essay on life saving inventions

The 50 Most Important Life-Saving Breakthroughs in History

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For most of civilized history, life expectancy fluctuated in the 30 to 40 year range.

Child mortality was all too common, and even for those that made it to adulthood, a long and healthy life was anything but guaranteed. Sanitation was poor, disease was rampant, and many medical practices were based primarily on superstition or guesswork.

By the 20th century, an explosion in new technologies, treatments, and other science-backed practices helped to increase global life expectancy at an unprecedented rate.

From 1900 to 2015, global life expectancy more than doubled, shooting well past the 70 year mark.

Important Breakthroughs

What were the major innovations that made the last century so very fruitful in saving lives?

Today’s infographic from AperionCare highlights the top 50 breakthroughs, ranging from pasteurization to the bifurcated needle, that have helped propel global life expectancy upwards.

Interestingly, while many of these innovations have some linkage to the medical realm, there are also breakthroughs in sectors like energy, sanitation, and agriculture that have helped us lead longer and healthier lives.

To see innovations on an individual basis, AperionCare breaks them down further as follows:

The breakthroughs that are credited with saving the most lives?

Toilets, synthetic fertilizers, blood transfusions, the green revolution (also known as the “Third Agricultural Revolution”), and vaccines are each credited with saving 1 billion lives. Meanwhile, pasteurization, water chlorination, antibiotics, antimalarial drugs, and the bifurcated needle have saved hundreds of millions of lives each.

There are also some unusual entries to the list.

It turns out that satellites have actually saved 250,000 lives, thanks to the ability to better forecast natural disasters. Nuclear power also gets a shout out – and it may surprise some people that nuclear energy is the least deadly form of energy per kilowatt generated.

Progress in Life Expectancy

For a graphical look at how this all has impacted life expectancy, the following chart from Our World in Data makes a very clear case:

The impact from these new technologies was first experienced in Europe at the end of the 1800s – and other continents quickly saw the benefits thereafter.

Impressively, Africa has now passed the 60 year mark in life expectancy, with numbers still rising.

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10 inventions that saved millions of lives

Over the last few centuries, many great inventions have saved millions of lives. These have all helped improve people’s quality of life and, of course, saved many lives regularly.

Many inventions have been created over the centuries that have had a huge influence on the world and have not only helped to make people’s lives easier but also saved many lives.

This article will list what we believe were the top ten best inventions that have saved millions of lives since their creation.

10. Toilets – have helped to prevent many deadly diseases from spreading

Through their use, toilets have helped to save thousands of lives as they dispose of human waste safely and efficiently, helping to decrease diseases spreading rapidly.   

9. Pasteurisation – has helped to extend the health and life of food

Pasteurisation is the process in which foods are treated with mild heat to eliminate dangerous pathogens and extend the overall shelf life of the product.

This process has helped to make food safer as it has reduced the risk of food poisoning.  

8. Pesticides – helped to ensure safe food is produced regularly

Pesticides help farmers to produce high-quality, safe foods that can be sold at an affordable price and allow them to create an abundance of food all year round.

By making things like fruit and vegetables cheaper, people worldwide have greater access to purchasing them, which enriches their diet and aids their overall health and wellbeing.

7. Synthetic fertilisers – helping to save the lives of many plants

Synthetic fertilizers are “man-made” inorganic compounds that help save the lives of many plants that otherwise could die prematurely.

This is important as many plants can aid human health and wellbeing.

6. Anaesthesia – has made many life-saving procedures possible

Without the invention of anaesthesia, many major life-saving surgeries, such as open-heart surgery, organ transplants and brain surgery, amongst other important things, would not be possible.

Naturally, the invention of anaesthesia has made these life-saving procedures possible and thus saved millions of lives.

5. Radiology – has helped to identify many dangerous diseases

Radiology is a medical branch that uses imaging technology to diagnose and treat dangerous diseases accurately.

By correctly identifying these diseases early, medical professionals are in a better position to offer the best healthcare possible to save lives.

4. Water Chlorination – making water safe for everyone

Water chlorination has saved millions of lives as it has made water safe to consume by successfully killing harmful bacteria, viruses and other microbes in the water. This has, of course, helped to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases and saved many lives.

3. Blood transfusions – often the difference between life and death

Blood transfusion involves transferring blood into a person’s circulation system through an intravenous method. These transfusions are used to replace any blood loss in a person and can often be the difference between life and death.

2. Bifurcated Needle – aided in getting rid of smallpox

The invention of the bifurcated needle is often credited with being the tool which helped to get rid of the dreaded smallpox disease. This tool used to implement the smallpox vaccine helped save millions of lives from that terrible disease.

1. Vaccines – have saved countless lives

In first place on our list of the top ten inventions that saved millions of lives is vaccines. Vaccines work by injecting people with a harmless form of the bacteria or virus that causes the disease you are being immunized against.

These vaccines have helped to protect people against diseases that could otherwise kill them, so they have been instrumental in saving millions of lives.

That concludes our article on what we believe were the top ten best inventions that have saved millions of lives since their creation. Are there any other great inventions that you think deserve a place on our list?

Conor Wickham is a keen travel writer from County Wexford, Ireland. He has been a regular writer for Ireland Before You Die, The World Bucket List and Meanwhile in Ireland since 2019. Conor has a keen interest in discovering everything Ireland has to offer. From sleeping in tree houses in the Ox Mountains to staying in shepherd huts in Donegal, Conor has experienced it. With qualifications in Marketing & Advertising with Online Media as well as Print Journalism, Conor has worked as a Website Content Writer/SEO Specialist in the past for many websites. Conor has had two short stories published in the widely acclaimed Wexford Bohemian Literary Journal. Conor’s favourite types of articles to write are ones which involve history, scenic locations and the news. When not exploring Ireland and finding out its secrets, Conor can usually be found working on his own supernatural novel series.

