Innholdsfortegnelse for December 24, 2021 i Newsweek

At first glance, Lizzo, the singer, rapper and style icon, might not seem to have a lot in common with Katalin Karikó, the molecular biologist whose research on mRNA technology enabled rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccine. Nor perhaps does Bela Bajaria, the Netflix executive whose global content strategy led to the streaming phenomenon Squid Game, seem naturally connected to scientist Tammy Hsu, who is making eco-friendly blue jeans, or engineer Amay Bandodkar, who is developing batteries powered by human sweat. Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur who’s doing everything from pioneering reusable rockets that send well-heeled tourists into space to fostering AI enhancements to the brain, and Darnella Frazier, the young woman who ignited a worldwide social justice movement with her cellphone? Not what you’d call an intuitive pairing. Yet…

Flexible Electronics That Could Someday Be Part of Your Body JIE XU — ASSISTANT SCIENTIST, ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY JUST IMAGINE THE NEXT generation of electronics,” says Jie Xu. “It’s not going to be rigid anymore. It’s going to be soft, comfortable. It can even be biocompatible, like our tissue or skin.” From her base at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, Xu is pioneering flexible, skin-like electronics that could someday transform people’s lives. Implantable sensors or biochemical pumps, assist devices to increase mobility or support weakened limbs—all of these could work much better if not for the tough, sometimes brittle circuitry they need inside to function. Think of the circuit boards in computers. Or the wiring for heart pacemakers, which have been lifesaving to many people, but also uncomfortable. They make…

An Affordable Bionic Hand AADEEL AKHTAR — FOUNDER AND CEO, PSYONIC WHEN AADEEL AKHTAR WAS 7 years old, he met a little girl who changed his life. His parents took him to see family in Pakistan, where they’d been born, and they were walking into a store when he saw her. She was missing her right leg. “That was actually the first time I had met someone with a limb difference,” he says. “She was about my age, using a tree branch as a crutch, living in poverty.” He never learned her name, never spoke to her or saw her again. But he never forgot her. He got a Ph.D. in neuroscience, and now, at 34, is founder and head of an Illinois company called Psyonic. He and his team…

Developing the Tech that Made COVID Vaccines Possible KATALIN KARIKÓ SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BIONTECH ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF NEUROSURGERY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA IATALIN KARIKÓ ADMITS that at the beginning of 2020, when word began to spread of a novel virus called COVID-19, she really didn’t think it would turn into a pandemic. She was as surprised as anyone. But there was one difference: She was ready. She’d been getting ready, in a sense, for almost 40 years. Karikó, a molecular biologist, had been working since her student days on messenger RNA—mRNA for short—a compound in living cells that carries genetic instructions for making proteins for all sorts of purposes. It has turned out to be the key ingredient in the COVID-19 vaccines jointly made by Pfizer and BioNTech, and by their…

A Membrane That Sucks Impurities FromWater RODNEY PRIESTLEY, XIAOHUI XU PROFESSOR, POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY MORE THAN 800 MILLION people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water. Over half the U.S. population drinks from water with detectable lead levels, studies suggest. And even as the pandemic reminded us of the importance of frequent handwashing with soap and water, three in 10 people around the globe can’t do that in their own homes. The World Health Organization and UNICEF warn that these numbers are likely to get worse in the next decade unless societies create and improve water infrastructure—a vast and expensive proposition. A new tool for meeting this challenge has emerged from the laboratory of Princeton University chemical engineers Rodney Priestley and Xiaohui Xu. They have created a material that removes…

Globalizing Streaming Content BELA BAJARIA — HEAD OF GLOBAL TV, NETFLIX WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED that the breakout hits on American television this year would be Squid Game, a survival story from Korea, and Lupin, a French thriller about a Black gentleman thief? Even Bela Bajaria says there was no way to predict it. But as the head of global television at Netflix, it’s her job to find the next big show—and if it comes from an unexpected corner of the planet, all the better. “There has been this pervasive idea that only Hollywood exports stories, which I find really limits who gets to tell those stories,” Bajaria says. “We’re pushing beyond that and opening the doors to creators of all different types around the world.” Netflix is the world’s…