Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: This is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And you know, Julie,
Speaker 1: we have some pretty sharp dressers here at How Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: but nobody really, nobody here is accessorizing today, like like
Speaker 1: we are like, can you explain this, um, this blue
Speaker 1: uh dolphiny outfit that you're wearing today? Well, it's a
Speaker 1: it's kind of shimmery first of all, and it's got um,
Speaker 1: all sorts of zippers on it. It's like very eighties,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of a throwback to a motorcycle jacket.
Speaker 1: And then I've got this fabulous fin at the bottom
Speaker 1: and um, in fact, it's this fin that can propel
Speaker 1: me through the water like twice as fast as Michael Phelps. Wow,
Speaker 1: how did you drive to work in that? Um? You know,
Speaker 1: just carefully. I've got a stitch shift, so it was
Speaker 1: just kind of a kind of stop and go and
Speaker 1: lots of looking, but you know, it's completely worth it. Wow.
Speaker 1: Well it looks pretty sharp, almost as sharp as what
Speaker 1: I'm wearing, which is a wingsuit. I did not fly
Speaker 1: to work because you you actually have to have a
Speaker 1: really significant skydiving experience to jump out of a plane
Speaker 1: in one of these. But it looks pretty sharp. But
Speaker 1: we have this awesome webbing underneath each of my arms. Um.
Speaker 1: The webbing between my that goes down between my legs
Speaker 1: is a little less awesome because it makes me kind
Speaker 1: of have to walk like a penguin, which can be
Speaker 1: a little awkward on Martha. Um. But you know, so
Speaker 1: I think a few people may miss the train this
Speaker 1: morning because of me. If you're listening, I apologize. But
Speaker 1: if I was to fall off a cliff and this
Speaker 1: thing I would, I would stand a really good chance
Speaker 1: of not dying quite as fast. Yeah, and you would
Speaker 1: kind of look like, you know, Bobby Brown. Yeah, with
Speaker 1: a sort of Bobby Brown wingsuit is what I'm looking
Speaker 1: at right now. The Bobby I like the idea of
Speaker 1: the Bobby Brown wingsuit. He's not doing anything right now.
Speaker 1: He can he can get behind this product. Oh yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: this is prerogative. So we are talking about accessorizing the
Speaker 1: not just the human wardrobe, but the human form. That's right,
Speaker 1: not content just to be human, right, And we've been
Speaker 1: doing this for a while. I mean clothing itself is
Speaker 1: basically an accessory to the human form. Like hair is
Speaker 1: not cutting it. Throw some clothing on there. If you
Speaker 1: get some hair from another animal to augment what we've
Speaker 1: got going on, and suddenly you can sustain. You can
Speaker 1: go a little farther north or a little farther south
Speaker 1: to forge for food. Right, that's right exactly. I mean
Speaker 1: it's crazy the amount of accessorising we do. Well. Our
Speaker 1: kitchen is kind of an accessory. I've heard this argument
Speaker 1: that it's basically an external stomach that we've created to
Speaker 1: to cook food, and or even just a camp fire
Speaker 1: is kind of an external stomach in a certain sense. Well,
Speaker 1: until like how's our food? Yeah? Yeah, and it makes
Speaker 1: it more digestible and does does the work that our
Speaker 1: stomach cannot or you know, will not. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's it's it's pretty fascinating the ways that we've
Speaker 1: tried to manipulate our form. And I even think about
Speaker 1: the Right brothers, which you know, of course we're land lovers.
Speaker 1: We we can't fly, but that didn't stop them, yeah,
Speaker 1: or the just count as people just for centuries beforehand
Speaker 1: that that tried and generally died or were horribly injured
Speaker 1: when they fell off of something with wings strapped to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah I could fly. Yeah yeah. We actually we have
Speaker 1: a couple of really good articles on that. We have
Speaker 1: a like a top ten early attempts at flight article
Speaker 1: on the house stuff works dot com. We're checking out
Speaker 1: that details some of these more disastrous attempts, and I
Speaker 1: wrote a short one like what was the first attempt
Speaker 1: to fly? That also goes into some of these just
Speaker 1: comic but also horrible accidents um of early attempts at
Speaker 1: human flight. That's right, But I like the way that
Speaker 1: you you put what we're talking about today. It was
Speaker 1: basically like humans trying to Mr potato head themselves. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the potato in itself. It's not you know,
Speaker 1: doing much, but you know, so some eyes and there's
Speaker 1: so some teeth on there. You know, the human form.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna excel in the water, um, like a dolphin.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna sail like a bird. So we end
Speaker 1: up it's not going to sting like a bee. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna sting like a bee. So we kind
Speaker 1: of I I couldn't help but think of like like
Speaker 1: a classroom containing all the varied forms that natural selection
Speaker 1: is generated over over millions of years. And uh and
Speaker 1: imagine like the human setting there and kind of like
Speaker 1: looking over to cheat off of somebody else's sheet, because
Speaker 1: we're we're cheating off of the work that in many
Speaker 1: of these, in some of these more bio mimetic, you know,
Speaker 1: mimicking mimick, mimicking biology forms, We're we're basically kind of
Speaker 1: cheating off of their work. You know, their natural selection
Speaker 1: has has been pushing this, uh, this design and fine