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20 inventions that changed the world

From the wheel 5,500 years ago to the birth control pill, these 20 inventions had huge ramifications and have helped humans shape the world around us.

2. Printing press

3. penicillin, 5. light bulb, 6. telephone, 7. internal combustion engine, 8. contraceptives, 9. internet, 11. use of fire, 12. concrete, 13. magnifying glass, 14. batteries, 15. marine chronometer, 16. airplane, 17. refrigerator, 18. nuclear energy, 19. vaccines.

Humans are naturally curious and creative, two traits that have led our species to many scientific and technological breakthroughs. Since our earliest ancestors bashed a rock on the ground to make the first sharp-edged tool, humans have continued to innovate. From the debut of the wheel to the launch of Mars rovers, several of these key advancements stand out as especially revolutionary. Some inventions are thanks to one eureka moment, but most of our most pioneering inventions were the work of several innovative thinkers who made incremental improvements over many years. Here, we explore 20 of the most important inventions of all time, along with the science behind the inventions and how they came about.

Before the invention of the wheel in 3500 B.C., humans were severely limited in how much stuff we could transport over land, and how far. The wheel itself wasn't the most difficult part of "inventing the wheel." When it came time to connect a non-moving platform to that rolling cylinder, things got tricky, according to David Anthony, an emeritus professor of anthropology at Hartwick College.

"The stroke of brilliance was the wheel-and-axle concept," Anthony previously told Live Science . "But then making it was also difficult." For instance, the holes at the center of the wheels and the ends of the fixed axles had to be nearly perfectly round and smooth, he said. The size of the axle was also a critical factor, as was its snugness inside the hole (not too tight, but not too loose, either).

The hard work paid off, big time. Wheeled carts facilitated agriculture and commerce by enabling the transportation of goods to and from markets, as well as easing the burdens of people travelling great distances. Now, wheels are vital to our way of life, found in everything from clocks to vehicles to turbines.

David Anthony is professor emeritus and curator emeritus of anthropology at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York. He has done extensive archaeological fieldwork in Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan. Anthony is the author of "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language" (Princeton, 2007) and has co-authored studies including the finding that humans first rode horses 5,000 years ago .

German inventor Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press sometime between 1440 and 1450. Key to its development was the hand mold, a new molding technique that enabled the rapid creation of large quantities of metal movable type. Though others before him — including inventors in China and Korea — had developed movable type made from metal, Gutenberg was the first to create a mechanized process that transferred the ink (which he made from linseed oil and soot) from the movable type to paper.

With this movable type process, printing presses exponentially increased the speed with which book copies could be made, and thus they led to the rapid and widespread dissemination of knowledge for the first time in history. In her book “ The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe ” (Cambridge University Press, 2012), late historian Elizabeth L. Eisenstein wrote, “printers’ workshops would be found in every important municipal center by 1500.”  It has been estimated that up to twenty million volumes had been printed in Western Europe by 1500, although Eisenstein estimates that it was around eight million.

Among other things, the printing press permitted wider access to the Bible, which in turn led to alternative interpretations, including that of Martin Luther, whose "95 Theses" a document printed by the hundred-thousand sparked the Protestant Reformation.

It's one of the most famous discovery stories in history. In 1928, the Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming noticed a bacteria-filled Petri dish in his laboratory with its lid accidentally ajar. The sample had become contaminated with a mold, and everywhere the mold was, the bacteria was dead. That antibiotic mold turned out to be the fungus Penicillium, and over the next two decades, chemists purified it and developed the drug penicillin , which fights a huge number of bacterial infections in humans without harming the humans themselves.

Penicillin was being mass-produced and advertised by 1944. This poster attached to a curbside mailbox advised World War II servicemen to take the drug to rid themselves of venereal disease.

About 1 in 10 people have an allergic reaction to the antibiotic , according to a study published in 2003 in the journal Clinical Reviews in Allergy and Immunology. Even so, most of those people go on to be able to tolerate the drug, researchers said.

Related: What causes allergies?

Ancient mariners used the stars for navigation, but this method didn’t work during the day or on cloudy nights, making it dangerous to travel far from land. 

The first compass was invented in China during the Han dynasty between the 2nd Century B.C. and 1st Century A.D.; it was made of lodestone, a naturally-magnetized iron ore, the attractive properties of which they had been studying for centuries. However, it was used for navigation for the first time during the Song Dynasty, between the 11th and 12th centuries,

Soon after, the technology to the West through nautical contact. The compass enabled mariners to navigate safely far from land, opening up the world for exploration and the subsequent development of global trade. An instrument still widely used today, the compass has transformed our knowledge and understanding of the Earth forever.

The invention of the light bulb transformed our world by removing our dependence on natural light, allowing us to be productive at any time, day or night.  Several inventors were instrumental in developing this revolutionary technology throughout the 1800s; Thomas Edison is credited as the primary inventor because he created a completely functional lighting system, including a generator and wiring as well as a carbon-filament bulb like the one above, in 1879.

As well as initiating the introduction of electricity in homes throughout the Western world, this invention also had a rather unexpected consequence of changing people's sleep patterns . Instead of going to bed at nightfall (having nothing else to do) and sleeping in segments throughout the night separated by periods of wakefulness, we now stay up except for the 7 to 8 hours allotted for sleep, and, ideally, we sleep all in one go.

Several inventors did pioneering work on electronic voice transmission — many of whom later filed intellectual property lawsuits when telephone use exploded — but it was Scottish inventor Alexander Graham Bell who was the first to be awarded a patent for the electric telephone on March 7, 1876 (his patent drawing is pictured above). Three days later, Bell made the first telephone call to his assistant, Thomas Watson, saying "Mr Watson, come here — I want to see you," according to author A. Edward Evenson in his book, “ The Telephone Patent Conspiracy of 1876: The Elisha Gray-Alexander Bell Controversy and Its Many Players ” (McFarland, 2015).

