A new thin film of quantum dots covers glass and transforms windows into solar panels.
The dots have a lifespan of 14 years and right now they’re trying to raise their energy
conversion efficiency from 1.9% to a more practical 6%.
And Kengoro is a biohumanoid robot from the University of Tokyo that cools itself by sweating.
Vsauce!
Kevin here.
This is Mind Blow.
Kernel is developing a memory prosthesis.
The new company has invested $100 million to further over two decades of neuroprosthetic
research by biomedical engineer Theodore Berger.
While company founder Bryan Johnson has longterm science fiction goals like the ability to
download knowledge or exchange memories, the current plan is to help people suffering from
memory disorders.
For instance, using an algorithm to instruct electrodes involved in longterm memory to
restore the circuitry in people suffering from Alzheimer's.
Boosting brains to learn a thousand times faster would happen sometime down the road.
A new hybrid power fabric uses solar as well as mechanical movement to harness power.
Solar cells are made into micro-cable structures and woven with nanogenerators to create the
smart fabric.
Not only does it charge using ambient light but the mechanical movement allows wind and
human motion to gather energy.
And researchers from the Georgie Institute of Technology say the fabric could be used
in tents, wearable garments like scarves or curtains.
Navdy is like projecting your smartphone onto your windshield.
The headup display is the world’s first augmented driving device that allows GPS navigation
and phone access without taking your eyes off the road.
The steering wheel dial allows for scrolling through or skipping songs and zooming in and
out of the map while gesture controls handle accepting and dismissing phone calls.
And after beginning pre-orders two years ago they just started shipping this week.
A brain implant allows you to feel with a robotic hand.
Neuroengineers at the University Of Pittsburg used magnetic resonance imaging to map the
regions of the patient’s brain associated with imagining a touch on different parts
of the hand.
After getting used to the system the patient could recognize the location of the touches
on a robotic hand with 100 percent accuracy but it’s still very early on in its proof
of principle stage.
Sundrop is the world’s first farm growing vegetables in the desert using seawater.
15,000 tonnes of tomatoes a year are now being grown Australia using 23,000 mirrors that
generate solar power and seawater from the Spencer Gulf.
The solar power is used to desalinate or remove the salt from the seawater to create freshwater
for the crops.
They’re now planning to create these farms in Portugal and the United States.
These E-paper displays are like reusable digital post-it notes.
Microsoft Research developed the display to run on office lights using a solar panel on
the back.
It can communicate with other e-paper displays via bluetooth, they can be updated with an
app and have a sticky back to attach to stuff easily.
Right now this is just a prototype and isn’t commercially available.
Yet.
Drones can be charged in mid-air using technology from Nikola Tesla.
Scientists from Imperial College London use inductive coupling, demonstrated by Tesla,
which allows for wireless exchange of power between copper coils.
They’re about a year away from making this commercially available and say that this technology
could also be used in healthcare devices as well as interplanetary missions.
Finally, Stanford engineers have developed gecko-inspired grippers to grab and move space
debris.
I’ve learned from gecko lizards to make small adhesive grippers that adhere to smooth
surfaces such as solar panels and fuel tanks with really little attachment and detachment
effort.
Similar functions have been achieved with the curved gripper.
Little attachment force, strong grip and clean detachment.
I’m gonna leave you with a body movement activated mid-air display - and as always
- thanks for watching.
There are those who say today that opportunities have ceased to exist.
Things are finished.
We have everything and not enough.
For years, the oilmen cursed gasoline.
It was a troublesome byproduct and they dumped millions of gallons of it into the rivers
and streams.
Then, science discovered that gasoline was liquid horsepower.
In any one of thousands of test tubes of today there may be a million job opportunities for
tomorrow.
And the industrial scientists and engineers are the pioneers of present day America.
The creators of progress.
Of new industries and new jobs.
It’s a bewildering future alright, not because there are no new frontiers but progress.
Hey I have a couple of really cool announcements - first of all I made a series with Google
Arts & Culture channel called Hyper History.
It’s a super quick look at really fascinating things throughout history including topics
from Duck-Billed Platypuses to The Missing Link.
So click here or the click the link at the top of this video’s description to watch
all five episodes.
That’s five more episodes of me talking about stuff that you should really check out.
Also, Curiosity Box #1 is almost gone forever.
Hang on.
It’s heavy because it’s full of awesome, great stuff.
But like I said there’s only a couple of days left to go until this baby is gone forever
and you can no longer get all of the exclusive items available like this great Vsauce T-shirt
of a deepsea diver climbing a tree pointing at the Vsauce constellation.
This actually glows in the dark.
It’s ridiculously cool.
So if you want to get in on the ground floor of The Curiosity Box you have to order
right now.
Okay?
Like, right now.
Like, CuriosityBox.com.
You have to go there and order right now.
After I say the word now.
Now.