Technological foresight in knowledge cities

Epigraph: “The 21st century will see the emergence of the new human scientific socialism articulated with the longings for peace and coexistence of men. To think otherwise is to play the role of pernicious disaster prophets. " Lizardo Carvajal Hurtado (1)

Summary

This article is aimed at describing 15 technological applications that have emerged in recent years or that are currently being developed and will undoubtedly become protagonists in the 21st century. These scientific and technical advances will be put at the service of man and will have a strong impact on society.

The advances presented have been classified according to their results or products in three large dimensions: Productivity, education and life expectancy, since these are the dimensions that allow the human development index to be measured.

Technological foresight is a collective exercise of analysis and communication to identify the probable components of future scenarios: technological projections, their social and economic effects, obstacles and the forces that work in their favor.

Technological foresight has been an intellectual practice that man has carried out for thousands of years but today it has become an obligatory topic in the sectors: public, private and has gained relevance in the Academy because knowledge is formed there. The exposed topics are described with a simple language that allows to reach the university student public in order to recreate the exercise of vision of the future without losing sight of the fact that the introduction of some technical words must be strictly preserved.

At the end of the article, a reflection is made on the ethical responsibility that the scientist, the technician and the executive have as administrator of technology, their objective will be to use it rationally and altruistically seeking the common good. Additionally, science and technology not only have a social responsibility, their practice in some cases leads to the depletion of resources, therefore it must be done respecting the cosmos, the universe, and nature.

ABSTRACT

The present article it is oriented to describe, the 15 technological applications that it have in the last arisen years or that come developing and without a doubt some it will become protagonists in the XXI century. These technical advances scientific will be put to the service of the man and will have a fort impact on the society. The exposed advances have classified in agreement with their results or products in three great dimensions: Productivity, Education and Life Expectancy to consider itself that these are the dimensions that allow to measure the index of human development.

The prospective has been an intellectual practice that the man for thousands of years has been making but nowadays he has become a subject forced in the sectors: public, deprived and has received relevance in the Academy because there the knowledge forms. The exposed subjects are described with a simple language that allows to arrive at the university student public with the intention of recreating the exercise of vision of future without losing of Vista that must conserve strictly speaking, the introduction of some technical words.

At the end of the article a reflection becomes on the ethical responsibility that has the scientist, the technician and the executive like administrator of the technology, its objective will consist of using it altruistically rational and looking for the communal property. Additionally, science and the nonsingle technology have a social responsibility, their practice in some cases leads, to the exhaustion of the resources, therefore it will have to be made respecting, the cosmos, the universe, and the nature.

PRESENTATION

The cities of knowledge, also known as: "Technological Cities", or "Cities of Excellence" will be the first to benefit from a series of applications that science and technology have been developing and that will be further perfected during the 21st century.

The purpose of this article is to present a prospective vision of the technological applications that will emerge and use the cities of knowledge in the 21st century, as a result of the “double specialization” that they have reached, through the paradigms of local development and organizational techniques., administrative, launched since the end of the 20th century.

THE CONCEPT OF DOUBLE SPECIALIZATION

The 70 cities of knowledge that have been identified so far have been specializing in some product or service. Some examples are cited in alphabetical order: Austin (software), Castellón del plan (citrus), Dublin (Contact Center), Evora (ceramic), Faro (cork), Hangshow (business city), Hasteffen (cars), Kobe (medicine), New Hamburg (Footwear), Odaiba (Tourism), Sialkot (surgical instruments). (two)

The first specialization refers to the high degree of productive efficiency that these cities have achieved in the generation of this type of product or service. This first specialization means that the products and services that are produced in these cities are of: high quality, incorporate a very high added value and for the generation of products and services use techniques with high efficiency in time and cost.

The second specialization that these cities have been reaching refers to the agile techniques to carry out tasks and actions adopted by the different economic and service sectors using computers, telematics, new engineering materials, logistics capital, the ability to work as a team, the new corporate articulation figure, the use of specialized human talent and all this, supported by “learning to learn”, “learning to undertake” and “learning by doing”. All of the above strongly promoted and cohesive by the government, companies, research centers, and academia.

The double specialization feeds off the first and in turn, itself. To improve products and services (which is part of the first specialization) it is increasingly required to improve actions and procedures with the use of the means and tools listed in the previous paragraph (with which the second specialization is achieved). As the first specialization progresses, it demands more agility from the second specialization and vice versa. This endless wheel is what will undoubtedly allow these cities to be the first to benefit from the new technological applications that we will use in the 21st century.

THE TECHNOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION

Knowledge cities have the characteristic of producing knowledge and adding value to products and services by themselves, for this reason they will be the first to develop and put into practice the applications invented in their research centers, universities and factories.

The classification adopted, in the prospective vision of the 15 technological applications described in this article, is similar to the methodology used by the United Nations Development Program, in its famous document: "Human Development Index". The UNDP after analyzing dozens of variables, synthesizes the measurement of Human Development in three large dimensions: 1) Productivity with income distribution: which is measured by GDP per capita, to the extent that there is progress in the productive sectors, From its sources and results, society will have more wealth, therefore it will be able to have a better distribution of income and thus improve its living conditions. 2) Education: The quality of life of a population will depend on the possibility of accessing the set of scientific knowledge,technical and cultural, through education and 3) Life expectancy: Humanity will continue to advance incessantly in medical discoveries, personal safety and technologies that will give more comfort to individuals and therefore society will have a better human development.(3)

The first part of this article is directed towards Productivity: 1. An immense source of energy, nuclear fusion, 2. Solar energy rechargers, 3. Global positioning systems, 4. Vertiports, 5. Nanoengineering and 6. The new revolution in computers.