Bell’s inspiration for the telephone was influenced by his family. His father taught speech elocution and specialized in teaching the deaf speak, his mother, an accomplished musician, lost her hearing in later life and his wife Mabel, who he married in 1877, had been deaf since the age of five, according to Evenson. The invention quickly took off and revolutionized global business and communication. When Bell died on Aug. 2, 1922, all telephone service in the United States and Canada was stopped for one minute to honor him.

In these engines, the combustion of fuel releases a high-temperature gas, which, as it expands, applies a force to a piston, moving it. Thus, combustion engines convert chemical energy into mechanical work. Decades of engineering by many scientists went into designing the internal combustion engine, which took its (essentially) modern form in the latter half of the 19th century. The engine ushered in the Industrial Age, as well as enabling the invention of a huge variety of machines, including modern cars and aircraft.

Pictured are the operating steps of a four-stroke internal combustion engine. The strokes are as follows: 1) Intake stroke — air and vaporised fuel are drawn in. 2) Compression stroke - fuel vapor and air are compressed and ignited. 3) Power stroke — fuel combusts and the piston is pushed downwards, powering the machine. 4) Exhaust stroke — exhaust is driven out.

Not only have birth control pills, condoms and other forms of contraception sparked a sexual revolution in the developed world by allowing men and women to have sex for leisure rather than procreation, they have also drastically reduced the average number of offspring per woman in countries where they are used. With fewer mouths to feed, modern families have achieved higher standards of living and can provide better for each child. Meanwhile, on the global scale, contraceptives are helping the human population gradually level off; our number will probably stabilize by the end of the century. Certain contraceptives, such as condoms, also curb the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Natural and herbal contraception has been used for millennia. Condoms or ‘sheaths’ have existed in one form or another since ancient times, according to scholar Jessica Borge in her book “ Protective Practices: A History of the London Rubber Company and the Condom Business ” (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020), with the rubber condom developed in the 19th century. Meanwhile, the FDA approved the first oral contraceptive pill in the United States in 1960 and by 1965, more than 6.5 million American women were on the pill, according to author Jonathan Eig in his book, “The Birth of the Pill: How Four Pioneers Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution” (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015).  

Scientists are continuing to make advancements in birth control, with some labs even pursuing a male form of "the pill." A permanent birth-control implant called Essure was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2002, though in 2016, the FDA warned the implant would need stronger warnings to tell users about serious risks of using Essure. 

Related: 7 surprising facts about the pill

The internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that is used by billions of people worldwide. In the 1960s, a team of computer scientists working for the U.S. Defense Department's ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) built a communications network to connect the computers in the agency, called ARPANET, the predecessor of the internet. It used a method of data transmission called "packet switching", developed by computer scientist and team member Lawrence Roberts, based on prior work of other computer scientists. 

This technology was progressed in the 1970s by scientists Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf, who developed the crucial communication protocols for the internet, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), according to computer scientist Harry R. Lewis in his book “ Ideas That Created the Future: Classic Papers of Computer Science ” (MIT Press, 2021). For this, Kahn and Cerf are often credited as inventors of the internet”.

In 1989, the internet evolved further thanks to the invention of the World Wide Web by computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee while working at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research). According to CERN , "the basic idea of the WWW was to merge the evolving technologies of computers, data networks and hypertext into a powerful and easy to use global information system." The development of the WWW opened up the world of the internet to everybody and connected the world in a way that it had never been before.  

Related: Inventor of World Wide Web snags computer science's top prize

This key invention dates back more than 2,000 years to the Ancient Roman period and became possible only after humans developed the ability to cast and shape metal. Previously, wood structures had to be built by interlocking adjacent boards geometrically a much more arduous construction process.

Until the 1790s and early 1800s, hand-wrought nails were the norm, with a blacksmith heating a square iron rod and then hammering it on four sides to create a point, according to the University of Vermont . Nail-making machines came online between the 1790s and the early 1800s. Technology for crafting nails continued to advance; After Henry Bessemer developed a process to mass-produce steel from iron, the iron nails of yesteryear slowly waned and by 1886, 10 percent of U.S. nails were created from soft steel wire, according to the University of Vermont. By 1913, 90 percent of nails produced in the U.S. were steel wire.

Meanwhile, the invention of the screw - a stronger but harder-to-insert fastener -  is usually ascribed to the Greek scholar Archimedes in the third century B.C., but was probably invented by the Pythagorean philosopher Archytas of Tarentum, according to David Blockley in his book “ Engineering: A Very Short Introduction ” (Oxford University Press, 2012).

The use of fire is one of humankind's most powerful early inventions and radically changed the way our ancient ancestors lived. Offering warmth and the ability to cook foods such as meat, the campfire was also a social gathering place. Fire also provided some protection against predators. 

The exact date fire was discovered has long remained a mystery, with some studies suggesting it was first used by hominins in Kenya 1 million years ago to cook meat. Other evidence suggests that Neanderthals in Europe and Asia harnessed fire , while Homo sapiens evolving in Africa mastered the skill of creating fire. More recently, archaeologists in Israel found evidence of hominin fire use dating to 1.5 million to 2 million years ago.

Ancient Romans are credited as one of the first societies to use concrete in architecture, with Roman bathhouses and iconic sites such as the Colosseumand Pantheon dome constructed using concrete mixed with volcanic ash, lime, and seawater. Incredibly, many of these ancient buildings are not only standing, but remain in good condition some 2,000 years later — a testament to the longevity of Roman concrete . However, the ancient Egyptians used a crude form of concrete in their buildings much earlier in 3000 B.C., employing forms of concrete mixed with ash and salt water to create mortar. One study concluded that parts of the Great Pyramids of Giza might have been built using concrete . Concrete is strong in compression but breaks easily in tension, so the invention of reinforced steel-concrete toward the end of the 19th century in France, which lends concrete some of steel's tensile strength, enabled concrete to be used more widely in construction.