Speaker 1: tuning this design for ages, and we're just kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, looking over seeing what they're doing and copying
Speaker 1: it to our own, our own purposes. Yeah, and I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about the dolphin fins. Um, well, let's get into
Speaker 1: the dolphin fins. Yeah, where is this coming from? Like
Speaker 1: where symbolically or who came up with this great idea? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's go with that one. Okay. Ted C. Millo, whom
Speaker 1: is an inventor, basically studied the dolphin form and said, Okay,
Speaker 1: that is really cool that dolphins use something like of
Speaker 1: their energy and convert it into thrust, whereas us humans
Speaker 1: are pretty lousy in the water and we can only
Speaker 1: convert four percent of our energy into forward motions. So
Speaker 1: basically when we get into the water, it's just it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of an awkward experience if you think about it, Like,
Speaker 1: even if we put on swim fins, right, we're you know, flippers,
Speaker 1: we're only just getting like what ten to fift more efficient,
Speaker 1: right exactly, and we're still kind of just trudging through
Speaker 1: the water. Even if even if we look really elegant
Speaker 1: like Michael Phelps, which I know that when I swim my,
Speaker 1: like really elegant like him, it's still not the best,
Speaker 1: uh way to make our way through that sort of
Speaker 1: uh discuss material, I guess you could say. So this
Speaker 1: guy Semlo, great, totally interesting guy. He decides that he's
Speaker 1: going to create a two and a half pound fin
Speaker 1: um and this is made by his company called Luna Set,
Speaker 1: and uh it's basically like a piece of foam and
Speaker 1: it's got a really big span so it allows you
Speaker 1: to now go twice as fast as Michael Phelps in
Speaker 1: the water. It's kind of like a mermaid uh flipper, right, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: And so the really cool thing about this too is
Speaker 1: that he envisions that eventually and they've been messing around
Speaker 1: with us that that you can breach completely out of
Speaker 1: the water like a dolphin, you need to actually jump
Speaker 1: up into the air, yes, like like SeaWorld style, which
Speaker 1: then I start to think, of course, well, are they
Speaker 1: going to replace the dolphins with the human humans breaching
Speaker 1: the water? Oh? Man? And then you'll like, you'll be
Speaker 1: able to go, You'll be out in California, be able
Speaker 1: to take tour boats out to watch like the crazy
Speaker 1: um dolphin people. Yes, coming up to the side of
Speaker 1: the boat and like, you know, following following the boat
Speaker 1: like they do and jumping out of the water exactly.
Speaker 1: Although I still think the humans might be fired. I
Speaker 1: feel like they won't be able to do the tricks
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah yeah, I don't know. But what they
Speaker 1: can was they can have those guys like the dolphin
Speaker 1: people hanging out in the back of the boat and
Speaker 1: if they're they start freaking out. It's like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: we're not singing any whales, we're not singing any dolphins.
Speaker 1: They're like, call those guys in, We're not sending these
Speaker 1: people back disappointed. I like that. I want to ride
Speaker 1: the humans me um. Well. CML also is envisioning this
Speaker 1: hydro touring aspect of it too, which is basically that
Speaker 1: you get a group of people who have these fins
Speaker 1: on and they can go really long distances throughout the day.
Speaker 1: They've got waterproof gear, backpacks, and they can basically just
Speaker 1: go and hang out in the oceans as long as
Speaker 1: they want and tour around. And of course that makes
Speaker 1: me think of like these marauding gangs. Oh we'll see,
Speaker 1: I was. I had a much more optimistic view that
Speaker 1: I was thinking like sort of wandering hippies of the sea,
Speaker 1: you know, especially since this guy that comes from Athens, Georgia,
Speaker 1: which I mean, granted has the whole like football side
Speaker 1: of it, but then there's also kind of like a
Speaker 1: hit thee, you know, music incompatible with the world outside
Speaker 1: of Athens quality too. I Mean, I love Athens, but
Speaker 1: I can't help but think of the patent Oswalt quote
Speaker 1: that it's one of those places where people like leave
Speaker 1: Athens and then they're they're like, what you can't you
Speaker 1: can't pay for a meal with a song in this
Speaker 1: in this town, you know. So it's true, it does
Speaker 1: have its own little special bubble of reality to it,
Speaker 1: and so it makes sense that it produced this guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah totally so. But but yeah, indeed, Weather we're talking
Speaker 1: you know, your vision of of you know, marauding, um,
Speaker 1: you know Hell's Angels with flippers. Yeah yeah. Can't you
Speaker 1: just see them going up to the snorre flowers, like
Speaker 1: the tourists who are all snorkeling, and just start jabbing
Speaker 1: them and you know, running away really quickly or swimming away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what with like the bottle knows that they wear over
Speaker 1: their mouth exactly. Yeah yeah, yeah, that along with like
Speaker 1: a Nixon mask. Yeah. Well, okay, all right, I can
Speaker 1: I feel like the hippie idea a little better. But but
Speaker 1: but I mean, either way, they would be heading out
Speaker 1: to like a local little island with their sack full
Speaker 1: of like with their cell phone and their GPS system
Speaker 1: and some peanut butter sandwich. Yeah, unless they're really into it.