The second part is dedicated to Education; The topics are: 7. The virtual classroom and the classroom of the future, 8. Telemedicine

The third part is directed towards Life Expectancy, the topics are: 9. Biotechnology, and 10. Surgery from robots. 11. The Proteome, 12. Detection systems based on chips, 13 The tourist paradises, 14. The digital city at the service of the citizen and 15. The Cyber home or domotics.

FIRST PART

THE PRODUCTIVITY

1. A VAST SOURCE OF ENERGY: NUCLEAR FUSION

Energy is a basic element for the economic and productive development of the countries. One of the goals of knowledge cities will be to focus efforts on discovering new energy sources and improving existing ones. During the XXI century great efforts will be made to obtain energy, through renewable, cleaner and cheaper sources.

Energy as a productivity engine requires careful analysis and is an obligatory subject in any prospective course. Although the nuclear fusion experiments have been quite widespread, it is necessary to keep track of them, not only because of their passion but also because of the importance they represent.

How is the fusion obtained? The fusion reaction is based on deuterium (heavy hydrogen) and tritium, which react (at more than 100 million degrees Celsius and with a density of 200 billion particles per cubic meter) to give helium and a very energetic neutron or fast.

HOT NUCLEAR FUSION

The so-called hot nuclear fusion is the most investigated procedure and consists of the union of hydrogen isotopes (tritium and deuterium) through high temperatures (one hundred million degrees Celsius). This immense heat is necessary to overcome the force of electrostatic repulsion of isotopes (having the same electrical charge), exciting them in such a way that they come together, creating a new state of matter: plasma. (4)

COLD NUCLEAR FUSION

The North American chemists (Fleischmann and Pons) claimed to have achieved cold fusion through a simple device and through electrolysis, with a palladium rod surrounded by platinum wire, immersed in heavy water (rich in deuterium). The experiment happened by chance. like many other cases in the early 80s.

With this system, applying an electric current, the deuterium is separated from the oxygen in the water and accumulates on the palladium rod. At a certain point, the nuclei of deuterium and palladium melt at room temperature, causing the nuclear reaction, which releases energy, detected by the emission of neutrons. Fleischmann and Pons claimed to have obtained the equivalent of 1 watt of energy per cubic centimeter of water, which would represent 1 million times more than what the measured neutron emissions showed and about 50 times more than the energy used.

A single liter of fuel would satisfy the energy needs of an entire building for several years, or of a family throughout its life. Furthermore, cold fusion energy is not only non-polluting and inexhaustible (like hot fusion energy), but it is also much cheaper to obtain. All nations could have their generating plants and one could even think of vehicles powered by nuclear fusion, portable generating sets, inexhaustible atomic batteries, aircraft and ships that did not need to refuel, etc.

However, the scientific community did not believe such results, trying by all means to reproduce the experiment without success. Notwithstanding the day that these results similar to those of Fleischmann and Pons can continue and verify, it will appear would mean a revolution in energy sources. Only one of the followers of this theory is the Italian professor Scaramuzzi, who has dared to affirm that cold fusion is possible.

The plasma, which is the result of the integration between deuterium and tritium, has another difficulty, its confinement, for which there are two techniques, one slow and the other fast. "Slow" fusion is so named because the confinement times are relatively long, on the order of one second. Therefore, the density of the plasma in this case must be of the order of 1014 particles per cm3. To achieve this confinement time, it is necessary to use magnetic fields in different ways, around which the charged particles circulate like "butterflies attracted by light." In contrast, in "fast" fusion, the confinement time is of the order of nanoseconds (one billionth of a second). As a consequence, the particle density in plasma should be of the order of 1023 particles per cm3.

NUCLEAR FUSION BASED ON LASER RAYS

With lasers, applications have been obtained to: heat, weld, vaporize and produce astrophysical pressures. Based on the criteria that high temperatures are required to produce nuclear fusion, experiments with lasers began to be carried out and the following has been established. (5)

If the laser radiation hits a flat surface, nothing particularly interesting will happen. However, if laser light strikes a sphere evenly, its surface vaporizes, forming a plasma that, like an explosion, moves symmetrically away from the sphere. As a consequence of the very high and uniform pressure on the entire surface of the sphere, the interior of the sphere undergoes a violent implosion (an "inward" explosion). The density and temperature inside the sphere reach, consequently, gigantic values. If this sphere contains fusionable nuclear material, the conditions for nuclear fusion to occur can be reached, thereby producing a thermonuclear microexplosion.

The experiment carried out so far consists of the following: There is a sphere whose outer layer is made of some high-density material, such as silicon. This is because this layer is the one that will receive the laser radiation and the one that, therefore, vaporizes, forming the expanding plasma. The higher the density of this outer layer, the greater the pressure that will cause the implosion of the interior of the sphere. Once laser radiation hits, the outer layer of the microsphere "explodes" as an expanding plasma, while the solid and gaseous deuterium and tritium inside implode, increasing its temperature and density to more than 100,000,000ºC. and more than 200gr / cm³.

Under these conditions, the nuclear fusion that occurs between the deuterium and tritium atoms releases the nuclear energy of fusion. If these microexplosions are produced approximately 10 times per second, the fusion energy thus released could be used, this is precisely the objective sought.

However, experiments with laser rays present two problems: to achieve the generation of thermonuclear processes, it is necessary to work with much shorter wavelengths than those of high-power laser beams, which affects the energy of the The laser beam is absorbed with little efficiency, so only a small percentage of it is used and secondly, part of that unabsorbed energy causes the core to heat up before its time, which makes it difficult to compress it, preventing it from give the process of nuclear fusion.

By way of synthesis, how is nuclear fusion going?

In summary, although great efforts have been made to produce energy based on nuclear fusion, this process still presents serious difficulties:

Producing both elements, both lithium and tritium, is very expensive, on the one hand, lithium is not found in a free state in nature, it is considered the 35th element in abundance and tritium requires an atomic reaction process. Lithium but it is only produced in atomic reactors in very low quantities Producing high temperatures in itself is a complex process of nuclear fission Nuclear fusion is not as clean energy as it is usually exposed, tritium leaks (an artificial, radioactive element; and today all that is generated in nuclear fission reactors escapes into the atmosphere) and the activation of the structural materials of the reactor due to the constant bombardment of the neutrons produced in the fusion reaction.The plasma that results from the process of fusion is difficult to confine.

