SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Technology is progressing faster than ever with ground breaking new ideas being explored each day from floating farms to edge computing.Today am going to take you through the most incredible emerging technologies.

Lets begin by looking at the Floating farms.As the world’s population increases each day,one of the dilema we face right now is how to produce sufficient food to cater for everyones needs.Surprisingly, an estimated 30 percent of the global land surface is dedicated to agriculture amd only a third of that is used for growing crops while the remaining two-thirds is ued for livestock grazing.Thus, this encourages deforestation and habitat change to createmore farmland.Several companies are looking for alternatives to this and you may have heard of vertical farms that tends to improve the produce for the same size of a firm while others are finding more radical solutions like the idea of the floating farms which involve building large complexes that sit on the surface of the ocean.These farms can be moved to where they are needed and most importantly they are temporary.They make use of areas that wouldn’t be used for anything else and turn it into profitable area.Amazingly, one of these has already been in use for several years in the port of Rotterdam in the netherlands where a company called Belladon has built a floating platform designed to farm 40 muse rhine isle cows that are all milked by robots.By producing the product close to the final consumers, they are reducing transport costs.They are also planing to install floating farms in the regions that have suffered from food disasters to increase food production.

Self-healing concrete is our next focus.Concrete is one of the most important construction materials that is used all over the world and is second to water in terms of the most used material.Surprisingly,concrete is the most material used in construction than everything else combined.The problem is that even though it’s a tough and durable material,it’s subject to wear and tear and can develop cracks and holes that affect its stability in the long term.This shows that it either needs to be maintained or replaced to avoid disaster which can be costly.However,researchers have come up with a new solution;self-healing concrete.By adding bacterial spores to the concrete mix along with a food source like yeast extract a wonderful thing happens. When the concrete cracks,the bateria are exposed to oxygen and water and they begin to consume the food and multiply and then produce calcium carbonate or limestone as a byproduct,thus this seals the crack again and if done right it means that you won’t even be able to see where the crack hard formed in the first place.For small openings,the process can take around 14 days and it will prevent them from widening.Very soon it’s expected that all concrete will incorporate this technology and the days of possible danger due to cracks will end.

Apart fro that,we have the hydrogen fuel cells.The automotive industry is under revolution with virtually each manufacturer trying to develop their own technologies to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels.While electric and battery concepts seem to be the way forward,they certainly aren’t a magic bullet.There are growing concerns surrounding the provision of green electricity to all that need it and the fact that our electrical grids are not designed to handle the loads that will be required.There is also the fact that batteries are relatively very heavy for the amount of charge that they can hold and while they might be suitable for cars,they are not suitable for large tracks,ships or planes,thats why another solution is needed and the most likely candidate is hydrogen fuel.Hydrogen itself can be produced by a range of methods such as natural gas,nuclear power,biomass and even other renewable energies and when it’s used,the only byproduct is water.In the UK, a train has already been fitted with hydrogen cells and it’s undergoing tests while aircraft manufacturers such as airbus see this as a far more viable target in the near future than full electrification. Car companies too are looking at how it can be used.Technology is approaching the stage where it’s possible across a range of applications and it’s only a matter of time until this is put into a full scale use.