Franciscan friar and Oxford University scholar Roger Bacon first developed the magnifying glass in 1268. Sometimes dubbed "Britain's first scientist,"' Bacon's magnifying glass built on research by Muslim scholars .

However, the use of optical tools dates back much further. Evidence suggests that as early as 700 B.C., people in ancient Egypt noticed that they could look through crystals to improve vision.

The first battery dates back to 1800, when Italian physicist Alessandro Volta wrapped stacked discs of copper and zinc in a cloth, submerged it in salty water and discovered that it conducted energy. In 1802, Scottish professor William Cruickshank invented a variation of Volta's design known as the trough battery , which consisted of 50 discs of copper and zinc in a wooden box filled with a salt solution to conduct energy. However, it was French physicist Gaston Planté who invented the first practically used battery, in 1859. Modern variations on Planté's rechargeable lead-acid battery are still used in cars today.

The 15th century marked the beginning of the great voyages of discovery by adventurers and sea merchants and the development of a global ocean trade network . Trading vessels carried highly prized silk, spices, salt, wine and tea across often-treacherous seas for months on end. After the loss of four ships at sea in the Scilly naval disaster of 1707 , seafarers realized they needed an accurate way to determine longitude when out of sight of land.

In 1714, the British parliament offered a prize of 20,000 pounds to anyone who could solve the problem. Carpenter John Harrison won the bounty in 1735 with his marine chronometer. What is perhaps even more remarkable is that Harrison was a self-taught clockmaker. His ingenious timekeeping device was powered by the rocking motion of the ship rather than by gravity and could be used by sailors to accurately calculate longitude at sea.

The ability for humans to fly has captured the imagination of inventors for centuries, with the first human-operated flight taking place in 1783 when Joseph-Michael and Jacques-Ètienne Montgolfier took to the skies in a hot air balloon. In 1853 British engineer George Cayley designed the first glider to successfully take flight, but it wasn’t until 1903 that Orville and Wilbur Wright's plane became the first airplane to have a successful voyage. It not only took off from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina using its own power; it flew and landed without destruction, unlike many earlier aircraft inventions. The Wright brothers were inspired by watching' birds in flight. The glider took a page from birds' wings but had a 32-foot (10 meters) wingspan.

Refrigeration in some form has been around for thousands of years. Depending on the climate, ice or cold water was used to keep food cold in ancient times. But artificial refrigeration didn't come until 1748, when the physician William Cullen  first demonstrated evaporative cooling. Further breakthroughs came in 1834, when a vapor-compression system was developed by American engineer Jacob Perkins . In 1876, German engineer Carl von Linde came up with a process of liquifying the gas, ushering in the era of commercial refrigeration. In 1913, American engineer Fred Wolf invented the first domestic refrigerator , and as demand for fresh produce grew, so did the number of households with refrigerators.

Nuclear energy was first discovered in the 1930s by Italian physicist Enrico Fermi , who found that bombarding atoms with neutrons could split them, generating huge amounts of energy. He went on to develop the first nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago. This successful experiment led to the development of several nuclear plants in the 1950s, with Idaho launching the first nuclear plant in 1951 with electricity produced from atomic energy at its Experimental Breeder Reactor I site. Obninsk in the former Soviet Union became the first grid-connected nuclear power plant in the world in 1954, while Shippingport nuclear plant, Pennsylvania became the first commercial nuclear plant in 1957.

Nuclear power remains widely used around the world today, generating approximately 10% of global energy .

One problem is that existing nuclear power plants use fission to split atoms, and this produces radioactive substances that take ages to decay. And the risks of nuclear disasters, such as those at Chernobyl and the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, highlight the challenges of fission-based nuclear power.

So scientists are working to create usable nuclear fusion reactors, which could theoretically generate clean, limitless energy. In 2022, scientists reported a minor breakthrough: a fusion reactor that generated more energy than was put into it. However, we're still a long way from a usable fusion reactor , experts say.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that approximately 2 million to 3 million lives are saved annually thanks to vaccinations against contagious diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus and measles.

The earliest rudimentary vaccination is thought to date back to the 10th century in China, when people inoculated small scratches in the skin with small doses of smallpox to provide protection against the disease. But in 1796, English physician Edward Jenner discovered that milkmaids rarely caught or died of smallpox because they were previously infected by the cowpox virus , also called Vaccinia. So he used cowpox to develop a smallpox vaccine. He inoculated an 8-year-old boy with cowpox and then with smallpox, and the boy never caught the deadly scourge. Jenner's experiment led to the creation of a smallpox vaccine and his work is regarded as the start of immunology. In 1980, smallpox was declared officially eradicated by WHO. But scientists continue to develop new life-saving vaccines — most notably, the coronavirus vaccines that played a large role in combatting the pandemic .

Like many famous inventions, the X-ray was discovered by accident. In 1895, German engineer and physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was undertaking a two-month study into the potential of radiation. In an experiment testing whether cathode rays could pass through glass, he noticed that the radiation was able to pass through screens of considerable thickness, leaving a shadow of solid objects. He soon discovered that X-rays could pass through human tissues to show a clear picture of the skeleton and organs. A year later, a group of physicians took the earliest X-rays on patients . These observations led to the development of radiology as we know it today and has since helped medical professionals diagnose broken bones, tumors, organ failures and more.

Editor's Note: This story was updated to correct the location of Edison's lab. It was Menlo Park, New Jersey, not Menlo Park, California.

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Natalie Wolchover was a staff writer for Live Science from 2010 to 2012 and is currently a senior physics writer and editor for Quanta Magazine. She holds a bachelor's degree in physics from Tufts University and has studied physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Along with the staff of Quanta, Wolchover won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory writing for her work on the building of the James Webb Space Telescope. Her work has also appeared in the The Best American Science and Nature Writing and The Best Writing on Mathematics, Nature, The New Yorker and Popular Science. She was the 2016 winner of the  Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award, an annual prize for young science journalists, as well as the winner of the 2017 Science Communication Award for the American Institute of Physics. 