Nuclear fusion has been the dream of scientists for several decades, but still, it will take several decades for more satisfactory and above all cheaper results to be obtained in this field. Perhaps, the famous Catalan scientist Josep Puig Boix is right when he states: "Nuclear fusion is only a process that occurs in the stars and its generation on earth is a chimera." (5) The most optimistic estimates state that the first commercial nuclear fusion reactor could be expected in 2055.

2. THE SOLAR ENERGY RECHARGERS

In the decade of the sixties, cells or batteries were triumphantly articulated to the world of household appliances. Radios and toys that worked with energy began to use this resource, which allowed them autonomy of movement. However, the problem arose when the batteries were discharged, for which the battery recharger was invented, which obtained its source from electrical energy. (6)

Later, in the early nineties, light-sensitive photocells were incorporated into electrical appliances, calculators and games. Today portable chargers were invented that obtain their source from solar energy, which recharge devices that transform this caloric energy into that necessary to immediately put the devices to work. They are currently being widely demanded in the market and used to charge laptops and cell phones.

The latest to hit the market are solar chargers, which allow us to recharge the mobile battery simply by putting it in the sun. In Spain, the Caudwell Group distributes the first solar charger for mobile phones of the Inpower brand. Its name is "Solar-EDC" and it allows to recharge any terminal of the Nokia, Siemens, Sony-Ericsson, Motorola and TSM brands, it has a kit of adapters for each brand.

Although the "Solar-EDC" only allows slightly more than 500 recharges, they are more than enough for the average life of a terminal.

WHAT WE WILL SEE IN TRANSPORTATION: INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS AND VERTIPORTS

Transportation has been another of man's dreams. Since ancient times, man has wanted to transport himself quickly and comfortably to distant places, this dream has become reality every time. It is no secret to our contemporaries that man can reach any part of the globe in a matter of hours or days.

One of the greatest revolutions in this field is associated with Intelligent Transportation Systems that will provide citizens with the necessary information for their successful mobility. Three important applications will be presented in this field: Global Positioning System (GPS), security camera networks and data management. Both applications are aimed at exploring the fast and chaotic world of human and freight mobility, through highways, air lines, urban areas, train terminals, subways and seaports.

3. 1 The GPS System

The GPS System (Global Positioning System) or Global Positioning System is a terrestrial positioning system, the position is calculated by GPS receivers thanks to the information received from satellites in orbit around the Earth. It consists of a network of 24 satellites, owned by the Government of the United States of America and managed by the Department of Defense, which provides a positioning service for the entire globe.

Each of these 24 satellites, located in a geostationary orbit about 20,000 km from Earth and equipped with atomic clocks, transmit the exact time and its position in space without interruption.

The system works like this: GPS receivers receive precise information on the time and position of the satellite. Exactly, it receives two types of data, the Almanac data, which consists of a series of general parameters on the location and operation of each satellite in relation to the rest of the satellites in the network, this information can be received from any satellite, and Once the GPS receiver has the information from the last Almanac received and the precise time, it knows where to look for satellites in space; The other series of data, also known as Ephemeris, refers to the precise data, only, of the satellite that is being captured by the GPS receiver, they are exclusive orbital parameters of that satellite and are used to calculate the exact distance from the receiver to the satellite.When the receiver has captured the signal from at least three satellites, it calculates its own position on Earth by triangulating the position of the captured satellites, and presents us with the calculated Longitude, Latitude and Altitude data. GPS receivers can and usually do receive signals from more than three satellites to calculate their position. In principle, the more signals it receives, the more accurate the position calculation.more accurate is the position calculation.more accurate is the position calculation.

GPS is a very useful system because it makes it easier for us to know our position on earth and our altitude, with almost exact precision, even in very adverse weather conditions, which allows us to observe the transit of clouds, eclipses and locate from the dashboard of automobiles and any transport device where you travel. Likewise, these images may reach the cell phones and palm of the citizens. The information will become an early warning or precautionary announcement that will prevent drivers from thickening the blockages because they will have time to establish their route of travel in advance. (7)

3.2 security camera networks

The security camera network is a visual aid system that consists of a network of “televideo” cameras arranged in different parts of the city that report images to a control center, and there, through monitors, you can observe the vehicular flow on highways, avenues and streets to "detect" blockages, accidents or parades that impede the normal flow of vehicles.

3.3 Data management

Data management already exists in train stations and airports. A passenger at the station in Hamburg, Germany who wishes to travel to Rome, at the ticket sales office, immediately issues an itinerary that presents several options to reach his destination and informs him at what time and place to do the change of trains. In the future, these reports will reach homes, cars, cell phones or palm, being able to plan the journey of the trip in advance and make immediate decisions without consulting written guides and queuing at the transport terminals.

These data today can be transmitted data at high speeds from laptops to other elements, such as cell phones.

4. THE VERTIPORTS

In 1975 the British government air force put its fleet of combat aircraft, the Harriet, at the service of its fleet. The invention was based on the operating principle of helicopter rotors, the novelty of this aircraft was considered a milestone in the history of aviation because it had the great advantage of taking off and landing vertically.

During the eighties the airplane had become so popular that in the magazines and aerial stunts of the time it became a constant guest. Later, at the end of the 20th century, the consortium of the Bell and Augusta companies set themselves the task of inventing a commercial airplane to transport passengers. The version of the Bell Augusta 909 aircraft, sold in the market, this aircraft has a capacity to carry 14 passengers.

