The next app for physician's iPhones...

Science News - Far From a Lab? Turn a Cell-Phone Into a Microscope
Recent developments in bioengineering imaging techniques have reached new heights with the finalization of "Microskia", the first company to sell cell-phones turned microscopes.

Microscopes are essential tools for the diagnosis of diseases through the visualization of blood and other cells. however, they present numerous disadvantages such as size and cost. These problems are especially grave for doctors trying to treat diseases in situations with limited resources. However, with about 10$ worth of off-the-shelf components, Aydogan Ozcan, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and member of the California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, has converted everyday mobile phones into microscopes.

One of the prototypes uses a phone's camera sensor to detect a slide's content and send the information it collects (the asymmetric shape of diseased blood cells or other abnormal cells, an increase of white blood cells, a sign of infectio, etc.) to a health center wirelessly.

The reason why this invention is so small is that there are no longer any lenses - the largest and central element in microscopes - thanks to the possiblity of using electronic magnification. To do this, LEDs added to the phone shine their light on a sample, which hits the cells and scatters them off while interfering with other light waves. "“When the waves interfere, they create a pattern called a hologram.” The detector in the camera records that hologram or interference pattern as a series of pixels". This could potentially for a quick way to process samples, since it would no longer be necessary to scan them mechanically. “Instead you capture holograms of all the cells on the slide digitally at the same time, so that it’s possible, for example, to see immediately the pathogens among a vast population of healthy cells".

I think this is a really interesting article and (although I had previously blogged about this device), I'm really excited to see what the development of this technology is going to be, and how it will affect the field of imaging in bioengineering. The entire article can be found here.

BE research paper

Now I know how MRI works!
Today, I finished my bioengineering paper (yay!), and handed it in at recitation. I was really nervous about writing it, especially since it was my first college essay, the first time I did research in the field and the first time I wrote a real paper in English. I was happy with the final results, except for the eventful delivery of the assignment (when I slipped and half the pages flew away, so I had to run and reprint it, haha) and now I feel like I understand how hard it really is to write a good essay.


First of all, it was very hard for me to find reliable sources, since - for the level of complication the paper required - there were few good, official websites and books that were clear and understandable. However, there were plenty of information sources for more complex and less deep understanding, so it was a challenge to find a midpoint between both. I relied mostly on online resources, because most of the books I found were too complex for me to actually understand them without an extensive training in the imaging field or very outdated.


When I actually started writing the paper, by first writing a draft, I realized how little I knew about MRIs, and how complicated the topic was. I then proceeded to review all the sources I had used for the diagram and started from the most basic level up. Most of the sources I used agreed on the same points, so that was a problem I had anticipated that I didn't have to worry about. However, most of them used technical language and concepts that I had to research thoroughly to be able to explain them in simpler terms and my own words on the paper. Another conflict that I ran into while writing the paper was precisely this: trying to explain things so that they would be as clear as possible.


As I was writing my paper, I realized that I was drifting away from my diagram, so I decided to read through it several times and edited it to match my diagram, which I think explained the topic with a clear structure. I then added a few more details to my diagram, so that it was clear how they were both related. I also asked one of my hall-mates to look at the diagram first and then read the paper, and then give me feedback on how I could improve my paper to make everything even more straightforward, which was, in my opinion, one of the most helpful things I did.


One of the trials I ran into was editing my sources, because although I used an online editor (www.bibme.org) for my citations, for some reason Microsoft Word would keep deleting them, or organizing them alphabetically instead of according to where they were in the text and what number they corresponded to, which was extremely frustrating as I had to keep going back and editing them time after time.


The most challenging part of this assignment for me was, not only finding appropriate resources, but most of all actually explaining everything in a transparent and straightforward manner. I think that independent research and writing papers are great tools to learn about a specific topic, and feel like I learned a lot thanks to this project. Ultimately, despite all the hard work, I enjoyed writing it and learning something that I had no idea about by myself.

How does MRI work?

Diagram
This week we had to draw a diagram for our paper which represented the way it worked, through the "machine analysis" viewpoint that Dr. Bogen asked us to use. Basically, we had to think of our "process" or "object" (in my case MRI) and describe it as a machine, with the building blocks being each component and what was transferred between them. Then we had to add the properties that govern each block, what was accumulated or balances, what quantities were affected, etc. for each block. Finally, we had to put it all together in diagram form and relate all of the processes to one another.


