10 Emerging Technologies

Each year, Technology Review identifies 10 technologies that are worth keeping an eye on. This year’s list spans a broad range of disciplines, from life sciences to nanotechnology to the Internet, but the technologies have one thing in common: they will soon have a significant impact on business, medicine, or culture. (Click on one of the following 10 links to go to the article on that emerging technology.)

Nanomedicine and nanobiomechanics both illustrate nanotechnology’s increasing contribution to the understanding and treatment of diseases. In biology, epigenetics is part of an exploding effort to understand the ways that chemical compounds can influence DNA, while comparative interactomics is a compelling example of how researchers are beginning to visualize the body’s remarkable complexity.

Diffusion tensor imaging is the most recent in a series of astonishing breakthroughs in imaging the brain. Meanwhile, cognitive radio, pervasive wireless, and universal authentication reflect the continuing struggle to keep the digital world accessible and secure.

There is also controversy on the list: nuclear reprogramming describes the contentious hunt for an “ethical stem cell.” Finally, some of the technologies, such as stretchable silicon, are just cool.