The vertiport is the platform on which this type of aircraft can decorate and land. (8) The future of this technology is so promising that the civil aeronautics of the United States ordered the construction of 300 vertiports. In Sao Brasil, a fleet of air taxis was set up to transport private passengers and vertiports have been built in some buildings, such as the Houston Convention Center.

In the next 20 years, vertiports will be as common as heliports today. In terrain as mountainous as the Colombian territory, the use of this technology will save high costs because the construction of the long and wide runways in remote and secluded areas will be a matter of the past. Air transport will be in small single-seater airplanes that will allow the individual transport of people and will be as popular as the land transport of automobiles that we know today.

5. THE NANOINGENIOS

Nanoengineering has also been called nanoscience or nanorobotics, the suffix nano is derived from the unit of measure nanometer. With this application, amazing developments are expected in the future, such as: The production of tiny devices that will be introduced into the human body through a needle and will save the lives of patients, who have been diagnosed with heart attacks: cerebral, cardiovascular or other type. The task of these mini-devices will consist in that once they are introduced into the bloodstream, they will go to the place where the vessel is obstructed and will begin to pierce the blood thrombus, in a few seconds the vessel will regain blood flow and the patient will have been saved from a stroke or heart attack. (9)

The task that these tiny machines, perhaps the size of a white blood cell, will perform have been previously programmed to dissolve the clot because their mission will be to attack en bloc to pierce the wall of lipids that prevents the normal advance of blood flow.

Another long-term application is their use in the space race. These nanorobots will be sent like plagues through space, to planets and satellites to carry out reconnaissance tasks. Intelligent micro-robots that float in the air and collect audiovisual information or that are implanted in extraterrestrial soils to send information towards the earth about the characteristics of these celestial bodies.

6. THE NEW REVOLUTION IN COMPUTERS

The advancement in computer technology will not stop but the trend in this field is directed towards the manufacture of new chips. These tiny objects that house millions of transistors are grouped by strata or layers of silicon.

One of the variables that determines their speed is the distance with which the chips are placed in the different layers of silicon, the distance is measured in nanometers **, which is equivalent to one billionth of a meter. The arrangement of the silicon layers of the chips built into the personal computers that we have known were 180 nanometers apart. Current technology has managed to reduce the distance to 130 nanometers and as the distance shortens, the chip gets smaller and the increase in its computing capacity increases. Although they already exist in a few years the distances of the overlapping layers of silicon will be reduced to 90 nanometers. (10)

According to the above, this reduction of space will bring the following benefits: 1) It will increase the processing speed because the space and time paths will be lower. 2) the power consumption will be lower. 3) There will be less heat dissipation. And of course all these benefits above translate into 4) cost and appliance price savings, all of the above translate into greater efficiency. The future trend will be that the processors will come with dual-core option. That is, two processors within the same box where a processor is now located.

The other advance that will give an unusual development to computers is the innovation introduced to high-performance chips. These Chip called Cell and which in Spanish translates Cell has a performance ten times higher than the current ones. (eleven)

In a laboratory in Austin, Texas, one of the famous cities of knowledge in software and hardware production, the experiment was developed, which was presented by a consortium of firms: IBM, Toshiba and Sony before the International Isscc Conference, held in San Francisco, California in early February 2005.

The high-performance chip is the size of the head of a estoperol or coffee bean, it has the capacity to integrate 234 million transistors compared to 125 million faster Pentium 4 chips that exist today. This Chip operates at a higher clock speed of four Gigahertz, 3.8 faster than today's chips.

For four years the consortium had been working on an experiment that would allow the high-performance chip to involve several cores. The earlier chips were mononucleic. The Cell or Cell of today has several cores, which allows it to function as if it had several chips, because it is built with individual microcells that work independently.

Manufacturers have dubbed it a "one-ship supercomputer." For example, when several personal computers are working on a network, the chip can borrow computing power that is not used from one computer to another.

This discovery, which provides greater computational power than current processors, will favorably impact applications such as video games that will have greater realism, televisions that will improve their resolution, portable electronic devices, calculators, and electronic agendas.

The architecture of these processors is modular, which allows them to be incorporated into small-sized products. This is possible because it can be used in versions that have few "brains". It has been estimated that it can be used on items with up to eight brains in high-powered devices and high-performance video game consoles.

** It is a dimension: 10 raised to -9, which is equivalent to 0.000000001 meters. It can also be expressed like this: a millimeter is equal to a million nanometers and therefore a nanometer is equal to one millionth of a millimeter.

SECOND PART

THE EDUCATION

7. THE VIRTUAL CLASSROOM AND THE CLASSROOM OF THE FUTURE

The concept of virtual classroom is attributed to Roxanne Hiltz who coined the term in the 80s. The virtual classroom is the use of communications through computers to create an electronic environment similar to the forms of communication that normally occur in the conventional classroom.

The virtual classroom is a teaching-learning environment based on telematic applications (interaction between computing and communication systems), said environment supports collaborative learning between students who participate in times and places they choose, through a network of computers, establishing communication between students, students and teachers, between a class and academic or non-academic communities.

Today virtual courses are offered for the most well-known disciplines and areas of knowledge, they are offered on online platforms for e-learning, courses in: Art, biology, biostatistics, molecular biology, education, language, mathematics, psychology and others.. The concept of the virtual classroom was imposed in the 1990s, but it will surely be refined and multiplied in the 21st century.

The classroom of the future is the new classroom concept that future educational centers will have to build and that some companies have been designing. The transformations will be made in the classroom and the so-called ball. (12)

Classrooms are round and divided by three invisible beam barriers. People can cross these barriers and see through them, but sounds do not pass. In the center is the teacher and from there he can direct and coordinate three different courses and groups of students. In the first room the teacher teaches classes, in the other the students are working in groups with the teacher's supervision and in the other the children study individually. The other novelty consists in the disappearance of the desk as a piece of furniture where the student can sit, lie down, lie down and rest.

