A monthly roundup of technological breakthroughs in energy, computing, nanotechnology, and biotechnology–and how these converging technologies are transforming our society, solving problems, and creating new ones.

Let’s round up evil-doers before they commit crimes: (computing, ethics) I’m sure my friend Boztopia will “love” this one. A team of neuroscientists has come up with a powerful technique that can scan deep inside a person’s mind and read his intentions before he acts, “Minority Report” style. It raises some serious ethical questions about how and whether this device should be used in interrogations and police work. That tearing sound you hear is that of the Bill of Rights enduring further shredding.

If you live 20 more years, you may get to live forever: (biotechnology) Research into senescence continues to gather speed, as more scientists come to view old age as a curable disease rather than as an inevitability. Researchers like Dr. John Langmore are looking at telomeres in the DNA code, which become damaged as cells keep replicating over time and cause eventual degeneration–in the same way that making copies of copies of copies of a piece of paper eventually results in a mess. Understanding how this works could lead the way to stopping and reversing the aging process.

World’s first “bionic woman:” (robotics) US Marine Claudia Mitchell is the world’s first person to have a prosthetic arm she can control through thought alone. It can do things like cutting up food, and she can feel touch when something touches her artificial hand.

Let’s suck carbon dioxide out of the air: (environment) Bowing to the inevitable fact that we are not likely to reduce carbon emissions enough in time to prevent a climate disaster, Al Gore and Virgin Group boss Sir Richard Branson have announced a $25 million “Earth Challenge” Prize to be awarded to whoever comes up with a workable method of permanently removing at least one billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per year. There are already ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, such as this contraption that looks like a goal post devised by a Columbia U. researcher, but such devices still lack a way of cheaply and permanently sequestering the carbon they capture.

Robots (may) have feelings too: (robotics) Astonishingly, researchers are working on giving robots emotions and feelings that may be seen in mainstream robots within ten years. They are getting their robots to react to stimuli with emotions like happiness and fear, or to spontaneously feel “hunger” as a way of telling them they need to recharge their batteries. If they can be taught feelings, can ethics follow? Let’s hope so.

Creating the Jordi LaForge visor: (computing) Jordi was the blind Chief Engineer on the Enterprise-D who wore a visor to help him see. A new implant puts receptors in some blind patients’ eyes that is interpreted by a computer and then sent to the user’s brain as signals he can understand. The device won’t equate to full sight, but would allow totally blind patients to see imagery and navigate about. However future versions should allow more sight, including recognizing someone’s face.

The computer that won’t work if you look at it:(computing) Well that’s a bit of an overstatement, but a start-up called D-Wave claims it has demo-ed the world’s first quantum computer. The computer relies on the state of quantum qubits rather than on binary 0’s and 1’s, and could be used to solve certain thorny problems in just a few seconds that would take regular computers eons. Hype or real? Who knows, but we’ll find out soon enough as the company makes its increasingly powerful computer available to corporations for research.

A 2012 laptop’s speed = 1997’s world’s fastest supercomputer: (computing) Intel recently demonstrated a new 80-core teraflop chip that will be widely available on computers within 5 years, and whose power is greater than the most powerful supercomputer on Earth just ten years ago. It will also only consume 62 watts of power, less than what a single processor consumes today.

Tags: al-gore, biotechnology, computing, environment, global-warming, robotics