To me, the hardest part was trying to adapt my subject to the format Dr. Bogen asked us to use. It wasn't so hard to enumerate all the components and which ones were related, but it was very hard at some point to think of precisely what quantities were affected by the transfer, etc. I believe it was so because MRI doesn't lend itself so much to an interpretation in that format, the way that (for example) the machine diagram for flow of blood into left ventricle in diastole (Dr. Bogen's example) did. However, after a lot of research and a creative way of analyzing the MRI and finding out all the different properties and transferred data, I ended up with the following preliminary diagram for MRI (click on it to make it bigger):

I think that, as I'm writing my paper, this will be a good reference to structure my thesis around. Furthermore, because I HAD to make the diagram this way, I'll have more information about how to approach MRIs in a "machine analysis" (i.e. how does it work?) style and therefore my final work should - hopefully - be a lot better!

Research Paper

How does it work?
This month we'll have to complete a research paper on a biomedical topic from an engineering viewpoint. That is, how does something related to the biomedical field work? The only thing I needed to know to begin was what to discuss in my paper.
I was watching House on TV the other day with some friends and we were discussing how medical imaging techniques had changed so much over the course of a few decades, and how useful new machines were to diagnostics - the case in the episode was solved thanks to one in particular, the MRI. This is when I started wondering about magnetic resonance imaging, and found it a very interesting topic, so I decided to focus my paper on this subject. In essence, what I want to find out is:

• How does an MRI machine work?
  
• What are the physics/biological principles that make MRIs possible?
  
• How was it developed?
  
• How is it constructed and how does it operate?
  
• What are its applications?
  
• Are MRIs safe?
  
• What is the future of MRIs going to be?
  

It seems like a pretty interesting subject to discuss, so I'm looking forward to researching how it works and answering my questions!

Structures presentations

Talking about structure...
This week, we had to prepare a brief presentation for class, which I really enjoyed. I think that encouraging independent work in the sciences is one of the greatest challenges for teachers, because (unlike with music, arts and other recreational activities) scientific and engineering-related hobbies can often be expensive and trying, but you can really love them at the same time. Although it was hard to come up with a structure to analyze, I was happy with the final result and I believe I learned a lot from this individual project.
However, what I liked the most was the recitation this week, because we all saw what our classmates think like and how they might interpret things, which I believe can help you learn a lot about them. I also found the structures they chose to analyze very interesting, and enjoyed seeing their different perspectives and ideas on the same objects. Overall, I had a lot of fun!

All you need is LOVE

The LOVE sculpture
For this week's assignment, we had to analyze a "thing" on the Penn campus, and - as I discussed before - I choose the LOVE sculpture on Locust Walk. As I said in my earlier post, I choose it as my subject because it’s one of the staples of Penn’s campus and of the city where we live, Philadelphia.
This structure is a sculpture displaying the letters LO over VE, and was originally designed as the front of a Christmas card for the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) by Robert Indiana. It is a three dimensional model of the word "love"in capital letters and is painted bright red on the front, back and sides and blue and green on the inside. I analyzed this sculpture over three (and a half) length scales:

The sculpture
this is how most of us see the statue, a big body displaying the message "love". On this scale it's roughly 2m (h) x 2m (w) x .5m (d); and is made of poly-chromed red, green and blue aluminum. So this length scale is around two meters). This statue can be compared to the patterns made by rubber inkstamps, as the typeset is reminiscent of that typically used for this purpose, looking as though someone had messed up the letter "o". It also reminded me of a box of chocolates, but mostly (because of the bright color) likening it to the human body it brought to mind the human heart. The statue is located in the center of campus, next to undergraduate admissions, close to the quad and Van Pelt library and right on Locust walk. Its in the middle of everything and is connected to all of campus through the "vascular system"of streets: it's the heart of penn that has the message love imprinted on it.

The letter O
I chose to zero in on the letter O because of it peculiarity within the sculpture. It’s tilted towards the right, which might represent the imperfections of love. The scale of this magnification level is about a meter. This letter could be compared to a toroid (my fancy way of comparing it to a doughnut), because of their similar shape.

The material
This is the third level of magnification, and on this level al we see is the material the love statue is made of (poly-chromed aluminum). The material reminded me of tin cans, because it was cold to the touch and shiny.

The campus of brotherly love
One of the reasons I chose this sculpture was because of its relationship to Philly and Penn. Philadelphia means “city of brotherly LOVE” so I felt like this sculpture on locust walk represented the campus of brotherly love, encouraging friendship and respect among students.