Now, the possibility of being able to lie down is thanks to the emergence of the new work tool called, "The GooBall". This interactive communication device contains six layers of educational software. The flexible, portable LCD screen works like a laptop, allowing wireless Internet access and streaming video. It also has a touch-screen interface and a removable flexible LCD screen for each student.

The device looks like an American football, hence its name, it can be dropped and dropped on any surface and nothing happens to it. It also has a kind of backpack or backpack to store the student's belongings and to be able to transport the gooballl, but the most important thing is that the battery that provides electricity to the system is stored there.

The gooball monitors the student's heart rate and body temperature through a bio-reading function and uses GPS (global positioning system) to determine its location. It includes an instant messaging system and a compass, a clock, and a configurable alert system by topic that guides the student to articles and books that contain relevant information about the content they are working on. Students can also choose an icon of an animal that matches their personality to represent them.

The classroom of the future was proposed by Herbst Lazar Bell (HLB) and the invention has been dubbed, the “customizable educational system” nicknamed, Gooru.

8. THE TELEMEDICINE

Telemedicine is defined as: the uses of advanced telecommunication in health care. Those who benefit most from these techniques will be remote towns or rural areas that are located around cities of knowledge and that are within a radius of 100 to 150 kilometers. From first-rate hospitals and dispensaries that, due to their size, do not have many high-tech devices and medical specialists in all branches of computer medicine. (13)

The system works like this: In two rooms called Consultation Telemedicine, one located in the hospital in the rural area and the other in the city of knowledge, which contain:

A computer with a database that stores the medical records of all patients who attend the hospital, including a description of the activities they carry out at work, habits and customs and places of residence. A video camera that allows see the specialized doctor and the paramedic, A dedicated line that connects with a high-level hospital located in a city of knowledge, general practitioners or paramedics will be able to communicate with specialized doctors.

This communication will allow: describing the patient's condition, narrating the episode they experienced before arriving at the clinic, their anatomical and physiological condition, their vital signs, the drugs that have been administered, their mood, the symptoms and sensations that afflict. This simultaneous report allows both physicians to establish a diagnosis and formulate the appropriate treatment. In emergency cases, surgical interventions can even be performed with the advice of expert doctors.

Patients with delicate health conditions who live in remote or rural places often have to undergo serious difficulties such as: long ambulance trips, the discomfort of the trip due to the poor state of the roads and the weather, and especially the lack of relief in time that sometimes ends with the death of the patient. These anomalies will largely disappear with telemedicine and thus long, expensive and cumbersome journeys between hospitals will be a thing of the past.

THIRD PART

TECHNOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS IN THE LIFE HOPE COMPONENT

9. BIOTECHNOLOGY

In the year 2025 we and our children will live in a world vastly different from anything that human beings have experienced in the past and the meaning of existence will be altered because with biotechnology we will expect amazing changes. Concepts that for centuries remained unscathed such as: the reproduction of living beings, sexual practices, ideas about equality, free will and progress will be redefined. As Jeremy Rifkin, the celebrated biotechnology expert, says: “The new tools of biotechnology open up opportunities for the reshaping of life on earth, while closing options that have existed throughout the millennia of the history of the evolution. (fifteen)

Below are some experiments whose purpose is to locate, mark and identify genes and the functions they perform in creatures throughout the biological kingdom. These investigations, in which hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested, have allowed the collection of large amounts of genetic data on plants, animals and human beings that have been stored in genetic databases that will become the basic raw material of the century. XXI, the century of biotechnology.

Biotechnological applications in mammals: The known application in mammals is transgenic, which has given rise to the so-called transgenic animals. These experiments are based on developing transformations in physiological functions from embryos to which a foreign genetic material has been introduced. If the gene transfer is carried out on the fertilized egg, the oocyte, when it is only still a single cell, and if the transgene has been properly integrated into the embryo's genome, the new gene will be present in all the cells of the animal when it unfolds. It will be inherited by the progeny, with the same properties of a classic dominant Mendelian trait.

These applications have been made in domestic animals that man reproduces on farms for consumption or to extract derivatives. The objective is to enhance or add added value to the products derived from these useful animals, such as making them produce proteins for human consumption.

Undoubtedly, they have farm animals such as: transgenic cows, goats or sheep, to which the appropriate gene had been inserted when they were an oocyte and that these animals were capable of producing, in large quantities, the protein needed in the form of a protein more of your milk. Living normally in her stable, the simple daily milking would suffice to be able to collect the production without further complications, which once isolated and purified would usually be enough to save or improve the lives of many human beings.

Is this possible? He has an instant answer: indeed, it is already beginning to be. The technology consists of isolating or producing the interested gene using some of the modern techniques of current molecular biology. After obtaining it, it is usually fused with certain regulatory sequences (promoters, controlling portions, etc.) belonging to genes of normal milk proteins. It is intended that the new gene deceives the cellular machinery and behaves like any other of the genes responsible for milk proteins, that is, that it is not expressed in all the cells of the body, but only in those responsible for milk secretion.

In any case, to date, the highest expression levels correspond to transgenic sheep that have reached productions of up to 60 mg per milliliter of the * -1-antitrypsin enzyme, necessary to replace its plasma deficiency, whose plasma concentration normal is 2 mg per milliliter, in patients with hereditary emphysema. In these experiments, three of the transgenic females were crossed with normal males and in one case, offspring carrying the transgene were produced. Therefore, the creation of true herds of transgenic animals, apparently equal in everything to the normal ones, is at hand, whose characteristics will be transmitted from generation to generation,constituting another palpable sample of the secular service that farm animals have performed throughout human history. Until now, to provide us with food, and based on current genetic-molecular advances, also to produce the components, proteins, enzymes, hormones, etc., that our body, in cases of certain diseases, cannot synthesize.

