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Machines that read minds, new remedies for obesity and progress in particle physics: these are the scientific advances that the specialist journal “Nature” predicts for 2025.
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December 27, 2024 – 11:31
(Keystone-ATS) PILLS AGAINST OBESITY: “Nature” expects a “wave” of new treatments against obesity in 2025, we can read on its website. After the popularity in 2024 of injections like Wegovy, anti-obesity drugs could come to market next year in pill form. This format, cheaper to produce, would also cost patients less. A phase III study on the Orforfilpron pill from the American company Eli Lilly is due to be completed in 2025.
MACHINES CAPABLE OF READING MINDS: China could make a major breakthrough in technologies that allow direct communication between the human brain and external devices. One of its products, NEO, should allow paralyzed people to control their hands using their brains. In Switzerland too, we are working on machines that read minds. Two years ago, researchers from EPFL and CHUV placed an implant in a paralyzed man for the first time, allowing him to control his legs through thought.
TRAVELS TO THE MOON: 2025 will be a busy year for lunar traffic, writes “Nature”. After a spacecraft from a private company landed on the Moon for the first time in history in 2024, the trade journal expects several similar missions next year. The Tokyo companies “ispace” and the American companies “Intuitive Machines” plan to place devices on the Moon. A new NASA mission is also planned.
PARTICLES AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT: After more than a decade of work, researchers hope to be able to commission the European Spallation Source (ESS) in Sweden in 2025. Scientists want to accelerate neutrons almost to the speed of light and then launch them at heavy metals. The new technique will make it possible to study the structure of materials more precisely. CERN in Geneva must also complete a detailed feasibility study for a new supercollider in 2025. Called “Future Circular Collider”, this particle accelerator with a circumference of 91 kilometers must replace the current Large Hadron Collider (LHC). However, a decision on the construction of this new facility is expected no earlier than 2028.
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