Speaker 1: Maybe they only they start only eating like you know,
Speaker 1: like raw fish. Oh, like they just really embrace it.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and they start spearing their fish. Yeah. You
Speaker 1: could create an entire community out of this. This doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be like a day trip. It could be
Speaker 1: a way of life. Yeah. But this guy Semial He
Speaker 1: also created a human powered submarine and I don't know
Speaker 1: if he's actually used it to cross the Atlantic, but
Speaker 1: I know that he's planning to. And it too has
Speaker 1: a bio mimicry and it it's it's got a a
Speaker 1: foil like a dolphin's tail. Okay, now, how many humans
Speaker 1: does he have to enslave to power it? For him?
Speaker 1: You know what? This is the good news? Just one,
Speaker 1: just just himself. Oh okay, that's actually that's a lot
Speaker 1: more optimistic. Yeah yeah, And I mean I can't quite
Speaker 1: get my head around it because it's fifty pounds, But
Speaker 1: it's been explained like a StairMaster crossed with a cross
Speaker 1: country ski machine in the arm and leg drive system
Speaker 1: is linked to the flapping tail through a system of pulleys.
Speaker 1: And that seems really exhausting to me. I really hope that, um,
Speaker 1: the the inventor is not out there right now on
Speaker 1: the bottom of the ocean in this thing. Now. I
Speaker 1: know that would be awful. But I knew that he
Speaker 1: was planning it for like his forty birthday or to
Speaker 1: celebrate his his forty year. And here's a quote on
Speaker 1: his website. He said, I want to spend time out
Speaker 1: on the open ocean, and something I built with my
Speaker 1: own hands, pondering my own existence. So obviously the only
Speaker 1: way to really achieve that is to build a personal submarine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't run a boat, yeah, starting evil gazing. You just
Speaker 1: have to create your own power petaled submarine. Well, we're
Speaker 1: making fun of it a little, but it is kind
Speaker 1: of now it's really I'm making fun of it because
Speaker 1: it's so cool. I want one of my own, and
Speaker 1: I wish I had the own that sort of initiative
Speaker 1: to be like, you know, I want to ponder in
Speaker 1: the best way I can ponder in the middle of
Speaker 1: the ocean, and I'm going to make that happen for me. Cool.
Speaker 1: It also make it reminds me that we do have
Speaker 1: an article on the site about whether a um giant
Speaker 1: squid could take down a submarine or not. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean that we haven't even discussed rogue waves. Yeah, rogue waves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that could take animal or um you know,
Speaker 1: side stitches. I think that can really thank you in
Speaker 1: this particular advice. Oh yeah, I didn't even thought about that. Yikes. Yeah. Yeah, See,
Speaker 1: you can't eat your peanut butter and jelly sandwich, then
Speaker 1: you definitely would have to take breaks. So that's one
Speaker 1: way that we're trying to look over at our classmate
Speaker 1: the dolphin and say, what's what's going on with you
Speaker 1: and your design, which I think is pretty cool that
Speaker 1: we're trying to co op cool as long as we
Speaker 1: don't do any you know, crazy damage in our marauding gangs. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: while while our marauding um um Luna set that wears
Speaker 1: are busy in the ocean um in the air, we
Speaker 1: have people wearing wingsuits like and uh and and these
Speaker 1: are these are pretty awesome. Recently, there's been a couple
Speaker 1: of I mean they by they kind of pop up
Speaker 1: in the news. I guess like wingsuits one of those
Speaker 1: things that the economy doesn't really hurt because they're always
Speaker 1: going to be crazy people who want to jump out
Speaker 1: of an airplane and sort of fly for a little bit.
Speaker 1: I mean, they fly, But if you've got that kind
Speaker 1: of discretionary income, you're probably not too badly hurt by
Speaker 1: the the economy. Because recently in the news and both
Speaker 1: of these relate to the Red Bull Skydiving team, which
Speaker 1: is basically a wingsuit with a bunch of Red Bull
Speaker 1: logos on it. And uh, they're not like wearing a
Speaker 1: red bull can mascot outfit or anything. They don't have
Speaker 1: what it touched their head with a straw coming down.
Speaker 1: But there's a guy named Valerie rose Off and he's
Speaker 1: a Russian and he recently glided uh forty seconds when
Speaker 1: he jumped off of Vatana Mountain in uh Antarctica. And
Speaker 1: that's a nine thousand, six d sixteen foot peak. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's video that online. It's worth checking out. It's
Speaker 1: extremely terrifying because even though you kind of well on YouTube,
Speaker 1: I guess all all you know, bets are off, but
Speaker 1: I figured he probably wasn't going to crash into the
Speaker 1: side of the mountain and die horribly. But you kind
Speaker 1: don't know when you watch this, uh this film, because
Speaker 1: he's pretty close to the side well, And I think
Speaker 1: it's fascinating that it's not enough just to fly through there.
