Every year for over two decades, TIME editors have highlighted the most impactful new products and ideas in TIME’s Best Inventions issue. To compile this year’s list, we solicited nominations from TIME’s editors and correspondents around the world, and through an online application process, paying special attention to growing fields—such as health care, AI, and green energy. We then evaluated each contender on a number of key factors, including originality, efficacy, ambition, and impact.

The result is a list of 200 groundbreaking inventions (and 50 special mention inventions)—including the world’s largest computer chip, a humanoid robot joining the workforce, and a bioluminescent houseplant—that are changing how we live, work, play, and think about what’s possible.

Read the full list here.

Getting lash extensions can be an uncomfortable process, involving lying with tape under your eyes on a bed for two hours. Chief technology officer Nathan Harding co-founded Luum Lash when he realized it could be improved by using robots. Luum swaps sharp application instruments for soft-tipped plastic tools, uses a safety mechanism to detach instruments from the machine before they poke a client, and employs machine learning to apply lashes more efficiently and precisely. An appointment that usually takes two to three hours takes one and a half with Luum. Luum lash artists, primarily working from the Lash Lab in Oakland, Calif., can see “up to four times the clients” daily as they could operate without the robot, says CEO Jo Lawson. So far, Luum has applied more than 160,000 eyelash extensions, charging $170 for a full set. Luum has secured 51 patents in 25 countries and plans to launch at Nordstrom’s Westfield Valley Fair Store in California in November.

Learn More at Luum Precision Lash

NuFace’s facial toning devices have been gaining popularity in recent years, but the latest model, the Trinity+ Complete, offers the combination of microcurrent and red light therapy, a hugely popular and study-backed skincare treatment. The handheld facial device has three magnetized attachments that promise to tighten facial muscles and smooth wrinkles. “As we get older, we need to exercise more to keep our bodies toned and tight,” says NuFace co-founder and CEO Tera Peterson. “The same concept goes for delicate facial muscles.” Thirty-six concentrated red LED lights are designed to smooth skin, while two attachments for administering microcurrents (one for targeting around the eyes) use up to 425 microamps to increase cellular adenosine triphosphate, providing a nearly instant, at-home facelift. The device prioritizes safety by shutting off after 20 minutes.

Buy Now: NuFace Trinity+ Complete on My Nuface | Nordstrom

“If you cut yourself, what’s the first responder?” says Rion Aesthetics CEO Alisa Lask. “Platelets—your blood.” Going off that premise, creators of Rion’s Plated Intense Serum purchase platelets from a blood bank to harness the type of exosome—an inter-cellular messenger—responsible for signaling cell renewal. With billions of exosomes per two-pump dose, Plated uses its Renewosome technology to decrease facial redness and maintain shelf stability of the serum—a challenge for stem cell-containing products. The company has the medical credentials: Rion was founded by Mayo Clinic physicians at the Van Cleve Cardiac Regenerative Medicine Program, where they discovered that exosomes play a key role in healing. The company now produces platelet-derived exosome products currently in clinical trials for wound healing, cardiology, and orthopedics, while Lask’s spinoff focuses on aesthetic applications. A 2023 clinical study found that “all patients experienced improvement in redness, skin irritation, skin tone, texture, and smoothness” with nine weeks of Plated use.

Buy Now: INTENSE Serum on Plated SkinScience

Traditionally, slacklining is for daredevils: You try to balance yourself on what looks like a not-so-tight tightrope, often slung between trees. The problem, of course, is that you can fall. So the Germany-based Gibbon created a super short and low slackline, attaching just over three feet of webbing to a wooden board. The wood’s natural springiness gives the line its “slack,” and the line itself is only three inches from the ground, which allows for low-risk balance training. “It’s great for focusing,” says Robert Kaeding, CEO and founder of Gibbon. It also allows for tricks, which were on display at the first-ever GiBoard Cup championship, in Stuttgart, earlier this year.

Buy Now: Gibbon GiBoard on GiBoard | Amazon

Darli acts as a regenerative farming mentor for small farmers around the globe, using AI to translate local languages—predominantly in Africa, Asia, and South America—and instantly give solutions to common problems. Using WhatsApp, a farmer in Uganda, for example, can text or speak with a chatbot about fertilizer, harvesting, crop rotations, how to truck the food to market, or even send a photo of discolored yams to ask if they’re diseased. Since launching in March 2024, Darli has been used by 110,000 farmers in 27 languages, including Twi, Swahili, and Yoruba. “There are millions of farmers in rural areas that speak languages not often supported by the global tech companies,” says Alloysius Attah, co-founder and CEO of Farmerline Group. “Darli is democratizing access to regenerative farming.”

This year, for the first time, TIME will debut a ranking of the World’s Top GreenTech Companies, in partnership with Statista, a leading international provider of market and consumer data and rankings, alongside its second annual ranking of America’s Top GreenTech Companies. These lists will recognize the most innovative, impactful, and successful companies whose aim is to reduce human impact on the environment.

Because many companies in this space are young, TIME and Statista are accepting applications as part of the research phase. An application guarantees consideration for the lists, but does not guarantee a spot on either list, nor are the final lists limited to applicants.

To apply, click here.

More information visit: www.statista.com/page/top-greentech-companies. Winners will be announced on TIME.com and in a print issue of the magazine in March 2025.

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When the Brazilian nutritional scientist Carlos Monteiro coined the term “ultra-processed foods” 15 years ago, he established what he calls a “new paradigm” for assessing the impact of diet on health.

Monteiro had noticed that although Brazilian households were spending less on sugar and oil, obesity rates were going up. The paradox could be explained by increased consumption of food that had undergone high levels of processing, such as the addition of preservatives and flavorings or the removal or addition of nutrients.

But health authorities and food companies resisted the link, Monteiro tells the FT. “[These are] people who spent their whole life thinking that the only link between diet and health is the nutrient content of foods ... Food is more than nutrients.”

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