The advances we cover in the Radar are reshaping, or will reshape, how we see ourselves as human beings, the way we interact with each other and our relation to the environment — and that means their applications, their potentials and implications are discussed broadly. We monitor public debate using a machine learning algorithm that analyses conversations about the emerging topics presented in the radar on the world’s media and online social platforms. We aim to understand how discussions and sentiments about science and technology issues vary between regions, age groups and topics, and to help identify the fields that require a broader societal debate. Again, these will inform the direction of future work.