The function of this structure is to provoke thought and promote a positive message: LOVE. It’s an accessible but complex message, and I believe that the artist succeeds in transmitting his message through all three length scales because of various reasons. In the first scale, the bright color and size of the sculpture really attract your attention and have you wonder why the statue would be there. Upon closer inspection, the slanted O draws your eye in and makes you keep it on your mind. And the material  of which it is made complies with its function by making it sturdy and durable in the Philadelphia weather. Therefore, it represents Philadelphia because of the etymological meaning of the cities’ name, causing you to really see and think, and not just look - like this assignment wanted us to do.

Searching for structure at Penn

What's my "thing"?
As soon as I read the assignment for this week's recitation, I knew I was going to have a hard time completing it. It wasn't because of the fact that I couldn't think of a structure to analyze (not that I had that many original ideas, anyway), but rather because I couldn't think of one I would love to analyze. As I was wandering around locust Walk, walking to and from class, making my way to the quad or going to the library, I realized there was one thing that I always noticed when I walked by: the LOVE statue.
At first, I thought it would be too hard to analyze the structure of something so abstract, and that it might be a cliché to use one of the staples of Penn's campus and Philadelphia as my object. I also pondered over the questions that we had to blog about, and I thought that it would be a big challenge to compare the statue to something else and to relate its form to its function. Despite the daunting prospects, I decided to take the plunge and see what would happen if I tried to describe the LOVE statue as a "thing" across three length scales, because - after all - isn't the whole point of this assignment to learn how to connect concrete and abstract things?
I'll be back soon with the final result, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Oh the wonders of technology...

Lowering health care costs thanks to technology

This last assignment was particularly hard for me. I don’t know what people may think, but ten ways to reduce health care costs are a LOT of creative ways to use technology to solve medical issues. This is why many of the top researchers in health technologies occupy years in their fields trying to come up with an answer to this question: how can technology help us reduce healthcare costs?

Efficient Technologies

The first thing we must consider when creating new technologies to reduce health care costs is if their cost is low enough to significantly help lowering the price of medical help. Many technologies have proven to be extremely helpful in curing many diseases, even those deemed untreatable a few years ago, but the high cost of manufacturing them and the high demand they have provokes a great rise in healthcare costs. Therefore, we must engineer solutions not only to solve problems, but also to do so in a cost and energy-efficient manner. This way we will be creating technologies that better the quality of medical treatments sustainably and inexpensively.

Reducing the need for healthcare

This may seem like a trivial point, but in theory if we were all healthy there would be no demand for medical care. This doesn’t mean that we must be naïve and assume that everyone will always be healthy and well-off in society through plain diet and exercise (although this is essential considering the rising percentages of obesity and diabetes in the US), but rather that preventive measures can go a long way. An article published in the New England Journal of Medicine actually calls for health promotion and disease prevention (since preventable diseases, according to the authors, account for “approximately 70 percent of the burden of illness and the associated costs”[1], which is backed by Healthy People 2000) arguing that “reducing the need and demand for medical services is a positive solution, one that will bring better health for the individual, and that will ultimately lower medical costs”[1].

A good way to implement this plan would be with online medical and support databases, to give people access to medical information to see how they can make a difference by improving their lifestyle and personal health.

Health Information Technology Databases

Along the same lines as the previous point, health record infrastructure is one of the biggest challenges modern medicine faces. According to one source “Today's health care system is widely fragmented and hugely inefficient. Patients may be treated at multiple locations by multiple doctors who keep multiple paper records and fill out multiple paper forms seeking reimbursement from multiple insurance carriers. These inefficiencies not only lead to higher costs, they also result in poorer quality health care”[2]. Therefore, they propose a system called “telehealth” which, could “remotely monitor patients, facilitate collaboration between medical professionals, exchange medical data and images, and instantaneously provide efficient emergency service to remote areas”[2]. This way, the cost and hassle of going to the hospital (especially for chronically or disabled patients) is extinguished because there is no urgent need to make the trip to the doctor’s office.

Another interesting piece of writing concerning HIT Databases talked about “e-prescribing” and the approval of electronic health records, as well as the solution that HIT would provide “as the hardware and software that process information pertinent to storing, retrieving, sharing, and use of healthcare knowledge. This knowledge is then used for more effective communication among healthcare professionals, and for better decision-making. This includes maintaining health records online, so doctors can more easily access information when the need arises”[3].

