Forget blue or pink explosions -- you can reveal gender just by sniffing a hand!
Researchers at Florida International University's Global Forensic and Justice
Center collected odor samples from the hands of 30 women and 30 men. They analyzed the
hands’ volatile chemical compounds -- their high vapor pressure means they float off the
skin -- and the scent was run through a protein analysis machine that predicted
biological sex with over 96% accuracy. Why does this matter? Forensic crime
scene investigation -- palm stink science could instantly rule out potential suspects.
Vsauce! One story down, seven to go. This is Mind Blow!
I really need this robot to be my friend.
We primarily think of robotic potential as giving us another set of hands, or automating
something tedious -- but sometimes we need raw power. The RoboDesign Lab at the University of
Illinois is refining a robot that can bust down a door, toss a payload, and alleviate strain in
a warehouse setting. Instead of wearing out knees, backs, and joints moving heavy boxes,
the Semi-Anthropomorphic Teleoperated Dynamic Rolling Robot can modulate its acceleration
and forces to move heavy objects -- like this box, without tipping over the water bottle.
And it can still deliver the tendies and pizza rolls your
mom makes when you redeem your Good Boy Points.
Pangolins are like weird little dinosaur dragons covered in protective scales, so put one in your
gut. A roboticist at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems was inspired by pangolin
videos he watched on YouTube to create a tiny medical robot that can curl up to fit
inside a pill. Its outside aluminum scales house a silicon body infused with magnetic microparticles,
so the 1 centimeter by 2 cm by 200 micrometer pangolin bot can be manipulated and even
heated by magnetic fields to access areas of the digestive tract the fully-soft bots can’t touch.
That means the ability to spot-treat ulcers, to stop bleeding, or to target tumors -- and just
like the pangolin, it can roll up and unroll, and it’s just the right blend of hard and soft.
This tree is a FREAK.
Cypress trees can reach about 50 meters in height -- but a Tibetan Cypress just found in
the Yarlung Zangbo Grand Canyon nature reserve has been awarded the status of Asia’s tallest
tree. At 102 meters it’s nearly 40 feet higher than the Grand Buddha at Ling Shan,
30 feet more than the Statue of Liberty, and 13 feet taller than the Peter the Great statue
in Russia. It’s over 3 meters in diameter and has a unique root system that is partly
above-ground -- and a 3D scanner using lidar mapped out every dimension and confirmed it
as the continent’s largest. And it’s basically a giant hotel for the valley’s plants and animals.
The tallest tree in the world is also in the Cupressaceae family -- a 381 foot
Redwood in California. Congratulations, trees!
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Birds are using anti-bird weapons against us!
We love birds -- but huge flocks of, say, pigeons in cities can leave disgusting, large-scale
messes. “Hostile architecture” can combat that by deterring birds from perching -- but it turns out
that crows and magpies find the spiky wires really useful for construction materials. One magpie nest
in a tree in Antwerp, Belgium contained around 1,500 metal spikes stripped from nearby buildings,
with the sharp prongs serving dual functions: they’re great building support for twigs,
and they also keep out other birds. Look,, if rival bird species like to eat your eggs,
you’ve gotta protect your kids by crafting a prickly dome that can skewer your enemies.
Everyone knows that.
It’s bionic finger time.
A combination of AI algorithms and surgical implants allows amputees to manipulate each
finger of a bionic hand. Researchers at the Center for Bionics and Pain Research in Sweden
created an electro-neuromuscular device that raises the bar for bionic limbs -- because in
the past, prosthetic limbs couldn’t do that much and had a very limited range
of motions and abilities. But by rewiring nerves to muscles and fusing the device to
bone -- which is called osseointegration -- detailed movements are possible,
with total control over individual fingers to use touchscreens, pump gas, and turn a screwdriver.
But most importantly, patients can grab the gamer fuel they need to live forever.
Radioactive moon slab!
We know way less about the far side of the Moon than you probably realize -- and a giant
radioactive granite slab doesn’t make a lot of sense. There’s a huge mass of KREEP between the
Compton and Belkovich craters -- that’s K for potassium, REE for rare earth elements,
and P for Phosphorous. But researchers at the Planetary Science Institute have now
identified a hunk 50 kilometers across and a few kilometers thick that is… weirdly hot. Because
it’s teeming with decaying thorium and uranium formed through melted rock from a volcano. The
Apollo Program’s samples would suggest the Moon’s volcanism happened 3-4 billion years
ago -- but the Compton–Belkovich Thorium Anomaly could be just a billion years old.
The far side of the Moon is keeping secrets. And we need to know more, buddy!
This axe is ridiculously old.
Imagine fighting over the last wooly mammoth rib with some Neanderthal named Krag and he
whips out a 30 centimeter, 1.6 kilogram axe. An excavation from University College London
Archaeology South-East in Kent, England unearthed 800 stone artifacts, including a massive flint axe
over 300,000 years old -- right in the transition between the Lower and Middle Paleolithic Eras. Was
it a weapon of war? Did they need a heavy tool to deliver the final blow in hunting? Or was it
simply a marker of status? A knapped blade of this size could’ve been used for chopping, butchering,
or cutting. It’s like a stoneage behemoth Swiss Army knife or something out of Diablo.
And now for the Lady Kenmore Dishwasher. Allowing wives
the freedom to bake their husband a cake in 1974.
Because it has two hot water jets that scour dishes.
And a stainless steel pulverizer for soft food waste. We call Sear's Lady Kenmore,
"The Freedom Maker" because it gives you the freedom to do more important things.