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8 Inventions That Made Our Lives Easier

Skylar Clarine is a fact-checker and expert in personal finance with a range of experience including veterinary technology and film studies.

Over the past two centuries, many people have used their knowledge, skills, and experience in order to create a host of inventions that have made the world a much better place for us to live.

Here are eight paramount discoveries and innovations that have improved our standard of living and have given us the opportunity to pursue our personal and business endeavors in a more comfortable and prosperous fashion.

Key Takeaways

• Paper money, invented by China, kickstarted economies by removing the need to barter with goods.
• Vaccinations helped reduce illness and deaths, and local anesthesia made surgeries easier for patients.
• The first automobile is believed to have been invented by Karl and Bertha Benz.
• The first digital computer was created in 1937.

Banknote (Paper Currency): Tang Dynasty of China—7th Century

China is not only credited with having invented paper, but it is also generally recognized as the first country in the world to use paper money. The paper money system helped improve economies worldwide by moving them away from bartering .

Vaccinations: Edward Jenner—1796

Edward Jenner's work is widely regarded as the foundation of immunology. Jenner is well renowned worldwide for his innovative contribution to immunization and the ultimate eradication of smallpox.

Local Anesthesia: William Morton—1846

William Morton was one of the first individuals to demonstrate how ether could be used to remove the pain of operations. His use of anesthesia was displayed at a public demonstration to the surgeons of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on Oct. 16, 1846, where John Collins Warren excised a tumor from a patient's neck. William Morton wasn't necessarily the first to discover or invent anesthetics, but his name is most commonly referenced when speaking of the first practitioners to use the drug. In fact, for several years, various controversies and litigation surrounded the credit for the development of anesthesia.

Antibiotics: Alexander Fleming—1928

Alexander Fleming discovered the active substance he termed "penicillin" while working on the influenza virus. Fleming made this discovery by observing that mold had developed accidentally on a staphylococcus culture plate and that the mold had created a bacteria-free circle around itself. He was inspired to experiment further and found that a mold culture prevented the growth of staphylococci, which verified his discovery. To this day, penicillin is used to treat a host of bacterial infections.

Pasteurization: Louis Pasteur—1862

Louis Pasteur developed the process now known as "pasteurization," which is a process of heating food to a specific temperature for a definite length of time and then cooling it immediately to reduce the number of viable pathogens that may cause disease. Dairy products, canned foods, juices, syrups, water, and wines are the primary products that are pasteurized today.

Modern Automobile: Karl Benz—1886

Karl Benz patented all of the processes that made the internal combustion engine feasible for use in cars. Karl Benz and his wife, Bertha Ringer Benz, were the founders of the Mercedes-Benz automobile manufacturing company.

Modern Alternating Current Electrical Supply System: Nikola Tesla—1891

Nikola Tesla filed for seven U.S. patents in the field of polyphase alternating current motors and power transmission. Tesla's patents comprised a complete system of generators, transformers, transmission lines, motors, and lighting. Tesla is also credited with the invention of the radio. However, a patent dispute with the Marconi Company resulted, ultimately leading to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling for Tesla after his death.

Electronic Digital Computer: John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry—1937

John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry constructed the first electronic computer with vacuum tubes while working for Iowa State College. The Atanasoff-Berry computer was the first digital computer. It introduced the concepts of binary arithmetic, regenerative memory, and logic circuits. The Atanasoff-Berry machine never reached the production stage and remained a prototype.

While this list consists of well-known and distinguished inventors, it is important to note that their works were built upon the ideas and labor of many people in order to create the final product or service that we enjoy and use today. Many of the contributors to a key invention or innovation often go unremembered and uncompensated. Hopefully, governments worldwide will strive to resolve this problem by implementing a more equitable patent system.

The most recent significant step toward accomplishing this goal in patent law was the passage of the America Invents Act on Sept. 16, 2011. The passage of this Act moved the U.S. patent system from a "first to invent" to a "first to file" system, which means that all parties know upfront that if they have a good idea for an invention, they need to be the first to file a patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to protect their intellectual property rights. Passage of this Act also eliminated delays previously experienced through interference proceedings and allowed a patented product to come to market in an expedited manner.

What Can Be Invented to Make Life Easier?

If you can think of something that makes life easier, you can probably create it. Computers, design applications, three-dimensional printers, and other technological innovations make the creation process much easier now than in the past.

What Is the Difference Between a Patent and an Invention?

An invention is something created by someone. A patent grants the exclusive rights to the patent filer. Patents generally last for a specific period, based on the type of patent it is—in the U.S., the term for a utility patent is 20 years.

What Inventions Changed Life?

There are hundreds of inventions that have changed the way we live. One of the most significant was agriculture, which moved us from hunter/gatherers to farmers and reduced human migratory patterns. The printing press and steam engine are two other notable inventions attributed with drastically changing life.

For current entrepreneurs , the 2011 change in U.S. patent law, with the use of low-cost, powerful personal computers and the affordability of the ever-expanding internet, should provide a much greater business environment for establishing a successful small business.

We have already seen a number of relatively new and successful companies that have benefited from online intangible business models. Examples include Google, Amazon, eBay, YouTube, LinkedIn, Craigslist, Wikipedia, and PayPal, to name a few. With the U.S.'s progressive patent law , new online businesses have an additional advantage for establishing a successful small business operation.

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The Role of Inventions in Changing Our Daily Lives

February 4, 2020

Posted by: Danna Bell

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This post was written by   Amara L. Alexander, the 2019-20 Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow at the Library of Congress

Inventions can lead to new technologies, create new jobs, and improve quality of life. Use primary sources to help students compare and contrast the work of three inventors: Leo Wahl established a new barbering tool; Samuel F. B. Morse developed the telegraph; and Benjamin Franklin revolutionized sight with bifocal lenses.

