As the year draws to a close, it’s time to look back at the groundbreaking advances that made news in 2022 and will shape the world for years to come. Here are Big Think’s selections for the top science stories of 2022:
10. For the first time, a human wears augmented reality contacts
In July, the startup Mojo Vision announced that their CEO wore the company’s prototype augmented reality (AR) contact lenses for the first time. Each device is equipped with a display that is 30 times sharper than an iPhone’s and is outfitted with all the technology needed to track a user’s eye movements. Though extremely preliminary, the technology makes real the sci-fi dream of implanted vision that allows the wearer to seamlessly interact with digital images overlaid on perceptual reality.
3. A man received a transplant of a genetically engineered pig heart
In January, a terminally ill 57-year-old man in need of a heart transplant but ineligible for the procedure became the first human to successfully receive a transplant of a pig heart. Xenotransplantations like this are usually swiftly rejected by the human body, but this heart came from a pig with ten gene edits intended to lower the risk that the human immune system would attack it. The heart functioned well, but the man, David Bennett, eventually died two months after the groundbreaking procedure.