Speaker 1: It's to try to get as close to the mountain
Speaker 1: and the cliff as possible. I mean, isn't that that's
Speaker 1: sort of part of the whole wingsuit thing. If if
Speaker 1: you're an enthusiast, well with the base jumpers, I think
Speaker 1: it just kind of comes with the territory because you
Speaker 1: know you're jumping off of a mountain. You know it's
Speaker 1: gonna be you're not gonna necessarily get that much distance,
Speaker 1: but plenty of these guys do it also just you know,
Speaker 1: out of planes and it's all about that seems to
Speaker 1: be just all about soaring as far as possible. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know over when watching the mountains and stuff just
Speaker 1: pass underneath you. So I think there are different schools
Speaker 1: of thought on it. But the other news item related
Speaker 1: to the Red Bull sky Diving Team. Um, but I
Speaker 1: think it's like the last month or so in the
Speaker 1: Santa Monica area, they had UFO sidings and it turned
Speaker 1: out to be I was strange lights in the sky. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's just the Red Bull Skydiving Team. So so if
Speaker 1: you see a UFO, you know, don't freak out. It
Speaker 1: could just be these guys. Um. And if something comes
Speaker 1: into your house and you have like an abduction, abduction
Speaker 1: experience like we've experienced, like we discussed that previously, Uh,
Speaker 1: try to look at their legs and see if there's webbing, right.
Speaker 1: And it's not Bobby Brown by the way, But I
Speaker 1: do think that's kind of funny when you think about it, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, an octogenarian when such good eyesight looking up
Speaker 1: in the in the air and seeing what looks to
Speaker 1: be like these flying squirrels coming at them. Yeah. Yeah. Basically,
Speaker 1: if you think of a flying squirrel, you're imagining the
Speaker 1: suit pretty spot on, because it's all about creating an
Speaker 1: air foil, uh, you know. And uh and so it's
Speaker 1: like webbing under the arm and between the legs, and
Speaker 1: so you like, you spread your arms, you tuck your head.
Speaker 1: I better not tuck my head away from the mic.
Speaker 1: You tuck your head right now, yeah, and uh, and
Speaker 1: you spread your legs and and you create this air
Speaker 1: foil so you can generate some lift. Now, you can't
Speaker 1: get enough. It's not enough to you're still fall you're
Speaker 1: still gonna, you're still kind of falling. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: just sending anyway. You can't really ascend in this in
Speaker 1: this kind of suit, but you can. You can steer,
Speaker 1: you can glide around just by moving your your legs.
Speaker 1: The the airfoil itself. It's pretty brilliant because if you
Speaker 1: look back in uh, in parachuting history, like the first
Speaker 1: parachute jump from an airplane was nineteen twelve, which was
Speaker 1: just uh nine years after the right brothers. So you know,
Speaker 1: we we were on this pretty quick. It's like, woh,
Speaker 1: this is great, we can fly, but can we jump
Speaker 1: out of so? Um. You had a lot of people
Speaker 1: back then they were trying to incorporate wings into their
Speaker 1: design because you know, they're trying to come up with
Speaker 1: ways to steer and and you know, the dream of
Speaker 1: human flight without the aid of this airplane is just
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's older than the idea of the airplane.
Speaker 1: Really you look back to you know, the myths of
Speaker 1: Vicarius and Dadalus and all that, or even looking at
Speaker 1: da Vinci's drawings right exactly. Yeah, so it really predates
Speaker 1: the idea of creating a flying machine. Um. But of
Speaker 1: the seventy five original pioneering birdmen, uh seventy two testing
Speaker 1: their new designs and techniques between just between nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: and nine sixty one. Because you throw these uh these
Speaker 1: these different wings on and suddenly you have just just
Speaker 1: like extra limbs that can become entangled in the shoot
Speaker 1: um or like you know, I like to think, you know,
Speaker 1: you jump out and then you go to check your
Speaker 1: pocket watch and uh and then bam, you go into
Speaker 1: a spin because you have a wing out here on
Speaker 1: the side of your arm. So the the wingsuits, though,
Speaker 1: they solve a lot of this really in a really
Speaker 1: neat way, because you don't have like the wings are you.
Speaker 1: They're not wings tacked onto you, and and they the
Speaker 1: membranes inflate when you jump out because the air rushing
Speaker 1: up towards you like goes into these chambers and it
Speaker 1: kind of inflates you to a certain degree. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can still moving on, but it gives it kind
Speaker 1: of gives it more of a structure. And so it's
Speaker 1: not just like you know, some loose webbing underneath the army.
Speaker 1: That's pretty nuts. So I have to say, I think
Speaker 1: that's that's a speed freak thing. Yeah, And if you're
Speaker 1: interested in doing it, um, just keep in mind that
Speaker 1: you're going to I mean, you can wear one to
Speaker 1: work like I'm doing. It's no problems. You know. Just
Speaker 1: to be careful when the train comes when you're on
Speaker 1: the platform exactly because that that that train breeze will
Speaker 1: catch you, believe me, but you you recommended, it's recommended
Speaker 1: you have a five hundred jump traditional skydiving jumps under
Speaker 1: your belt before you even strap on a beginner wingsuit,
Speaker 1: and those will cost your own six D dollars less
Speaker 1: less estimate I looked at and if you get an
Speaker 1: advance model you're looking at at well, you know, well
Speaker 1: over twice that. Yeah. So um, some experience probably and
Speaker 1: as well as an understanding of basic physics probably helps
Speaker 1: a lot in terms of, yeah, surviving your fun experience exactly. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is an advanced skydiving technique, so that that really
Speaker 1: has to be stressed. It's it's it's an it's it's
Speaker 1: an advanced technique. So don't just don't try and build
Speaker 1: one on your own. No, no, kids, don't do that
Speaker 1: in your backyard there. Yeah. Well, there's another really cool
Speaker 1: way that we're using accessories I suppose you could call them,
Speaker 1: which is neural prosthetic devices. Okay, So the cool thing
Speaker 1: about this is that these devices use neural implants consisting
Speaker 1: of an array of electrodes that are implanted in the
Speaker 1: brain to monitor a small set of neurons. Okay, and
Speaker 1: now this is related to our nervous system exactly. And
Speaker 1: so if you think about the brain is an electrical device,
Speaker 1: an electricity. Electricity is a common language. So that's what
Speaker 1: allows us to interface the brain to these electronic devices,
Speaker 1: so it detects an individual's intentions to maneuver an object,
Speaker 1: such as a prophetic limb. And I'm thinking about the
Speaker 1: bionic arm, which allows you to basically say, you know,
Speaker 1: a quick command like move fingers here or go there,
Speaker 1: and then it basically takes that signal and allows your
Speaker 1: hand to move, which is incredible if you think about,
Speaker 1: especially if you've lost a limb. Um, you know, it
Speaker 1: can be used in so many different ways. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's really incredible. Um, it'sens So it seems seems
Speaker 1: like the ones I've seen, you know, schematics of it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a little legs so it's like a
Speaker 1: little metal plate in the interior of the device, like
Speaker 1: this kind of a sensor. Yeah. And in fact they
Speaker 1: tested it a monkey, of course. Oh yes, yeah, so
Speaker 1: of course they present a monkey with a bionic arm.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna assume that the monkey lost that arm naturally.
