Answer: Hedy Lamarr,who appeared in numerous movies throughout the 1930s and 40s, including such classics as Boom Town, White Cargo and Tortilla Flat. What isn't so well known is Hedy's co-invention of the Frequency-Hopped Spread Spectrum, something that was hoped would be used to make radio-guided torpedoes nearly impossible to detect. Unfortunately, the idea was ahead of its time and impractical due to the state of technology in the 40s.
It wasn't until 1962 that Hedy's invention was put to use by U.S. ships during the blockade of Cuba. Unfortunately, the patent had expired by this time and Hedy never saw a penny from her work, despite the fact her spectrum invention is used in current cell-phone technology and WiFi networks.
In honor of Hedy Lamarr, a new play is currently showing in New York called Frequency Hopping, which has a musical score performed by an army of 25 robots. The play runs until June 29th at the 3LD Art & Technology Center.
A one-wheeled motorcycle? Indeed. Can it pop a wheelie? Doubtful. But it sure looks cool as hell.
The Uno debuted at the 2008 National Motorcycle Show in Toronto, presented by 18-year-old inventor, Ben J. Poss Gulak. It proceeded to steal the thunder of every other motorcycle at the show.
Operation of the 54.4 kg (120 lb) machine is simple, in fact it's so simple there are no controls except for an on-off switch. To go forward you simply push your body weight forward to tilt the machine. To back up, just lean back on the seat to tilt it backwards and back it goes. The farther you lean, the faster it accelerates. The gyro tells the ECU how much to accelerate and that in turn delivers the proper amount of current to the electric motors, one for each wheel.
When the Taliban blew up two huge Buddha statues back in 2001, the world was aghast, but as luck would have it, science has turned a tragedy into a revelation. Behind the statues were ancient caves with wall-paintings that date from the 5th to 9th century AD, but what makes the find exciting is that it pushes back the discovery of oil-painting hundreds of years, depriving Europe of their long-standing claim that the process was developed in the 15th century.
"This is the earliest clear example of oil paintings in the world, although drying oils were already used by ancient Romans and Egyptians, but only as medicines and cosmetics", explains Yoko Taniguchi, leader of the team.
The paintings are probably the work of artists who traveled on the Silk Road, the ancient trade route between China, across Central Asia's desert to the West. However, there are very few studies about this region. "Due to political reasons research on paintings in Central Asia is scarce. We were fortunate to get the opportunity from UNESCO, as a part of conservation project for the World Heritage site Bamiyan, to study these samples and we hope that future research may provide deeper understanding of the painting techniques along the Silk Road and the Eurasian area", says Taniguchi.
LiveScience has posted their weekly article examining ancient discoveries that continue to influence modern life. This time around, Heather Whipps explores how Chinese alchemists were experimenting with elixirs in their quest for immortality and inadvertently stumbled upon the recipe for gunpowder. From life to death in one fell swoop.
Chinese scientists had been playing with saltpeter — a common name for the powerful oxidizing agent potassium nitrate — in medical compounds for centuries when one industrious individual thought to mix it with sulfur and charcoal.
The result was a mysterious powder from which, observers remarked in a text dated from the mid-9th century, "smoke and flames result, so that [the scientists'] hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house where they were working burned down."
It never seems to fail: the majority of earth-changing discoveries are found by accident.
Inventor Dean Kamen, perhaps best known for creating the Segway, was on the Colbert Report last night where he presented his amazing, and possibly Earth-changing invention, the Vapor Compression Distiller. It's a stunning piece of work that could save the lives of millions of people around the world.
I must say that I continue to be disappointed that inventors, scientists and thinkers are having such a terrible time acquiring media attention. If it weren't for Colbert, these guys would probably have zero television time. I'm talking to you, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and yeah, all the rest of ya.