Biotechnological applications in grains and cereals: The first experiments have been made in biotechnologically modified transgenic corn seeds. These seeds are capable of the plants producing a specific protein that is toxic towards the insect known as the European corn miner, causing great losses for US farmers. The path followed for this achievement has been to isolate and clone the gene corresponding to that protein from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, after which the gene has been introduced into the genome of the seeds. Bacillus thuringiensis is a bacterium that some practitioners of the so-called organic or natural agriculture have already been using as a natural pesticide that avoids the use of chemical pesticides.

Biotechnological applications in timber trees: Timber companies have hoped to find genes that allow them to accelerate their growth and therefore are more resistant to disease and have a greater tolerance to heat, cold and drought. (16)

Biotechnological applications in flowers: The experiments carried out have shown that in the future it will be possible to transform the color of the flowers. From embryogenic tissue from filamentous cultures of a species of rose (Rosa hibrida, var. Royalty), co-cultured with genetically transformed bacteria, using biotechnological techniques, California scientists have managed to grow reproducible lines of transformed embryogenic calli that, after being transferred to suitable maturation media, form somatic embryos. The latter are later transformed, in greenhouses, into complete flowering plants, rose bushes, whose transgenic nature was adequately verified in more than one hundred plants obtained.

The procedure opens a new way to facilitate the introduction of selected genes such as those that control the color of flowers in the roses of commercial cultivated varieties.It is expected that we will soon witness a real revolution in the supply of colored roses, by the biotech growers of the same.

Biotechnological applications for fishing: The genetic biotechnological technique makes it possible to determine in a canned tuna sample where the fish came from. Canadian companies such as Bio-Id launched a test on the market that allows detecting from which lake or river the fish comes. With this technique it is easy to detect if the fishing was done in prohibited or permitted places. The test consists of comparing sequences of tuna chains with samples stored in a database of many lakes or rivers in the world that the company owns.

Biotechnological applications in insects: Until now interesting experiments have been done in flies. Using the fruit fly, an insect widely used in laboratories for experiments, it was possible to isolate a gene called "eyeless" which is responsible for introducing changes in the eyes of the fly. In Dr. Ghering's laboratory in Basel Switzerland, Dr. Rebeca Quirino and UWE Waldorf introduced the eyeless gene into a fly by way of experimentation, which caused eyes to appear on the fly's legs, which were sensitive to changes in light..

Biotechnological applications with bacteria: In some bacteria, genes similar to those incorporated in spiders will be inserted, which have the ability to produce threads with which orbicular webs or cobwebs are woven. These threads have great resistance and with them bulletproof vests will be made and used in the aeronautical company.

The fungi, bacteria and algae will be used as bioabsorption systems in waste treatment plants because they have the property of capturing polluting metals and radionuclides: mercury, cadmium, uranium, and coblate. They can be used in nuclear plants and cemeteries.

Based on the knowledge of the E coli bacteria that it consumes: agricultural waste, municipal solids and paper sludge, scientists are trying to discover a technique that allows these bacteria to transform their food into ethanol, which is therefore a fuel that serves as fuel.

The other use of the bacteria is in plastics, the plastics industry has significant environmental problems related to its production and recycling or disposal. For this and other reasons, the use of biological systems could be of great interest. It is known so far that living systems can produce six main classes of polymers. Among them are polyoxyesters, which are thermosetting polymers. Two very notable characteristics of this class of polymers are their biocompatibility and their degradability. For this reason, some of its varieties, produced classically and industrially, already have biomedical applications. The sulfur analogs of the polyoxyesters would be the polythioesters that, until now, had not been produced industrially.The research article cited at the beginning of the text explains how the researchers, by inserting three genes into Escherichia coli bacteria fed mercaptoalkanoic acids, instead of their natural diet, were able to produce pure polythiosters that were thermoplastic, capable of resisting the thermal degradation, at temperatures higher than that of thermoplastic polyoxyesters, which opens the door to research on their potential applications.which opens the door to research on its potential applications.which opens the door to research on its potential applications.

10. ROBOTS BECOME SURGEONS

Microsurgery has become another area of specialization in medicine, to practice it uses computers, precision devices, state-of-the-art instrumentation, microscopes and lately it has been resorting to robotics. In 1998, a robot performed the first bypass operation in history and since then more than 250 surgeries have been performed.

One of the most widely used robots in heart surgery is the OP 907, a high-tech device made of plastic and steel that costs almost a million dollars and is specially designed for by-pass operations. When the operation begins, it seems that the robot works by itself, the movements are millimeter and precise. (17)

The robot consists of small tubes that have scissors-shaped scalpels at the tips, the black tubes move to the right or left, these movements are controlled from a control panel by a doctor specialized in heart surgery. The image of the interior of the patient is seen on a monitor, through a scanner that reports images of the interior of the patient, the images have excellent resolution and increases the real image ten times. This increase allows to recognize muscles, fat, arteries and vital organs. The surgeon who is sitting in a room adjacent to the operating room is sitting down at a control console and according to the images seen on the monitors, he sends orders to the robot through the command console. As the surgeon sends the order,the robot proceeds to execute movements in real time. Operations like this are successfully performed at the Cardiology Center in Leipzig, Germany, by a group of surgeons led by Dr. Anno Diegeler.

11. THE POSTGENOMIC ERA

The project called proteome replaced the genome, this great project was born precisely on the day that the discovery of the human genome was made official in April 2001. At the HUPO international congress, the prestigious scientist Dr. Sam Hanash launched the Human Proteome Project (PPH). (18)

The word OMA has become common in the biological lexicon and in general it is a suffix that is used to describe the different levels of analysis with which the functioning of our cells in organs, tissues or organisms can be approached. Currently it is normal to hear the concepts of: Genome, Transcriptome, Proteome and Metabolome.