Speaker 1: I'm not even to tarnish my brain with with any
Speaker 1: other possibility. You know, I can't remember right off hand,
Speaker 1: but maybe this is my brain creating a cover memory
Speaker 1: because I was trymatised by that myself. But I want
Speaker 1: to say that they actually just strapped it on top
Speaker 1: of the arm. Oh well that's good, which does it
Speaker 1: means doesn't make it any freakier looking, right, Um, but
Speaker 1: again that might be a cover memory that just created.
Speaker 1: Still the end result, monkey with a mechanical arm. There
Speaker 1: you go, That's that's progress right there. Um. But it
Speaker 1: actually is progress because ultimately it can help out a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Yeah, even if they did, even if
Speaker 1: they did have to saw off a monkey's arm. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, the fact that you can help all these
Speaker 1: people with that have that have lost a limb is
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. Yeah. Yeah, And then I was reading too that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's so fascinating that you can take
Speaker 1: the neural code and break it down like that. And
Speaker 1: now that we have figured out that genome, you know,
Speaker 1: what can we do how can we apply that to
Speaker 1: the way that we're operating with prosthetics? You know? Is
Speaker 1: there is there a deeper way I guess to embed
Speaker 1: the information so that it's it's coming. Um. Two is
Speaker 1: a much more complex fashion. So are you are you
Speaker 1: getting into the area who we're talking about not just
Speaker 1: simply having a machine replacement to to feed off of
Speaker 1: existing Uh, neural points, but too potentially create new neural
Speaker 1: points exactly or yeah, exactly, and and enhance not just replaced,
Speaker 1: but enhance what we can already do. So I guess
Speaker 1: it's sort of like moving toward the bionic man, yeah,
Speaker 1: or like creating so like something I'm like, if you
Speaker 1: see people that run with their like their iPod or
Speaker 1: the MP three player like strapped their shoulder, like, so
Speaker 1: what if they had a neural uh connection on their
Speaker 1: old docking station? Yeah? So if they don't yea, if
Speaker 1: they don't like the song that's playing, they can just
Speaker 1: skip to the next track by like you know, just
Speaker 1: thinking about apples or something. Man, I have to say
Speaker 1: that that is something that I would probably get under
Speaker 1: the ninth four. That's pretty cool. I know. That's seriously though,
Speaker 1: have you ever sat and I thought, oh God, I
Speaker 1: don't want to get up and change the iPod or
Speaker 1: I'm so lazy that I can't even pick up this remote.
Speaker 1: Now you haven't, well yeah, sometimes just admit it. Um,
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. And then uh, there's along that same
Speaker 1: sport of idea of improving upon what we already have,
Speaker 1: or is something called the carbon nanotube muscles UM, this
Speaker 1: is really cool. It's basically a next generation muscle made
Speaker 1: out of carbon nanotubes and UM. So you know, carbon
Speaker 1: nanotubes are about a hundred thousand times thinner than human hair.
Speaker 1: It's they're super light and they're stronger than steel and
Speaker 1: carbon nanotubes when they contract at three per second. That
Speaker 1: you think about the human muscle, which contracts at around
Speaker 1: per second. So all of a sudden, you have this
Speaker 1: ability for super crazy strength. If you can apply this
Speaker 1: to artificial loombs. Yeah, and there's a guy named Ray
Speaker 1: Bowman who UM has produced a formulation that's stronger than
Speaker 1: steel actually, and it's light as air, and it's more
Speaker 1: flexible than rubber. And in addition to being used in
Speaker 1: artificial limbs, that can be used to make smart skins,
Speaker 1: which are the shape changing structures which shape shifting. It's
Speaker 1: like my favorite thing. That's pretty cool and ultra strong robots.