Wahl helped to transform the barber industry with his patented design of an electric hair clipper. He noticed the need for barbers to improve their cutting techniques and tinkered until he developed the first electromagnetic motor powered hair clipper. Show students the ad and allow time for them to read the description. Based on the features described, what problems do they think Wahl was trying to solve?

Morse studied art in London, England, and he wished to communicate faster with his family across the sea. With his electrical telegraph, he observed the sparks from the electrical wiring and the length of time between the sparks. Those sparks could be transmitted into an electrical alphabet that he developed: Morse code. The dots and dashes transmitted over wires could relay messages to people that were miles apart . Covering the bottom half of the image , encourage students to focus on the diagram of the device. Survey the class to discover if students know the name and purpose. Ask questions as needed:

• What do you notice but can’t explain?
• What was the purpose of this device?
• What can you learn from examining this?

Allow students time to examine the image and record their responses . Next, reveal the bottom half of the page and invite students to think-pair-share. How does the new information change their thinking? Finally, display the the image of the service men using the telegraph and the deciphering Morse code and ask students what it suggests about uses of Morse’s inventions.

Benjamin Franklin has inventions credited to his name as well.  A letter to friend George Whatley explains how bifocal lenses enabled Franklin to see his food more clearly and watch the facial expressions of those seated with him. Allow students to study the diagram and develop explanations of how the lenses worked.

Prompt students to think as inventors and focus on an object in the classroom, such as a door stopper. How might the item be improved? Offer students criteria for success and constraints on material, time, and cost. Guide them in planning and conducting an investigation based on their design model, and assess how well their inventions met the criteria and constraints of the design problem. Extend time for students to improve their model and retest.

For generations, innovators have used their imaginations to create new products to improve our daily lives. How can these historical examples spark innovation within your young inventors?

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When disaster strikes, innovation strikes back

The SAFE STEPS D-Tech Awards provide a launchpad for innovators to make a life-saving difference in mitigating the effects of disasters.

The course of human history has been shaped by many different forces, from kings and empires, to wars and treaties, to science and technology. Frequently, however, the world has been changed—or, better yet, improved—by a single idea.

Over the past 150 years alone, the invention of toilets, synthetic fertilizers, blood transfusions, and vaccines are all credited with saving more than a billion lives each 1 , while countless other innovations—from pasteurization to water chlorination to bifurcated needles—have saved tens of millions more. In most cases, these breakthroughs have been the result of meticulous, single-minded research to solve a specific problem, but many of the world’s most important life-saving inventions have been stumbled upon by accident, or developed for a completely different purpose than that which they would ultimately fulfill.

The laminated safety glass most commonly used in car windshields, for example, was invented when French scientist Edouard Benedictus carelessly dropped a glass flask containing cellulose nitrate, a liquid plastic that not only stopped the glass from shattering but enabled it to retain its original shape. Penicillin, meanwhile, was discovered when Scottish researcher Alexander Fleming accidentally contaminated a petri dish of bacteria he was working on, and noticed that the mold that formed prevented the bacteria culture from growing. And X-rays were a fortuitous byproduct of German physics professor Wilhelm Röntgen’s experiments with cathode ray tubes.

As science and technology have grown more sophisticated, world-changing discoveries—both deliberate and inadvertent—have become more and more frequent, with new innovations that enhance, protect or even save people’s lives appearing at astoundingly regular intervals. But just as our ability to advance or safeguard our species has grown and evolved, so too have the problems we face. For all our ingenuity, Covid-19 brought the world to a virtual standstill in the past year, highlighting the need for innovative solutions that can respond quickly to emergency situations, while the challenges posed by climate change, dwindling resources, and natural disaster events continue to loom large.

Spearheaded by Prudence Foundation, the community investment arm of Prudential in Asia and Africa, the SAFE STEPS D-Tech Awards is an initiative that aims to tackle the latter of these issues by finding, funding, and supporting technology solutions that can save lives before, during, and after natural disasters. Offering a prize pool of US$200,000 for the winners to implement and scale their technology, as well as access to expert mentors, investors, and fellow tech entrepreneurs, the awards provide an unparalleled launchpad for disaster-tech innovators to take their ideas to the next level.

“Technology is changing everything about how we live today,” says Donald Kanak, Chairman of Prudence Foundation. “We believe it can also make a big contribution to changing the outcome of disasters. By predicting, by preventing, by warning, by helping and recovery, or through our response to disaster, technology can make a huge difference.”

Originally titled the ‘Disaster Tech Innovation Competition’, the inaugural awards last year culminated in a live pitch event in Singapore in June 2019, at which FieldSight—a Nepal-based mobile platform that supports disaster reconstruction activities in even the most remote areas—emerged victorious. For Justin Henceroth, co-founder of FieldSight, the awards offered a crucial avenue of support in a previously under-nourished area of tech.

“We’d seen a lot of competitions and accelerators focused on development tech, or social tech or things like that, and from the FieldSight perspective we were thinking, how do we fit into this? Are there some things that could help us on our journey?” he says. “So I think we were all really excited that there was a group that was really thinking about pre- and post-disaster tech.”

In addition to the funding and other support FieldSight received as the competition winner, Henceroth says that being part of the awards was invaluable in terms of the people they got to meet and the ideas they were able to explore. “I think the Disaster Tech Competition was one of the steps where I really started to have my mind opened up,” he says. “For me, the in-person event in Singapore was the most transformative part. That enabled us to get exposure to a lot of people, not just in the post-disaster space, but generally in the private sector, in social impact investing, and all these different spaces. It really made me start thinking about the broader implications of the work that we were doing.”

First runner-up SeismicAI—an algorithm-driven earthquake early warning system that is designed to be deployed quickly and cheaply anywhere in the world—have also used the awards as a springboard to develop and implement their technology globally, with pilot projects now underway in India, the Philippines, Turkey and Canada.

