Ow Ow Ow Ow

Weirdly enough, there is one prediction that looks like it panned out:

Repairing dental defects will also be revolutionized by the introduction of good, tough, and reliable polymers which will replace metallic amalgams. By the late 1990’s to early 2000’s biocompatible ceramics and coated polymers will be available that will allow for workable single tooth and multitooth gum-implanted prostheses.

It would have to be in the single least life-critical area.

A lot of those areas turned out to be intrinsically harder than anyone expected. Oncology, Alzheimer's...

One thing that I just cannot understand: We had semi-workable artificial hearts 30 years ago. Now, yes, it is hard to make surfaces biocompatible. Still, that has been accomplished in many cases. As a society, we are reasonably good at mechanical engineering. How come a quarter of us still lose our live to the failure of a pump? We hear all the time about global warming, and sustainable this and recyclable that, and sometimes about what NASA might do. Prioritizing any of those things ahead of a decent permanent artificial heart is crazy.