Analysis level	Definition	Analysis method
GENOME	Complete set of genes of an organism or its organelles	Systematic DNA sequencing
TRANSCRIPTOME	Complete set of messenger RNA molecules present in a cell, tissue or organ.	Hybridization. SAGE (serial analysis of gene expression)
PROTEOME	Total protein molecules present in a cell, tissue or organ.	Two-dimensional electrophoresis.
METABOLOMA	Complete set of metabolites (low molecular weight intermediates) in a cell, tissue, or organ.	Infrared spectroscopy. Mass spetrometry. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry.

Adapted from Nature. February 2000. Vol 403 page 601

The main objectives of the PPH are: 1) To create a catalog of human proteins in which all the possible variables of each of these are included. 2) To stimulate the knowledge of the relationships of proteins with other proteins and of proteins with nucleic acids. 3) Promote the investigation of the mechanisms that govern the expression of proteins and the way in which this expression of these proteins is manifested when disease states occur.

In the HUPO congress it was possible to estimate preliminarily that the amount that is destined to finance this project amounts to the not inconsiderable sum of one billion dollars. With this announcement, the post-genomic or proteomic era began, with which it is expected to make new discoveries and attack various diseases.

12. MAN OBSERVED EVERYWHERE

As Telecommunications has progressed, the world is increasingly interconnected and messages travel instantly, which allows us to use the metaphor that: "the world has shrunk" or that "the world is within reach of the hands ”. Thanks to the Internet, it is possible to send electronic messages and chat with friends over long distances, satellites allow us to watch televised programs from remote places, to our homes arrive: the transmission of the Oskar deliveries, the car races in Indianapolis, the reigns of Miss universe, royal ceremonies, and news are conveyed with opportunity realism and rawness.

These mechanisms have many applications but perhaps one of those used is the search for human beings. The internet has among many of its portals, web pages that offer the search for people. Thanks to this mechanism it is possible to find college or university colleagues, loved ones, neighbors or colleagues from the past.

The other system that has been imposed is the use of rechargeable contactless smart cards with embedded chips. Through this application you can build statistics and databases that end up registering names, addresses, dates, bank account numbers, credit cards and debit cards. Passengers passing through air, land, river terminals and even passengers passing through the world's subways are counted daily.

These counters allow establishing statistics and controls but at the same time they constitute a powerful marketing tool. With this type of card it is possible to record payments in stores and commerce in general that are then used by tax collectors to register and capture evaders.

Another search tool is the chip incorporated into the epidermis of animals and sub-bark of plants. These chips allow you to search for animals or conduct research work. The chip stores information about the place and day it was incorporated, records ages and of course it is a device that allows the animal to be found several kilometers around.

Currently these chips have become essential and have been incorporated into: briefcases, vehicles, laptops and valuables, in some way these devices have become an alarm or object that allows you to trace lost or stolen items. Although in some cases they have been incorporated into humans experimentally, the day is not far off that all humans have a built-in chip that allows them to be tracked anywhere on the planet.

In relation to these search and trace methods, in the future it is expected that no human will be able to escape official and security records, which will bring the benefit of a world with fewer objects and missing humans. However, the tendency to preserve absolute privacy and go incognito will be a thing of the past.

13. THE TOURIST PARADISES

The tourism industry will be one of the most favored with technological developments. In general, all knowledge cities have sites of attraction with innovative technological applications. However, close to them located in coastal regions, islands, mountains, lakes and even deserts, the harmonious union of nature, architecture, technology and logistics will recreate millions of people.

Although the issue of managing cleanliness, order, lodging, and transportation is generally hidden from the unsuspecting tourist, managing it has become one of the major concerns for sanitary engineers, ecologists, and logistics technicians. From these cities will emerge a series of successful models that will be quickly replicated to other parts of the world.

The processing of garbage and solid waste left behind by thousands of tourists will imply the assembly of sophisticated treatment plants that will make the work increasingly automated. The storage and production of food will require the assembly of large cellars with the latest advances in conservation and the construction of highly technical kitchens for the preparation of food. Transportation will involve innovative programming designs to: plan the water, land and area connections, the baggage transportation complex and the hotel network of accommodation.

The emblematic sites of the cities of the world such as: the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate Bridge, the pyramids of Egypt, castles and others, will be built as replicas and with some especially technological modifications they will become the emblems of these tourist cities. One of the attractions of these replicas will be the lighting systems that will change colors according to the changes that occur in the seasons, day, night, full moon and even eclipses. The advertising will be totally electronic, the clocks, the phone booths, the Internet cafe and giant flat televisions, will be more sophisticated than those we know today and will be in many places, with the passers-by advertising everywhere the entertainment and shopping places. (19)

Theme parks, convention centers, hotels will be totally intelligent and will be built with a holistic sense: from the hotel to the convention center and from there to the theme park. In both buildings there will be studios and television stations that will be in charge of disseminating the latest news from the meetings and conventions that take place on the site. Video games and physical skill attractions will be the order of the day.

The monorails in height, cable cars and funiculars will make tours of the surroundings of the city allowing tourists to observe the city from several meters high, which will change the custom we use today, of touring and observing the city by land. Tourist taxis will be automatic and will not have a driver, will move with GPS systems, and will obey smart traffic lights. These taxis will make fixed tours and will have televised guides, while video tapes with soundtracks in several languages will inform the tourist, the place where they are and as a human tourist guide they will narrate anecdotes, report on historical data and with the recognition technique voice will answer frequently asked questions.

14. DIGITAL CITIES

The meaning of “digital cities” emerged with the virtual internet highway that made it possible to send data and electronic messages. Since then, concepts such as: a) E Learning: online learning have been imposed. b) E-Goverment: The connection and rapprochement of citizens with state offices in electronic form. E- Comerce: The great possibility that was opened to the market for products and services to do marketing virtually.

These developments, which have become a necessity of modern technology because they save money and distance, have also brought with them the need to build the necessary means, devices, platforms and infrastructures that make it possible to send information in virtual through the internet..

