced real people in some stages of a coronavirus vaccine trial, for instance, it could have sped development of a preventive tool and slowed down the pandemic. These are some of the benefits of “in silico medicine”, or the testing of drugs and treatments on virtual organs or body systems to predict how a real person will respond to the therapies. For the foreseeable future, real patients will be needed in late-stage studies, but in silico trials will make it possible to conduct quick and inexpensive first assessments of safety and efficacy, drastically reducing the number of live human subjects required for experimentation.

如果电脑能替代患者，那会怎样？比方说，如果在新冠疫苗试验的某些阶段能用虚拟人替代真人，那可能就会加快预防手段的研发而减缓疫情蔓延。这就是“电脑模拟医学”的一些好处，即用虚拟器官或人体系统来测试药物和治疗方法，进而推断真人对这些疗法的反应。在可预见的未来，后期研究会需要真人患者，但有了电脑模拟试验，科研人员将能够对药物和治疗方法的安全性和有效性进行速度快、成本低的初步评估，从而大大减少试验所需活体人类受试者的数量。

4. Spatial Computing Could Be the Next Big Thing

空间计算或是下一个大热门

Imagine Martha, an octogenarian who lives independently and uses a wheelchair. As Martha moves from her bedroom to the kitchen, the lights switch on, and the ambient temperature adjusts. The chair will slow if her cat crosses her path. If she begins to fall when getting into bed, her furniture shifts to protect her, and an alert goes to her son and the local monitoring station.

设想80多岁的玛莎独居且需要坐轮椅。玛莎从卧室到厨房时，照明灯开启，周围温度适当调整。如果猫猫从前面经过，轮椅会减速。如果她上床的时候有摔倒迹象，家具会迅速挪过来保护她，同时她的儿子和当地监测站将接到警报。

The ‘spatial computing’ at the heart of this scene is the next step in the ongoing convergence of the physical and digital worlds. It does everything virtual-reality and augmented-reality apps do: digitize objects that connect via the cloud; allow sensors and motors to react to one another; and digitally represent the real world. Then it combines these capabilities with high-fidelity spatial mapping to enable a computer “coordinator” to track and control the movements and interactions of objects as a person navigates through the digital or physical world. Spatial computing will soon bring human-machine and machine-machine interactions to new levels of efficiency in many walks of life, among them industry, health care, transportation and the home.

这一场景的核心就是“空间计算”，它是现实世界与数字世界正在融合的下一步方向。虚拟现实和增强现实应用软件能做的，它全都能做到：把云连接的物体数字化，让传感器和马达彼此呼应，以数字化方式呈现真实世界。然后，它将这些能力与高保真的空间测绘结合起来，使计算机“协调员”能够在一个人穿行于数字或现实世界时追踪和控制物体的移动和相互感应。空间计算很快将在各行各业把人机互动和机器互动提升到新的高度，包括在工业、医疗、交通和家居领域。

5. Digital Medicine Can Diagnose and Treat What Ails You

数字医疗可诊断和治疗一切病痛

A raft of apps in use or under development can now detect or monitor mental and physical disorders autonomously or directly administer therapies. Collectively known as digital medicines, the software can both enhance traditional medical care and support patients when access to health care is limited—a need that the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated.

投入使用或正在开发的大量应用程序，现在能够自主检查或监测身心疾病或直接给予治疗。这种软件被统称为“数字医疗”，它可以加强传统医疗，也可以在医疗服务受限的情况下给予患者支持——这在新冠肺炎危机背景下格外有必要。