Innovation follows laboratory work on its way to application: what stage a technology has reached, which problems remain unsolved, and how many years typically separate a demonstration from something purchasable. Hype cycles are named as such. For investors, researchers and readers tracking developments that are genuinely near-term.
Microfluidic chips that shrink a wet laboratory onto a slip of plastic and glass have already changed infectious disease testing — and their hardest problems are now economic, not physical.
Machines that read the body's faint magnetic fields have moved from physics laboratories into early clinical studies, though regulatory approval remains limited.