It's nearly 2020, and according to pre-21st century predictions of the future we're behind technologically because we don't have flying cars, fully automated homes or personal laser weaponry.
But what we do have are a bunch of scientific advancements that will make you excited for (or terrified of) the future, even if it isn't as flashy or exciting as we thought it would be.
In 2017 we were introduced to an incredibly cool yet equally creeping looking artificial womb:
For years we’ve been told that an artificial womb is possible, but in 2017 researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia achieved a breakthrough that has us thinking it’s really going to happen.
In tests, six premature fetal lambs were placed in fluid-filled plastic containers resembling zip-lock bags. The lambs grew in the device as they would in a conventional womb, developing in a temperature controlled, near-sterile environment. They breathed in amniotic fluid, their hearts pumped blood through their umbilical cords into a gas exchange system outside of the bag, and monitors measured their vital signs, blood flow, and other important functions. The lambs, which were at the equivalent of the 23 to 24 week gestation stage of human preemies when they entered the bags, developed normally. The breakthrough offers a viable and potentially superior way of bringing premature babies to term, but it could still be decades before we see the technology applied to humans.
We were also re-introduced to Boston Dynamics' ATLAS, who can now do backflips and jump around all parkour style.
ATLAS seems to be preparing for the battlefields of the future, where he'll probably be joined by Boston Dynamics' newest robot, Handle, the free-wheelin' pony-bot.
These robots have come a really long way since being introduced just a few years ago, but have they already come too far?:
Also in 2017, robots started to teach other robots new skills, and this heavily armored robot was voted most likely to trigger the robopocalypse. Indeed, robots and drones got so scary in 2017 that the United Nations hosted a discussion on banning autonomous killing machines at a conference on conventional weapons.
See The Most Futuristic Predictions That Came True In 2017 at Gizmodo