Microplastics, very small plastic fragments, less than 5 millimetres in length, can be found in several places. And there’s a lot of it. A 2015 study showed that there are between 93 and 236 metric tons of microplastics in the world’s oceans. They have also been found in freshwater ecosystems, in the soil, and even in the air. Even more worrying, they have been found inside a lot of animal species.

We always seem to be playing a cat-and-mouse game for all of our scientific advances. A bacteria or virus appears, and we develop antibiotics or antiviral drugs to deal with it. One worry is that our overprescribing of antibiotics will continue to lead to an increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria, with possibly devastating consequences.

Programming was considered in the 60s and 70s a "geek activity," today it has become one of the high-paying jobs. But programmers are no less susceptible than everyone else when it comes to losing their jobs. In this article, we ask the question, "will programmers still have a job in the future?”

Satu Kalliokulju, Head of Consumer Excellence at Fiskars Group, talked about consumer futures at Fiskars. The company was founded in 1649, making it the oldest company in Finland. Their strategy is to build a family of iconic lifestyle brands – the most famous example being the orange-handled scissors.

Strategic Foresight, an important subfield of futures studies, is a discipline organizations use to gather and process information about their future operating environment. This information can include, for example, trends and developments in their political, economic, social, technological, and legal environments.

China has had a bad reputation with regard to the environment for many years. But understanding that looking out for the environment has benefits both internationally and domestically; the country has been changing. In fact, some may even argue that China is, at the moment, leading the cleantech revolution - ahead of the United States and other Western countries.

The autonomous vehicle is set to be as life-changing as the invention of the motor vehicle itself. Modern-day cities have been shaped largely by the mobility that is achieved through motor vehicles, providing transport services to people and goods alike and supported by major road networks worldwide.

Graphene, first isolated in 2004 by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov at the University of Manchester, is quite the material. Hailed as semimetal capable of disrupting the fields of electronics, energy, and others, it looked more promising than almost anything we had ever come across. But whatever happened to it?

Quantum computers, fundamentally different from your typical computer or supercomputer, hold great promise. In theory, they would help solve equations, problems, and create simulations that are beyond the reach of even the most powerful supercomputer. For that reason, a lot of people are getting excited about them.

Swarm Robotics and 3D printing are forming an intersection between teams of robots (swarms) and robots that produce physical products from conceptual designs. When teams of 3D printing robots act as an organised unit they gain the ability to carry out tasks far too complicated for an individual machine.

The modular home isn't a new concept. Look at any long-term construction site, military complex, or industrial space, and you are likely to find a few. Could they also serve as the future homes for a rapidly growing human population?

Foldable phones. Samsung has finally unveiled, and officialized its first folding phone - the Galaxy Fold. With a price tag of about 2,000 US dollars, it might not sell like an iPhone. But like the iPhone before it, it could be a game changer, and like the iPhone, it could redefine how we think about mobile phones - or screens.