Over the last 50 years photons, the particles that make up light, have replaced electrons to transfer data in communication networks.

In December 2016 Loretana Puglisi, an Italian entrepreneur from Palazzolo Acreide, near Siracusa, lost her left hand in a work-related accident.

Many of the prototypes that have made the history of biorobotics worldwide are visible in a showcase set up at The BioRobotics Institute of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pontedera, near Pisa, Italy.

The genius of evolution is rarely seen in action, so the invisible hand guiding the direction of biological systems is often taken for granted.

“If you think about a robot, how do you picture it from the back of your mind? Perhaps it looks something like a humanoid, built with rigid materials such as metals.

The grapevines of the Italian region of Tuscany gave food for thought to researchers based in Pontedera, near Pisa, who developed the first soft robot that mimics the behaviour of tendrils .

Soil is much more than just the dirt beneath our feet. Essential for agriculture, a source of undiscovered pharmaceuticals and a filtering system for ecosystems, it’s surprising that the automotive research vehicles, which cruise through air or water, have not yet penetrated the ground.

Today’s computer processors are pretty fast. Under optimal conditions, a desktop can come close to teraflop speeds, which is a million million operations per second .

Levitation is an old dream of humankind. For centuries, magicians gave audiences the illusion of defying gravity, seemingly making objects of people float into the air. Now European scientists are turning this into reality.

Vast arrays of antennas are being built to capture infrared light beams. You won’t find them in a desert though, pointed out towards space.

Biomimicry , also called bionics, uses structures found in nature to solve everyday problems. A well-known example is the Velcro strip , which a Swiss engineer, Georges de Mestral copied from the burdocks that stuck to his dog and clothes on a walk through the fields.

Could a human behaviour simulator be embedded into a robot or online avatar to the point that it’s hard to distinguish between a real person or artificial intelligence? Scientists have been upping the stakes in this “ Turing test ” for years, to the point that human-mimicking programmes are ready to answer tricky questions, assist people with online shopping or be companions.

“Are we all on the same page? Singing from the same hymn sheet?” For anyone working with groups of people in policy areas, the answer is nearly always “yes”.

Remember the cassette Walkman? With streaming services, even MP3 players like the iPod look distinctly  passé . Car Sat-Navs used to drop jaws in amazement, but now driverless cars and flying drone taxis are on the horizon.

Just imagine: you get back home one evening, unlocking your door with the torch light of your mobile. You sit down on your sofa, download a film 100 times faster than currently possible and enjoy the movie on a fully secure wireless connection.

Smart society is one of these complex but promising concepts that remain poorly understood. This futuristic language sounds like a science fiction, but smarter societies are already slowly emerging all around us.

How would you like a fancy Christmas garment embedded with sensors to measure your body movements? Or a reindeer hat that moves its horns when your heart beats faster? Don’t worry if you’re not a fan of winter festivities, because the technology behind the next generation of smart clothes is for everyone and can be woven into anything we wear.

Despite its splendour and beauty, nature is full of imperfections. Indeed, the process of natural selection relies upon minor errors in genetic duplication to produce new variants, better suited to a given environment.

In 1961, the physicist Rolf Landauer formulated a principle that any transformation of information that takes place in a computer requires energy, thus making zero-power computing a pipe dream.

“Let’s start from the end. Our project will not really end in our lifetime”. Puzzling as it may sound, the statement comes from Sarah Goldberg, researcher at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, one of the leading scientific institutions in Israel.