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| Economy |
| Tomorrow's Manufacturing Revolution |
| 2017-02-04 |
| [MI Daily Update] Bioelectronics is as big a jump as ditching vacuum tubes. President Trump says he will revive U.S. manufacturing through better trade deals and tax incentives. Others argue that America has entered a new "postmanufacturing" era. Sound familiar? In the 1970s, the U.S. had a stagnant economy, sluggish productivity, high unemployment and an auto industry threatened by the Japanese "juggernaut." Doomsday was nigh. But with a big boost from the Reagan tax cuts and deregulation, entirely new domains of manufacturing emerged, breathing new life into the U.S. economy in the 1980s, ’90s and 2000s. Today, producing semiconductors and computing hardware is a $1.5 trillion-a-year global industry, comparable to automobile sales. And that unforeseen revolution gave birth to a whole new economy and tech giants like Intel, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Facebook. What are the mandarins of economic forecasting missing today? Here are three examples, each as transformational as going from vacuum tubes to transistors to microchips. Bioelectronics. Pliable, biocompatible microchips and sensors allow computing devices not only to be comfortably worn (think "smart" bandages) but also implanted in living tissue or widely distributed into the environment, enabling biological and medical advances as remarkable as silicon electronics. Transient electronics. Digital devices that literally disappear on a schedule, or are consumable, will allow entirely new ways for sensing our environment as well as hyperprecise delivery of new kinds of therapeutics in specific areas of the body, organs and even cells. Electroceuticals. These dust-sized, microscopic wireless sensors target nerves, areas of the brain and other human tissue to treat an array of medical conditions including chronic pain and infections. Consider that the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded "for the design and synthesis of molecular machines." Like last century’s revolution in chemical and pharmaceutical production, today powerful physics-based algorithms, combined with.... |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #5 I'm thinking the major applications are going to be "communicating" with otherwise obtuse citizens. Bets? |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2017-02-04 21:14 |
| #4 Jobs are an easy sell to the masses and media, but it is really about keeping technology and know how, rather than sending it China. Doesn't really matter what the technology is. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2017-02-04 19:53 |
| #3 Bioelectronics is as big a jump as ditching vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes are still around, for various reasons. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2017-02-04 19:39 |
| #2 I remember when I was an undergraduate, Biotechnology was supposed to be the future - Pzzzzzt. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2017-02-04 13:22 |
| #1 Others argue that America has entered a new "postmanufacturing" era. If so, it's only because Washington DC, leftists, and environmentalists have had their way. There is still the need for manufactured goods. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2017-02-04 10:48 |