It's future trends season, and we'll be covering some of the many 2023 future trend lists and related forecasts in the coming weeks.
We're starting with The Atlantic's recently released its inaugural edition of their 10 Breakthroughs for the Year.
The list is below and quite interesting.
It contains "breakthroughs" that are nearly or already commercialized (generative A.I., vaccines, lab-grown meat).
The list also contains breakthroughs that are likely years or decades away from practical applications (reversing death, synthesizing life, small nuclear reactors).
But all of the breakthroughs are potentially society-changing, and most get little attention from the media.
The 10 Breakthroughs are:
- The Generative-AI Eruption: A new dawn in how we build
- The Power to Reverse Death (Kind Of): Organs revived in dead pigs
- The Power to Synthesize Life (Kind Of): Mouse embryos "born" without sperm or egg
- The Vaccine Cavalry Is Coming: Novel therapies for malaria and all influenza strains
- A Snapshot of the Beginning of Time: Images of the first galaxies in the universe
- 'Unheard of' Advances in Fighting Cancer: Miraculous treatments and an at-home test
- The Obesity-Therapy Surge: Weight-loss medication that actually works
- Cracking the Case of Multiple Sclerosis: And learning something important about the phenomenon of "long viruses."
- Legal Lab Meat: A regulatory first
- New Toys for the Green-Energy Revolution: Smaller nuclear reactors and bigger geothermal breakthroughs
In case you were wondering, the reason the recent fusion announcement by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is not included is the news was released after this article was written. Otherwise, it would have been a shoe in the make the list.
They also have an accompanying podcast on the Plain English podcast with Derek Thompson (the article's author) for those who'd rather listen to the story.
There's way too much here to cover in a blog. So read the article or listen to the podcast (we did both) for more information.