Providing clean water

One of the most basic and overlooked ways to help better the general population’s health is to provide access to clean water. Although this is taken for granted in the United States, many nations across the globe still don’t have access to clean drinking water, which can greatly increase our life expectancy. Research by the World Health Organization shows that, with the adequate water distribution infrastructure, "an important share of the total burden of disease worldwide—around 10%—could be prevented by improvements related to drinking-water, sanitation, hygiene and water resource management”[4]. This would be a substantial change for the roughly 2.6 billion people[5] who don’t have access to this basic human need, greatly impacting global human health.

Outsourcing medical tests

With the digitization of information, outsourcing medical tests might prove to be a great solution to decrease the overall price of health care. According to one website “A number of hospitals in the US and UK are outsourcing laboratory and diagnostic tests to India as it costs about 70 to 80 per cent less to conduct them here. At the moment, this is generally limited to highly-specialized tests but experts say outsourcing of laboratory testing and diagnostic services is set to become big business in India”[6]. Another article further promoted outsourcing as a way of being competitive in the medical industry, encouraging companies to outsource the manufacture of entire medical devices[7].

Lack of competition in the high-tech medical realm

One of the biggest problems in high-tech medicine is the degree of specialization that each company must have in its specific field. This means that many corporations don’t have any competition in their area of medical technology and can therefore state their price for new devices and treatments, as there is no alternative. Take for example, the University of Maryland owns a da Vinci robot, which doctors use to perform remote minimally invasive surgery feet away from the operating table. This piece of equipment is worth roughly "$1.5 million, and every time it is used in the operating room, some $2,000 worth of parts must be replaced (for safety reasons). It takes a surgeon 12 to 18 months to learn how to use the machine, and a da Vinci operation usually takes longer than a hands-on procedure. Consequently, a University of Maryland study estimates that the robot adds about $8,000 to the price of bypass surgery"[15] . But the company who developed it (Intuitive Surgical) is the only one that produces these robots that allow quick recovery, minimally invasive surgery and access to many tight spots (useful for example in prostate surgery) commercially. Therefore there are no incentives for this firm to try to produce the machine more inexpensively, as it makes a much higher profit selling its products with enormous prices. If there was a big push towards science and research, more businesses in this field would arise that might develop similar products at more affordable prices, thus creating a healthy competition that would help lower and regulate the prices of medical technology.

Getting personal and user-friendly

This point was extremely reinforced in the “Grand Engineering Challenges” and "Healthy People 2010" reports as one of the most important goals to achieve in order to make healthcare affordable. Although it might seem unintuitive, personalizing healthcare could in fact prove to be worthwhile in the long run. Having more specific medications, tests and background information could break the “one-size-fits-all” medical perspective that exists nowadays and model a system where we begin tailoring each patient’s necessities to optimize the treatment of illnesses. Another way to encourage this would be to have user-friendly medical technology, that allows simple and clear access to medical information; thus, eliminating the obscurity of medicine and allowing people to make informed and wise choices.

Ingenious ways of using current technology

This would be one of the greatest ways to reduce healthcare costs: adapting existing technologies (and developing new ones) to accessible and affordable equipment. One company has been working on digestible chips that allow doctors to remotely monitor patients and control medication dosages, taking advantage of an already-existing wireless infrastructure and conventional laptop computers[8]. However, these chips are very expensive and still in their experimental stages, which is why insurance companies still don’t cover their use and only people on very high budgets can afford them.

Another interesting research project is being undertaken at UC Berkeley, where a group of researchers have invented a “cellscope”, a device that allows high-resolution imaging using powerful LEDs and off-the-shelf cell-phones. This invention could potentially replace regular microscopes in developing countries and remote locations thanks to its high-resolution images and affordability[9].

New research for treatment of diseases

This is how today's common vaccines started hundreds of years ago. We must invest wisely in promising experimental treatments such as stem cell research or genetic therapy, which could provide solutions to many illnesses in the future, and play an important role in disease prevention. Although it might be expensive at the beginning, in the years to come the benefits of these experimental therapies might be extremely high.

Any other ideas?

Please feel free to comment if you have any feedback or interesting ideas – I’d love to hear them!

