Alteon

A University of Virginia professor believes he has discovered how to create a freeze-ray device, inspired by the Batman villain, Mr. Freeze. Rather than being a weapon, this device is intended to cool down electronics within spacecraft and high-altitude jets.

A tiny, hard-working bacterium -- which weighs one-trillionth of a gram -- may soon have a large influence on processing rare earth elements in an eco-friendly way.

"Traditional thermochemical methods for separating lanthanides are environmentally horrible," said Buz Barstow, assistant professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell, the corresponding author. "It's difficult to refine these elements. That's why we send rare earth elements offshore -- generally to China -- to process them."

Source: https://lemmy.world/instances

Not sure how useful it is yet, but it sounds like with some AI and proper cameras you could use it to completely repair certain components. Theres something similar to this using electrochemical plating to repair microfractures throughout a component - only downside is that it takes like weeks to do it properly (I'll see if I can dig up the paper later)

Looking for some ideas for friends and coworkers. If anyone can think of anything cool, I'd love to see it.