Speaker 1: But in the media in the immediate future, it's just
Speaker 1: gonna be good for highly efficient solar cells. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: I mean nanotubes are one of those things where it's like,
Speaker 1: if you you look at any kind of contemplation of
Speaker 1: advanced structural UM technology, nanotubes tend to show up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: almost everything is predicated on that. Yeah, everything from you know, uh,
Speaker 1: space elevators to know to solder say les. They're frequently
Speaker 1: sided right, and they're being used. I mean that That's
Speaker 1: the amazing thing is that, Okay, there, maybe this one
Speaker 1: guy is playing around with him right now, but that
Speaker 1: translates to them being used pretty in a word spread
Speaker 1: way in like twenty years. And the whole thing about
Speaker 1: the limbs you're you're talking about is I'm of course
Speaker 1: you instantly think of like superpower grip where you're just
Speaker 1: like crushing everything inside. But the key here, uh seems
Speaker 1: to me is also speed. I mean you see some
Speaker 1: of the you know, in many cases outdated examples of
Speaker 1: mechanized prosthetic limbs, and you see kind of like a
Speaker 1: slow robotic kind of thing going on, right because there
Speaker 1: it has to depend on hydraulics, um or or even
Speaker 1: kind of just sort of puppetry type devices. You know.
Speaker 1: But but if you have these nanotives, but we would
Speaker 1: have this the speed of of reaction and uh and
Speaker 1: and you know, you'd be able to downplay it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a situation of like like please don't touch anything,
Speaker 1: because you will crush everything that you love. Would be
Speaker 1: more like, you know, there would be a controlled system
Speaker 1: where it's like, yes's ahead and touch the apple. It's
Speaker 1: going to be more of more of a lifelike maneuver
Speaker 1: and uh and uh and you know grasp ability right,
Speaker 1: But I mean, would it also, um, Santa reason that
Speaker 1: you could also accelerate yourself? Yeah, there was a reason
Speaker 1: to um, but it's not like you know, I was
Speaker 1: thinking like, okay, you can make legs east, you can
Speaker 1: do like super jumping abilities. But then that seems extraordinarily dangerous,
Speaker 1: So I don't know how useful that is. It could be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right that there's there's a lot of contemplation that
Speaker 1: needs to go on here before it starts to be
Speaker 1: released to mass audience. I believe this presentation is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Intel sponsors of tomorrow. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you knew this. Um. The carbon nanotube infused steel
Speaker 1: was thought to be used to me to make Damascus blades,
Speaker 1: which is history's sharpest sword. Really yeah, yeah, and the
Speaker 1: the technique has been lost. But when they actually looked
Speaker 1: at the swords, they found that carbon nano tubes and
Speaker 1: nano wires were used in the sample of a seventeenth
Speaker 1: century sword forged from damask of steel. Wow, I did
Speaker 1: not know that. That's pretty incredible, but I mean so
Speaker 1: that I think that was sort of an accident of science,
Speaker 1: you know, back in the day. But it's really interesting
Speaker 1: to find out that that was used in this material. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and especially interests when you look at the Damascan space
Speaker 1: elevators of the of the day. Those were pretty those
Speaker 1: were yeah, I mean they are an elegant interpretation of
Speaker 1: that absolutely. So what the accessory item do we have
Speaker 1: next year on the list? Exoskeletons, which again you can
Speaker 1: carbon ano tubes eventually could be used with us. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And of course, the great thing about i mean exo
Speaker 1: skeletons if you're at all, if you're like a guy
Speaker 1: and you're into sci fi at all, then you're just
Speaker 1: probably in love with the idea of exo skeletons because
Speaker 1: they're everywhere. I mean, it's back to like uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Starship Troopers, you know, the novel to you know, stuff
Speaker 1: like the whole Warhammer forty thousand world with all these
Speaker 1: you know power uh, you know, mechanized power armor that
Speaker 1: these guys are wearing to you know, do all sorts
Speaker 1: of amazing things, or even like aliens where you have
Speaker 1: really fighting. It just was thinking about her stepping into
Speaker 1: her excess skeleton. Yeah yeah, so it's like it's it's
Speaker 1: it's another one of these things that it's just, you know,
Speaker 1: we just can't get enough of the idea that you
Speaker 1: could strap on this this armor that would just make
Speaker 1: you a superhuman, right, and it's here in existence. Luckheed
Speaker 1: Martin has actually developed it, and it's been dubbed the Hulk,
Speaker 1: which is human Universal Load Carrier. I love how they
Speaker 1: claim that any that the Hulk thing is just accidental.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh you mean, oh wait, are you trying
Speaker 1: to tell me that there's a comic book character that
Speaker 1: has that's green and has super We had no idea,
Speaker 1: what a weird coin? No, no, you know that they
Speaker 1: put like together, thank Tank for that, and do buy
Speaker 1: somewhere in. Twenty hours later they came out with Hulk. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um oh. The suit weighs eighty two pounds. Purportedly, when
Speaker 1: a soldier is strapped in, they don't feel that weight.
Speaker 1: They feel virtually nothing when it comes to that, and
Speaker 1: then it allows the wear to effortlessly lift two pounds.
Speaker 1: But this is pretty cool too because it can also
Speaker 1: be accessorized with missile launchers or even steel shield capable
Speaker 1: of yeah, capable stuffing munitions dead in their tracks. See
Speaker 1: this is this is just straight up space marine stuff,
Speaker 1: I know. And it's here again. I'm I'm pretty excited
Speaker 1: about it. Most of the models use a hydraulic system
Speaker 1: which is controlled by an onboard computer. And just in
Speaker 1: case you're wonderingly, well, you know what, what's the power source.