The slinky effect

Although during inauguration the Obama administration pledged, “we will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost”[10] many people are skeptical about whether technology will in fact lower the cost of health care. It’s obvious that technological advances have greatly helped in advancing medicine, but they may also be responsible for the skyrocketing prices of health care in the US. According to the National Coalition on Health Care, the expenditure on national health “is expected to reach $2.5 trillion in 2009, accounting for 17.6 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). By 2018, national health care expenditures are expected to reach $4.4 trillion—more than double 2007 spending”[11] and the problem is that the GDP is not growing at the same rate (“average annual growth in national health spending is projected to be 6.2 percent—2.1 percentage points faster than average annual growth in gross domestic product (GDP)”[12]). Many blame technology for this rise in the national expenditure on health care, which nonetheless has enabled a much higher quality in medical services.

In fact, it seems as though it is not the quantity of health care but the value and efficiency of medical help that matters. Many nations across the world spend much less on healthcare (in percentage of GDP) and yet have higher life expectancies and lower infant mortality rates. For example, life expectancy in the US is roughly 78.1 years with about 17% of the GDP being spent on health-care, while Japan spends less than half of this percentage and has an average life expectancy at birth of 82.1 years[13].

One article reasoned, “because the spread of new technologies is relatively unrestrained in the United States, many of these technologies are used to a greater extent than in other nations, and the United States thereby incurs higher health care costs”. However I believe there are ways to prevent this. Quoting Scientific American “Providing the best and most affordable care will depend on finding and using the technology that makes the most sense”[14] at the risk of increasing the cost if we do not do so. It is the only solution to the pressing issue of rising health care costs.

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[1]James F. Fries, C. Everett Koop, Carson E. Beadle, Paul P. Cooper, Mary Jane England, Roger F. Greaves, Jacque J. Sokolov, Daniel Wright, for The Health Project; Reducing Health Care Costs by Reducing the Need and Demand for 

Consortium, July 29th 1993

[2] Jonathan Rintels; An Action Plan for America: Using Technology and innovation to 3 Address our Nation’s Critical Challenges; A report for the next administration; January 2009

[3] Chuck Kosmider; How Information Technology Can Reduce the cost of Health Care; 2009

[4]  Annette Prüss-Üstün, Robert Bos, Fiona Gore, Jamie Bartram for the World Health Organization; Safer water, Better Health; 2008

[5] World Health Organization; Health through safe drinking water and basic sanitation; 2009

[6] PTI News; Lab Tests and Diagnostics – The Next Wave of Outsourcing; 2009

[7]  Fink P, Skeen J; Outsourcing to win; December 2007

[8] Adrienne Carlson; Will Medical Technology Help Reduce Healthcare Costs?; August 8th 2009

[9] Sarah Yang, Media Relations; UC Berkeley researchers bring fluorescent imaging to mobile phones for low-cost screening in the field; July 21st 2009

[10] President Barack Obama, Inaugural Address, January 20th2009 http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml

[11] National Coalition on Health Care, Health Insurance Costs, July 2009, http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml

[12] Siska, A, et al, Health Spending Projections Through 2018: Recession Effects Add Uncertainty to The Outlook Health Affairs, March/April 2009; 28(2): w346-w357.

[13] Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, OECD Health Data 2009: Statistics and Indicators for 30 Countries, July 2009

[14] Katherine Harmon, Is Obama right that technology can lower health care costs?, January 20th 2009, http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=is-obama-right-that-technology-can-2009-01-20

[15] Michael Saha; Behind Rising Health-Care Costs, BusinessWeek; July 14th 2008


Other sources:
Healthy People 2010
Grand Challenges of Engineering

20 Great Achievements of the 20th century by the National Academy of Engineering

And the winner is...

So, as Dr. Bogen told us to do I compared my answers to those on the great achievements site (http://www.greatachievements.org/ ). According to the NAE the most influential inventions of the past century are (drumroll, please):

1. Electrification
   
2. Automobile
   
3. Airplane
   
4. Water Supply and Distribution
   
5. Electronics
   
6. Radio and Television
   
7. Agricultural Mechanization
   
8. Computers
   
9. Telephone
   
10. Air Conditioning and Refrigeration
    
11. Highways
    
12. Spacecraft
    
13. Internet
    
14. Imaging
    
15. Household Appliances
    
16. Health Technologies
    
17. Petroleum and Petrochemical Technologies
    
18. Laser and Fiber Optics
    
19. Nuclear Technologies
    
20. High-performance Materials

The day the Earth stood still

It seems as though I wouldn't be such a bad psychic after all! I mostly agree with the list provided by the NAE - even if I overlooked a few of these in my checklist - which is very similar to the one I proposed.

