Experimental

Any sort of list is fraught with subjectivity, and perhaps none more so than one ranking the world's greatest technological achievements in order from 100 to one. This week, two tech experts bravely took on this historic task – and it's a wild ride.

Sometimes you see a vintage plane that makes you scratch your head. Case in point is the US Air Force's X-29 of the 1980s that looks like a fighter with the wings stuck on backwards. Was this a daft mistake or a great leap forward? Let's have a look.

From 350,757 coin flips to prove probability to the swimming skills of dead trout, the 2024 Ig Nobel Prize winners have been recognized for their absurd work scientific research. And they all walked away with a coveted $100-trillion Zimbabwean banknote.

Czech company UDX is flying scale prototypes of a tandem 2-up eVTOL it calls Airwolf. With individually-tilting ducted fan propulsion, it's got enough wing surface for efficient cruise flight as well as agile movement from a hover.

In what sounds more like the opening scene from a B-grade sci-fi/horror flick, head transplant operations performed entirely by AI-robot surgeons could be coming to a hospital near you within a decade, if startup BrainBridge is to have its way.

While ethical questions abound, scientists have tweaked traditional SCNT cloning of mammals to produce the very first healthy rhesus monkey that has lived to adulthood. It’s the first successful cloning of a species notoriously hard to 'copy and paste.'

Cells from two genetically distinct macaque embryos have been combined, resulting in the first chimeric primate live birth. The newborn male's green glow reveals how large a part the injected stem cells played in development, stunning scientists.

Humans have done remarkably well in evolutionary terms, but one design flaw has to be our inability to replace lost teeth throughout our lives. Now, scientists believe they have the antibody treatment to do just that, and it could be available by 2030.

In an aerospace example of the operation being a success but the patient dying, NASA has declared a satisfactory end to its X-57 Maxwell all-electric aircraft project, despite the fact that the research plane will never leave the ground.

An adventurous professor from the University of South Florida has broken the world record for living in an underwater habitat. Joseph Dituri has called the submurged Jules’ Undersea Lodge home since March 1, and intends to remain there until June 9.

Toward the end of 2020, David Li collaborated with Google Arts and Culture on a machine learning experiment called the Blob Opera. Now Stuck Labs has developed a touchless interface that allows children to control the operatic action using gestures.

Having been responsible for designing Britain's Antarctic Research Station, Hugh Broughton Architects knows how to keep humans alive in harsh conditions. The firm is using this experience to imagine what would be required to shelter humans on Mars.