Speaker 1: It's an eighteen pound battery and it's a lithium uh
Speaker 1: you know battery I believe, excuse me, a lithium one
Speaker 1: and it lasts for three to four days and it
Speaker 1: can be recharged using a hum vy just in case
Speaker 1: you're worried about that. Yeah, and uh, right now, they're
Speaker 1: testing them. Uh actually, they'll be testing them in the
Speaker 1: spring on real soldiers in the military, and then they'll
Speaker 1: be using them in Afghanistan. So they should complete their
Speaker 1: tests by about and then introduced them to the market
Speaker 1: and their mass market commercial market. And just in case
Speaker 1: you're interested, that's it's around. You probably want to get
Speaker 1: a backup one, okay and make sure you have homebies
Speaker 1: parked everywhere you can, consumably exactly because when one of
Speaker 1: these suits powers down, that's the thing. It's like you're
Speaker 1: kind of in this big tomb. I guess, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'm just thinking too, is that one of those
Speaker 1: things that you buy and then it powers down and
Speaker 1: you get it never really get around to putting it
Speaker 1: back up. Having an iPhone, Yeah, I also thinking you'd
Speaker 1: just sit in your closet. There goes that Exo suit again.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't really power it up. Another really interesting one
Speaker 1: out there because a number of different people are working
Speaker 1: on different variations of the Exo skeleton. Um, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a one that comes out from that. The Honda
Speaker 1: has been working on the Hondo Exo Skeleton lay and
Speaker 1: these are pretty awesome because it looks basically like a
Speaker 1: bicycle seat with a belt, uh and like robotic robotic
Speaker 1: leg braces that go down to shoes and so you
Speaker 1: kind of end up looking like you have to look
Speaker 1: at a picture this because you kind of end up
Speaker 1: looking like you have mecha legs and like Meca groin
Speaker 1: in this because the bicycle seat thing kind of like
Speaker 1: you know, comes up in both sides. It kind of like,
Speaker 1: what's the did you say it cuts you on both sides. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, it kind of looks like a weird
Speaker 1: cod piece in the front. So you see these, you know,
Speaker 1: wonderful demonstrations by you know, these very very nice, polite
Speaker 1: looking Japanese scientists and uh, massive cod piece and robotic legs.
Speaker 1: It's pretty pretty awesome. But they they this would come
Speaker 1: in like different sizes and would weigh about fourteen point
Speaker 1: three pounds and again lithium ion battery and in this
Speaker 1: particular exo skeleton, you'd be able to walk like two
Speaker 1: point eight miles for that per hour for about two
Speaker 1: hours when I'm having to worry about charging it. That's
Speaker 1: not that if you want to take a stroll. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then there's the m t Exo Scout Alton and
Speaker 1: uh again this is this is another one's very similar
Speaker 1: to some of the other things we're looking at, um
Speaker 1: the prototypes um I was I was researching. They have
Speaker 1: It's one of these things where we have legs that
Speaker 1: are braced and then kind of a back area and
Speaker 1: so the idea is not as much to like you're
Speaker 1: not providing like, oh I can walk forever because my
Speaker 1: legs are robots or you know, I have super you
Speaker 1: know strength for kicking the enemy. It's about supporting a
Speaker 1: massive payload on your back without feeling it. It's like
Speaker 1: transferring the weight through these robotic exoskeleton legs to the ground. Okay,
Speaker 1: so every time I move into a new house, this
Speaker 1: is the thing that I want to buy. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's it's really cool. And then it's because it's the
Speaker 1: when we were talking earlier about like shield attachments and
Speaker 1: missile attachments. It's like that's just like just straight up
Speaker 1: like kind of a sci fi vision and it's easy
Speaker 1: to get caught up in that. But this is more
Speaker 1: like sort of practical area. It's like, if you need
Speaker 1: a guy to carry a whole lot of stuff, um,
Speaker 1: you know, this is a way to do it. That
Speaker 1: was this the one that you were saying that they
Speaker 1: might end up renting or it's not necessarily something that
Speaker 1: you have to buy, But um I think um, I
Speaker 1: think that the Japanese models are the ones that they're
Speaker 1: talking about making available to the public for rental. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I could go to home depo and rent this,
Speaker 1: um well, whatever home depot is Okay, yeah, whatever that is. Um.
Speaker 1: Then there's another one also in Japan, though, who are
Speaker 1: on the subject from Japan's Cyberdyne, which this whole okay,
Speaker 1: Cyberdyne for those of you who are film buffs. Um,
Speaker 1: this was the name of the company that built the
Speaker 1: sky net system in the Terminator films. So you know,
Speaker 1: the Japanese have such a more optimistic view of a
Speaker 1: robotic future than it seems like everybody else. So they
Speaker 1: just happily named their company Cyberdyne, and they named their
Speaker 1: their exo skeleton system the how ex exoskeleton, as in
Speaker 1: the robot that goes berserk in two thousand one. So
Speaker 1: it's yet robots suit hybrid assistive limb or how exoskeleton. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that doesn't inspire confidence to me. Yeah, though they have
Speaker 1: a lot of that. They do have a lot of
Speaker 1: like cooler ideas in mind for hovice would be used.
