8Nicotine Vaccine: Smoking still kills an estimated 8.6 million people worldwide every year, and tobacco is a multi-billion dollar global industry. Both figures could soon be dramatically reduced thanks to a promising new vaccine being developed by researchers at Virginia Tech that helps smokers overcome their nicotine addiction. The vaccine works by blocking or, at least, limiting the physiological pleasure that nicotine elicits in the brain.
9Project Loon: As impressive as the growth of the Internet has been over the past 15 years, less than a third of all people on the planet have Internet access. Google hopes to change this beginning in 2015 with the wide-scale deployment of “Project Loon”—an elaborate network of high-altitude balloons designed to deliver high-speed wireless Internet service to all 7 billion people on the planet by 2020. In combination with the prolific growth of mobile devices, high-quality massive open online education courses (MOOCs), and digital currencies, it is plausible that many of the components necessary for sustained economic growth will soon be in place across the globe.
10Cure for Type 1 Diabetes: Scientists in Britain have demonstrated that they were able to make hundreds of millions of pancreatic cells from stem cells using industrial-sized bioreactors. More significantly, the cells have already proven successful in treating diabetic mice. If the process can be replicated in humans, the advance would not only make daily insulin injections unnecessary for millions of people around the globe, it would offer a cure for type-1 diabetes—a disease that costs the U.S. health care system an estimated $15 billion every year.
One researcher has said the advance would be “a medical game changer on par with antibiotics.”
The complete elimination of diabetes, smoking or genetic diseases will not occur overnight. Nor will a world of clean and affordable energy, abundant freshwater, 3D printed houses or worldwide high-speed Internet access miraculously appear by the end of 2015. But then Rome wasn’t built in a single day either. It was, however, started
The complete elimination of diabetes, smoking or genetic diseases will not occur overnight. Nor will a world of clean and affordable energy, abundant freshwater, 3D printed houses or worldwide high-speed Internet access miraculously appear by the end of 2015. But then Rome wasn’t built in a single day either. It was, however, started in a single day, and 2015 is sure to witness the birth of a better, brighter future.
Jack Uldrich is a best-selling author, professional futurist and a popular keynote speaker. More information on Jack can be found at www.jackuldrich.com.