All over the world, healthcare systems are straining under the weight of ageing populations, crippling costs and overheads and new and novel conditions exacerbated by the biodiversity crisis. 

A spate of new gadgets promises to give us more control over our health but if the social problems that underpin failing healthcare aren’t solved, how much can they do? Could we instead use seismic sensors in our feet, colour sensors on our heads and piezoelectric patches on our skin to talk to the planet? To hang out with rivers? 

LInks:

• Anonymous crypto gambler made $436,000 on Maduro capture, BBC News: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2gn93292do
• Gambling platform Polymarket not paying bets on US invasion of Venezuela, The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/07/wager-platform-polymarket-will-not-pay-out-on-bets-on-us-invasion-of-venezuela
• Roxana Chicas designs wearable patch for early detection of heat exposure, Dezeen: https://www.dezeen.com/2025/09/28/roxana-chicas-designs-wearable-patch-for-early-detection-of-heat-exposure/REFILE: Atlanta scientist creates biopatch to protect farmers from the heat and heat-related deaths, Reuters: https://www.reutersconnect.com/item/refile-atlanta-scientist-creates-biopatch-to-protect-farmers-from-the-heat-and-heat-related-deaths
• Inxects vest lets architects "feel" the health of a site like a sixth sense, Dezeen: https://www.dezeen.com/2025/01/21/gaia-communication-system-wearable-inxects/Cyborg artist Moon Ribas feels earthquakes, Next Nature: https://nextnature.org/en/magazine/story/2020/moon-ribas
• Nobody Told Me Rivers Dream, Superflux: https://superflux.in/index.php/work/nobody-told-me-rivers-dream/#
• The Americans Who Stick Gadgets Under Their Skin, VICE: https://www.vice.com/en/article/hannes-wiedemann-american-grinders-biohacking-photo-book/
• A 3-in-1 wearable and implantable biopatch for integrated in-body energy harvesting, sensing, and self-powered diabetic wound treatments: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211285525001028