The categories that were exactly the same were: 

• Automobiles, Airplanes, Radio and TV, Electronics, Computers, Telephone (although the addiction to my iPhone made me slash in the cell phone), Health Technologies, Household Appliances and Internet. These are the inventions that we can't imagine our daily lives without. How did people do research for papers before they had computers and Internet? Or commute to work without a car? And what did they do on rainy afternoons if not watch re-runs of 'I love Lucy'? All these fundamentally affected the way we live day-by-day, from routine tasks such as doing laundry or getting to work, like entertainment and communications (radio, television, etc.) to high-technology enabling people to live (e.g. pacemakers) that we take for granted.

Other similarities between the lists were:

• AC and Refrigeration systems - I didn't include refrigeration systems in my list, although when you think about it, they are essential to many industries. For example, transporting foods would be a lot more complicated without freezer trucks, which would mean higher costs to distribute food quickly so that it wouldn't spoil and create food shortages. These systems also enable people to keep fresh foods stocked and regulate temperatures in their homes, as well as in public places or wherever needed (i.e. hospitals).
  

• Nuclear Technologies - OK, so I didn't include it as one of the "top" engineering achievements on the list, but that's because we had a limit, and they used generic terms instead of specific ones for other things! Anyhow, I am pretty sure we can all agree that nuclear technology, from the time of Einstein's revolutionizing equation E=mc² and the Manhattan Project to the current reactors which provide energy for millions of people[2], was one of the most important breakthroughs occurred in the twentieth century.
  

• Laser and Fiber Optics - I included lasers in my lists but didn't include fiber optics. I just figured optical fibers were how laser was originally transmitted so I thought this was implied. Notwithstanding, lasers have enabled the development of countless other technologies which are essential to the way we live today, even though we might not think about them as an everyday tool they really are. For example, they have industrial applications in mechanized processes, we've all seen them in action at the grocery store in barcode scanners and are also used routinely in medical procedures such as eyesight correction (LASIK).

• Petroleum and Petrochemical Technologies, and High Performance Materials - I only included plastic in my list, which is an extremely small use of petrochemical technologies. Fossil fuels run our world nowadays, one needs only glance at the goals of most countries to see reducing dependency on petroleum among them. These technologies literally fuel our world, from cars and machines to politics and finance.
  

• Imaging - I included things such as the electron microscope, but the imaging category includes many more applications (telescopes, video-imaging, cameras...). For example, in medical environments x-rays, MRIs, CAT scans are all forms of imaging that have allowed us to further our knowledge of diseases and medical conditions and how to treat them. Imaging is crucial to the development of our understanding in many scientific-related fields.

There were a few things I didn't think about at all. These were:

• Agricultural Mechanization - One of them was agricultural mechanization. The process that agriculture started centuries ago has slowly advanced to provide us with many automated solutions to the common problems growing crops show, therefore increasing productivity immensely. I guess since I don't see it in my daily life I took this for granted, although we all reap the benefits of this automation every day.

• Highways & Spacecraft - I guess I'm not so much of a civil (or aeronautical, for that matter) engineer! These two applications are obvious. From the development of the automobile, the United States constructed highways to connect and promote commerce to fuel the economy. Also, the space race vastly increased scientific knowledge and permitted the exploration of many different questions, such as the origin of Earth thanks to data and samples collected in outer space.
  

• Water Supply and Distribution - Although many countries do have amazing water supply and distribution infrastructure systems, this is not the situation for around half the people in the world. Water scarcity is a growing problem not only in developing countries, but in developed ones as well, as a result of global warming and carbon emissions minimizing the amount of available water. Access to clean water (for drinking, sanitation and other purposes) is one of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals[1], since it can greatly increase our life expectancy and decrease the risk of contracting serious illnesses.
  

• Electrification – There is no excuse for forgetting electrification. Without electricity, more than half the achievements I outlined would not exist. Need I say more?
  

So there you go, the 2o engineering breakthroughs from the 2oth century (the repetition of numbers and engineering seems familiar...).

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[1] United Nations Millennium Development Goals, Goal 7 Ensure Environmental Stability, Target 3; UN General Assembly, September 2000 http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/bkgd.shtml
[2] The New Nukes: the next generation of nuclear reactors is on its way, and supporters say they will be safer, cheaper and more efficient than current plants. Here's a look at what's coming -- and when; Rebecca Smith, The Wall Street Journal, September 8th 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204409904574350342705855178.html