In the immediate future, so-called smart buildings will proliferate, fiber optic networks will expand, and structured cables will run through houses, offices and architectural buildings of all kinds. (twenty)

15. CIBER HOME AND HOME AUTOMATION

Advanced technology and its integration with other home systems is called "home automation." Home automation is nothing more than the simultaneous use of electricity, electronics and computers applied to the technical management of homes. (twenty-one)

Smart homes can be controlled from the internet by programming tasks such as heating hours, turning on lights, and automatic watering. Home automation experts assure that this type of home reduces energy consumption, takes care of the environment, saves money, at the same time increases comfort and tranquility, being inside or outside the house, in addition to facilitating the organization of daily life.

To achieve the above, home automation uses countless devices, which are distributed throughout the house, depending on the needs and wishes of their owners. These elements can be of various types, although the main ones are called “sensors, actuators and controllers”. Home automation installations implement a local area network distributed throughout the property, operating under protocols such as "Lonworks", "Bacnet", "Havi", and "Konex", among the most important, created specifically for the automation of houses and Offices.

Another interesting development that will allow entertaining humans and will come to fruition in 2015 are holograms. The screens served by computers will create almost lifelike images. Advertising, entertainment and television will be one of the sectors that will make the most of this creative and illusory application. In addition, robots specialized in performing housework would be incorporated into the home to replace some of the trades performed by housekeepers, maids, cooks and servants. In other cases, they will replace the pets and will be "electronic mechanical friends" for the children.

Advantages of home automation: It is possible to achieve significant energy savings; for example: they regulate temperature, control lighting, automatically measure the consumption of each appliance and provide safety to the user. With demotics the positioning of plasma televisions, flat screens, switched telephones, the mobile office and voice recognition will prevail.

With the use of home automation it is possible to achieve significant energy savings; for example: regulate temperature, control lighting, automatically measure the consumption of each appliance and provide user safety. In view of the good results, companies such as: General Electric, Merloni, Elettrodomestici, Cysco, Sistems, Sunbeam, Samsung have been dedicated to the manufacture of smart homes.

Disadvantages of cyberhomes: a) User isolation, it is said that people who use the internet on a daily basis forget a little about their social life. b) They cost between 500 and 800 thousand dollars in Europe and the United States, while in Latin America the prices of these properties can exceed one million dollars. c) To successfully handle cyber home devices, it is necessary to carefully read and study all manuals, which is complex.

16. ETHICS AND FUTURE

As a culmination it is essential to mention the ethical issue. Scientific developments always present two faces, on the one hand they are of great utility that they represent for humanity due to the excellent solutions that they can provide to man but from another point of view it can become a threat depending on the misuse that is made thereof.

Perhaps, one of the most pathetic examples of the dangers posed by the misuse of scientific advances can be found in Einstein's vision of the management of atomic energy. While it is true Einstein was one of the inventors of the atomic bomb, he was also a pedagogue against its use and made serious warnings to governments not to make an excessive use of nuclear energy. However, despite these warnings, the terrible experiences of Nagasaky or Guernica were presented, which should not be repeated.

Today the debate is more latent when even in wars as recent as those in Iraq, it was used as a strategy to invade this territory that there were nuclear and biological weapons. In this sense, the discoveries and handling of weapons lethal for humanity highlight the importance of the subject, ethics and science. It is also clear that international terrorism has taken advantage of modern technologies to intimidate and commit atrocious attacks in various parts of the world.

Suffice it to remember how these illegal groups have used sarin gas in the Tokyo subway. Using cell phone technology, remote-controlled bombs are exploded as in the case of the Madrid attack, with toxic substances they have tried to poison the water in aqueducts for human consumption, they have planted bankruptcy mines in the deserts of Afghanistan and in rural areas of Colombia. Even technologies intended for the use of passenger transport have diverted their purpose and have turned them into dangerous destructive weapons as happened with the Twin Towers disaster in New York.

With the advent of the new discoveries that we have pointed out in this article such as: biotechnology, nanoengineering, the proteome, the internet and others, without a doubt, society will benefit but there is no need to comment that there will be a need to establish corrections and regulatory frameworks that allow the use of these discoveries with prudence and altruism, always seeking the welfare of humanity.

However, technoscience will be necessary for the development of humanity, in this regard Vicente Abortes has said: «Paradoxically, despite the fact that many problems on the planet have been caused by the irrational use of certain technologies…, the survival of humanity and the solution to vital ecological problems of food and energy will only be possible from scientific-technological knowledge. " This is the comment with which the author concludes the work, and which fully expresses the spirit that animates him. (22)

CONCLUSIONS

The "Technological Cities" or "of Excellence" will be the first to benefit and take advantage of the 15 technological applications exposed throughout this article. Although not all the applications that we will see in the future in the medium term were presented some of the main trends in knowledge on which the international scientific community has been making inroads with emphasis. Energy, GPS global positioning systems, Nanoengineering, The new revolution in computers, The virtual classroom, the classroom of the future, Telemedicine, Biotechnology, Surgery from robots, The Proteome, Detection systems from of chips, the construction of tourist paradises, digital cities and home automation These applications will make sense,if man dedicates them to the service of the common good because they are not independent of value systems. We must not forget that they will affect us all more directly and intimately than any other technological revolution in history. For this reason it is very important that new technologies are known and discussed by the general public before they become part of our daily lives.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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WEB BLIOGRAPHY

Nuclear

fission http://www.arrakis.es/ el signo de eñelallave / nuclear / fu-fria.htm

www.rebelion.org/ spain / 030920

Sites visited in January 2005

Solar powered

chargers www.Caudwell.es

Nanotechnology

www.Nanotechnews.com site visited in October 2004

www.ictp.csic.es site visited in October 2004

www.nanomedicine.com site visited in October 2004

Biotechnology