CalTech recently announced that it has wirelessly transmitted power through space. Without, nighttime or atmosphere and weather getting in the way, solar panels can be 8x more efficient in space than on the earth. Now that SpaceX and others are rewriting the economics of space launch, development projects in space may actually become profitable.

A recent breakthrough uses machine learning to interpret brain patterns and turn them into speech! The current focus is on enabling paralyzed people to be able to speak again. However, there are far reaching implications. Eventually, this could enable virtual telepathy (your thoughts get transmitted to an earbud in your wife’s ear halfway across the world) or telekenisis (your thoughts turn on the coffee machine and open the door).

Remember that Friends episode where Phoebe and her boyfriend (played by Charlie Sheen) had oven mitts duct taped to their hands to keep them from scratching? Soon there may be a better solutions. Scientists have found a protein that creates the itch response. Read about it here.

When I hear the familiar buzz of a quadcopter drone, I automatically assume it’s taking video because lifting anything heavier than a camera is hard. But an Italian company just release a drone capable of lifting 100kg! That’s enough to carry a person around. Let’s leap frog self driving cars…

Finally, there’s progress being made on high-energy-density storage (that’s no gasoline). Pretty much every amazing tiny gadget portrayed in science fiction (especially ray guns) require a portable power source many orders of magnitude beyond what we have today. That ever-present selfie-drone isn’t so helpful when it has to recharge every five minutes. Enter NUCLEAR (yep, you heard me right) batteries. Read more here.

The news doesn’t always have to be depressing. Sure, there are wars and impending crises of several types that are always just over the horizon. But there are also amazing people out there doing great work, making new discoveries in science, and building exciting technologies that can truly make a difference. Here are some reasons for optimism.

Engineers at the University of British Columbia have developed a new water treatment that removes "forever chemicals" from drinking water safely, efficiently -- and for good. Don’t know what “forever chemicals” are? Read more about it here. While it may sound depressing (more things to kill us!), discovering more ways that global industrialization has harmed our environment is a good thing. It means that with this knowledge, we can search for solutions, like the good people at University of British Columbia have done.

No doubt many of you have heard about the limited supply of lithium that may bring EV production to a grinding halt. Luckily there is a lot of ongoing research on alternatives. One such is the oxygen-ion battery, free of rare materials and capable of extremely long life. Read more about it here.

Perhaps some of you, like me, are fans of space travel. As I grew up, the dream of interstellar space travel in my lifetime has faded, but people are still working on it. Regardless of whether it will happen, I LOVE the ingenuity and amazing concepts that come from these explorations. The moon landing is still one of the most inspiring stories of grit and engineering in human history. We have capacity for more. Here is an amazing new concept for launching fuel AT a traveling spaceship as pellets.

Or here’s another science fiction dream back from the dead: Practical Fusion is back. Free(ish) energy may be at our doorstep soon. Sure, the capital expenses may still be huge, but an energy source with limitless consumables could take us a huge step to a carbonless (and more prosperous) future.

Take a moment today to celebrate the great achievements we are making towards a better future.