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“I think it was very helpful to get the prize and the publicity, people looked at that all around the world,” says Amir Dinur, CEO of SeismicAI. “It was very important for us to get this seal of approval—that this is a real system, that this is a real solution—so from that point of view it was super important for us to get that recognition.”

For Henceroth, perhaps the most significant benefit of the awards was that it helped him focus on what he really wanted to achieve, and how best to go about it. “One of the key steps in thinking who we were trying to work with and where we were trying to go came from that much broader community that the awards brought together in Singapore: that there are a lot of people potentially struggling with the same issues, and that we could—not necessarily as a UN agency, but as a startup—be able to work with a broader community of people who could really take advantage of similar types of tools.”

Suitably inspired, Henceforth left FieldSight in March 2020 to co-found Zite, a mobile app and web platform for monitoring and managing work sites remotely. He urges fellow disaster-tech innovators to follow in his footsteps by taking advantage of the opportunity that the awards present. “I think it’s really critical that there continues to be expanded focus in this area,” he adds.

For 2021, the competition has relaunched as the SAFE STEPS D-Tech Awards. SAFE STEPS is a partnership between Prudence Foundation, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and National Geographic, which aims to raise awareness and provide easy-to-understand educational information on life-threatening issues in Asia and Africa with the hope of saving lives and building more resilient communities—a mission that is perfectly complemented by the D-Tech Awards.

Think you have the tech solution to change the world for the better? Applications are open for this year’s SAFE STEPS D-Tech Awards from now until 19 February 2021. Visit www.safesteps.com/d-tech for more information.

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Innovation for Good

Solutions to today's biggest challenges

Innovation | December 29, 2021

Ten Scientific Discoveries From 2021 That May Lead to New Inventions

From nanobots to cancer treatments, nature inspires a wide variety of innovations

Rachael Lallensack

Former Assistant Editor, Science and Innovation

In science, inspiration can come from anywhere.

A researcher might wonder about the thrust produced by butterfly wings as they flit through a meadow. Maybe watching squirrels navigate campus trees like parkour artists sparks curiosity about what goes through their furry little minds as they decide to jump from branch to branch.

Others, of course, get their spark from less likely sources: analyzing shark intestines or studying how microscopic water bears walk.

These scenarios and more inspired scientists to take a closer look at the natural world this year, but their influence won’t stop there. Discoveries in nature often inspire new designs for water filtration, solar panels, building materials and lots and lots of robots.

Here are ten findings from 2021 that could one day lead to new inventions.

Shark Intestines Function Like Tesla Valves

In 1920, Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla designed a device without any moving parts that allows fluid to move in one direction while preventing backflow. These valvular conduits, as Tesla himself called them, are made of a series of fixed, tear-shaped loops that allow fluid to easily travel through the device, but slow and block any returning liquids. He made the valves as part of a ​​new steam engine he was working on, but filed for bankruptcy several months later, leaving the patent forgotten for decades .

Intestines serve a similar purpose: absorb nutrients from food and flush out waste, which certainly shouldn’t go out the way it came in.

In the animal kingdom, intestines come in all shapes and sizes. Most creatures—including humans—have tubular intestines that require muscle contractions to push food through. But shark intestines slowly move digested meals through spring-shaped spirals or nested funnels, depending on the species, to eke out every last calorie and get rid of the rest.

This year, researchers found that these spiraled organs also resemble the design and function of Tesla valves . The twists, turns and funnels ease fluids forward, which could be an energy-saving form of digestion.

“Sharks have all these different little tweaks to the Tesla valve design that could be making them more efficient,” study author Samantha Leigh, an animal physiologist at California State University, Dominguez Hills, told New Scientist in July.

Studying these natural wonders of engineering could improve wastewater filtration systems for removing microplastics. “We plan on doing work this upcoming year to determine how effective the different morphologies are at filtering out various size particles,” Leigh tells Smithsonian via email. “Depending on the results, we might be able to ‘tweak’ the spiral intestine design to make filters that are as effective as possible at filtering out microplastics from storm [or] wastewater.”

Squirrels Can Teach Robots a Lesson About Agility and Recovery

When navigating treetops, squirrels will risk a long-distance leap if there’s a sturdy branch to land on. But even if their next stop is flimsy, a squirrel’s expert-level recovery skills—possibly developed from past mistakes—almost always help them stick the landing.

These two lessons from our fuzzy friends could be useful in designing how agile robots analyze a target to jump toward and how they recoup missed marks, according to research published in August .

“Like squirrels, the next generation of fast, agile legged robots could perceive opportunities to exploit specific aspects of the world around them that directly complement their own capabilities,” study author Nathaniel Hunt, a biomechanics engineer at the University of Nebraska, says via email. “Sensors and perception may be designed to directly identify only the critical information that supports movement decisions and control while ignoring a huge amount of irrelevant information.”

To learn more about how squirrels successfully navigate from branch to branch, scientists put wild fox squirrels to the test on an obstacle course in a eucalyptus grove on the University of California, Berkeley campus. The team analyzed how the squirrels altered their jumps depending on branch flexibility—timing their launch a bit earlier—and how they geared up for distance and height variation—twisting mid-air to find something to bounce off of to give them a boost. After going through a tricky jump a few times, they eventually nailed the stunt with ease.

Engineers designing robots for “inspection and maintenance, working in the home, and even exploration” can learn a few things from these bushy-tailed rodents, explains Hunt.

“As robots move out of laboratories and start to do work in the real world, somehow they have to deal with the complexity of interacting with different surfaces and objects, various materials that are hard or soft, smooth or rough, and they must react appropriately when they bump into something, lose traction or some other unexpected thing happens,” he says.

Scavenger Beetles Walk Upside-Down Beneath the Water’s Surface

Thanks to surface tension, spiders, ants, snails and lizards can all walk on water , but water scavenger beetles perform a trickier feat. These bugs flip upside-down and scuttle along just beneath the water’s surface —as if they’re clinging to the underside of a glass table.