Speaker 1: They think it would be used up for to train doctors, uh,
Speaker 1: to help in physical therapy as people you know, re
Speaker 1: you regain use of their their limbs, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: asist disabled people. Uh. And that this is an idea
Speaker 1: you also see in uh New Zealand's Rex exoskeleton, which again,
Speaker 1: Rex it's I I just refuse to believe that they're
Speaker 1: not coming up with the these first. But but the
Speaker 1: idea is, like, you know, instead of somebody being confined
Speaker 1: to a wheelchair, uh, an exo skeleton system would give
Speaker 1: them the liberty to walk around like uh, you know,
Speaker 1: as if they still have the use of their legs,
Speaker 1: which is which is pretty cool, but they have been
Speaker 1: Also Cyberdyne is looking at ways it would allow laborers
Speaker 1: to carry heavier loads and to aid in emergency rescues.
Speaker 1: So pretty cool. Yeah, I have to tell you, um,
Speaker 1: I have something to do at once. I need to
Speaker 1: actually run over to the Yeah how many? How many
Speaker 1: laps do you have to do to get a decent
Speaker 1: workout when you're superpowered? Though? Oh? Just like thousand? Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna dominate the lane for a couple
Speaker 1: of hours. If anybody gets in there, just Bottle knows them,
Speaker 1: they'll they'll get out. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna let the
Speaker 1: staff know there. So, hey, we have a couple of
Speaker 1: listener male items here. Shall I look at them? Please? Do? Okay,
Speaker 1: let me see if I can reach them in this
Speaker 1: You just get hooked on all right, I got it. Okay,
Speaker 1: this one comes to us from a listener by the
Speaker 1: name of Gin and Uh she addresses you. Actually, she says,
Speaker 1: I recently found it found U interesting U to the
Speaker 1: episodes that Duly mentions a vomitorium and says that Romans
Speaker 1: would eat until they've vomited and then eat more. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if that was ever a cultural Roman thing
Speaker 1: or not, but the vomitarium was actually something completely different.
Speaker 1: Vomitarium was an archway of Roman theater, such as the colosseum,
Speaker 1: where the people would enter or leave. It's called a
Speaker 1: vomitarium because of the way it looked when crowds of
Speaker 1: people would swarm out of the door, like the building
Speaker 1: of vomiting people. I guess she's right, and I was
Speaker 1: actually referring to sharks. I think we're talking That was
Speaker 1: the inside Out podcast, and we were talking about sharks
Speaker 1: emptying their stomachs, and I think I likened it to
Speaker 1: a vomitorium. And later on we were doing some reading
Speaker 1: for Pyrocross Plastic Flow and actually came on the um.
Speaker 1: So thank you Jen for pointing that out. It's absolutely right.
Speaker 1: Do I wish that there was a vomitorium. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna lie, you know. Yes, I've always thought it was
Speaker 1: really cool, um that you could stuff yourself so horribly
Speaker 1: and then go vomit, and then there would be a
Speaker 1: loot player there to cover up the sound of the
Speaker 1: vomiting um or me vomitings. I should say, um, but no,
Speaker 1: you're you're right, And I guess this is another thing
Speaker 1: we're hanging on the Romans, right, yeah, yeah, I don't see.
Speaker 1: I don't understand whly you have to be put down
Speaker 1: on the Roman Empire. A lot of great things, I know,
Speaker 1: but like to think of them as hedonist, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: free wheeling. Well we have we have one more bit
Speaker 1: of a listener mail here from Hope speaking of Romans.
Speaker 1: This one is apparently from a listening by the name
Speaker 1: of buddhica Um, who was, of course the the the
Speaker 1: warrior Queen was, or belief for people were crushed by
Speaker 1: the Romans at one point. We'd have to ask the
Speaker 1: history gals about this because it was also an on
Speaker 1: your track as I recall, so there back back from
Speaker 1: my on your listening days. But anyway, Buddha my little
Speaker 1: on yeah, budicas rights, I believe you mistitled the podcast.
Speaker 1: You titled the podcast quote if a tree falls in
Speaker 1: a forest doesn't make a sound. However, the way I've
Speaker 1: always heard it is if a tree falls and no
Speaker 1: one is able to hear it doesn't make it sound.
Speaker 1: And she's correct. This is the full version of it,
Speaker 1: because otherwise it loses its philosophical punch if you admit
Speaker 1: those words. But I believe we had to some of
Speaker 1: the words to fit it into the podcast title. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we were going to call one of our episodes
Speaker 1: you're so vain, you probably think this universe is about you.
Speaker 1: But then Ben Bowlen told us we had to short
Speaker 1: that's right and such. Yeah, but it's good that we
Speaker 1: got the email because that we knew that our tree
Speaker 1: had fallen in the forest via your emails. So keep
Speaker 1: them coming, please, Yes, um, be sure to check us
Speaker 1: out on Facebook and Twitter. You'll find us on both
Speaker 1: of those as blow the mind. Uh, you know, we'll
Speaker 1: we post all sorts of interesting stuff there and feel
Speaker 1: free to interact with us. Let us know what's blowing
Speaker 1: your mind. You find a cool piece of of news
Speaker 1: or research on the net, you know, shoot it to us,
Speaker 1: because there's a there's a you know, we may not
Speaker 1: have seen it otherwise. That's right. And let us know
Speaker 1: if there are any really cool superhuman things that you've
Speaker 1: found out about lately, and email us at blew the
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