"The moment I realized the beetle was moving across the underside of the water's surface, I knew I had found something truly bizarre," says behavioral biologist John Gould, per Live Science .

In the first study to analyze this skill in depth, researchers filmed the insects’ inverted crawling technique. These beetles are known to trap air bubbles with their leg hairs to keep them oxygenated, but video footage shows this behavior may also keep them afloat and pinned to the surface. The bubble likely gives the bug enough support to put some pressure on the water-air boundary without breaking through. The beetle’s footsteps even push up “tiny hills” of water along the surface as they go, Gould tells Science News .

Scientists still have plenty of questions about the physiology of the beetle itself, like how its foot anatomy affects this skill or whether different parts of its body are water resistant. Studying the scavenger beetle’s talents could inspire tiny, upside-down surfing aquatic robots, Gould says via email.

Some water-skimming micro-robots already exist, and engineers are also building bots that can move between terrestrial and aquatic environments. However, current models require “multiple locomotion styles or inhibit the locomotion in one environment for the sake of the other,” Gould says. A beetle-bot could eliminate the need for hybrid models because the device would walk on land the same way it can walk underwater. “We believe that this could further advance robot locomotive capabilities for military or search and rescue purposes,” he adds.

Not only could the beetle in the study move beneath the surface, it could also remain motionless in one spot. A beetle-inspired aquatic adhesive or structural design could also be a solution for keeping objects at the surface of the water to measure vibrations, take temperature readings or collect other data.

“It could be possible to synthesize materials which can exploit this feat and remain passively at the water’s surface without the expenditure of energy,” Gould says. “Devices made of these materials could remain at the surface of the water while remaining entirely submerged and without piercing through or disrupting the water’s surface, unlike other devices which require a flotation device that sits above the water.”

A Cancer-Defying Gecko and His 900 Babies Could Inspire New Melanoma Treatments

At an auction in 2015, reptile breeder Steve Sykes purchased a rare pair of “lemon frost” geckos for $10,000. But when he started breeding the male gecko, Mr. Frosty, he noticed many of the offspring had small, white tumors growing on their skin. Nearly 80 percent of lemon frost geckos—a type of genetic morph bred for their sunny color—will develop this skin cancer that arises from pigment-producing cells called iridophores.

University of California, Los Angeles geneticist Longhua Guo happened to reach out to Sykes to study gecko morphs and decided to look into the genetic mystery of the lemon frost geckos. Guo and his team found a gene called SPINT1, which is linked to skin cancer in humans, is also responsible for both the geckos’ golden glow and their tumors. Studying SPINT1 further could help scientists better understand how certain cancers develop in humans—and perhaps lead to new ways to treat the illness.

Guo would like to “try culturing the cancerous iridophores to develop a new cell line for investigating tumor pathways as well as potential treatments,” per The Scientist .

Speaking with Scientific American in June, Lara Urban, a genome researcher at the University of Otago in New Zealand who was not involved in the study, says studying how the gene is expressed in geckos that never develop cancer could be one path for future study.

“I do think it will have an impact on cancer research, in that we understand the conservedness of this [SPINT1 genetic] pathway a little bit better now,” Urban says. “It will also be a potential new model organism for studying the development of skin cancer and contributing to actual therapeutic development.”

Scientists Watch Butterfly Wings Grow Scales for the First Time

For the first time ever, MIT researchers peered into a chrysalis while the colorful scales on a butterfly wing formed—and captured continuous images of the process , according to a study published this month in the journal PNAS . Studying this process could one day inspire new multi-functional materials in vibrant colors that also provide temperature control and water resistance, says study author Mathias Kolle, a mechanical engineer at MIT.

“We believe that being able to see and understand the processes and control levers at the core of the butterflies’ ability to tailor material structure and performance will help us to sustainably translate them into strategies for forming the next generation of advanced functional materials,” he tells Smithsonian via email.

First, the team raised painted lady ( Vanessa cardui ) caterpillars until they entered metamorphosis and developed a chrysalis. Then, they carefully removed part of the outer casing and placed a transparent coverslip over the opening using a bioadhesive. With a window into the transformation, the team used speckle-correlation reflection phase microscopy to get a closer look. Instead of using a wide-beam light that could be phototoxic to the delicate wing, speckle-correlation reflection phase microscopy peppers small points of light over specific locations, creating a field of illumination like fireflies in a meadow at dusk.

Within days, cells lined up to form rows of scales in an alternating pattern above and beneath the wing, like shingles on a roof. Each scale then developed nanometer-high grooves. Researchers suspect these ridges help the butterflies shed water like microscopic rain gutters as well as collect heat to keep them dry.

“We think this work could lead to new inventions because butterfly scales are a great biological example of a material solution with multiple coveted functions, all enabled by the same structure,” Kolle says. “These functions include control over optical appearance and color, thermoregulation, wetting characteristics, and flight dynamics.”

Because each scale is made of chitin, “the second most abundant biopolymer on Earth after cellulose,” says Kolle, a new material inspired by butterfly wings could also be biodegradable and easy to change or refresh. He envisions, perhaps, a sprayable version of the scales that could be used on buildings, vehicles or clothing to provide waterproofing and add a little color.

“Either way, imagine how cool that would be, if we’d just had a drum in which we grow the cells that form scales, and then spray them on a surface and supply a trigger that makes the cells grow scales of a desired color, texture, and wetting behavior,” Kolle says.

Fat-Tailed Dwarf Lemurs Hibernate in Captivity for the First Time

Fat-tailed dwarf lemurs are our closest primate relatives who hibernate in the wild. For the first time ever, researchers were able to recreate the conditions needed to coax the lemurs into hibernation at Duke University’s Lemur Center, which gave them a front row seat to learn about this unique metabolic process—and what it could teach us about humans. Primate behavioral specialist Marina Blanco and her team reported their findings in March in the journal Scientific Reports .

To set the mood for a really good nap, researchers made a makeshift tree hollow for the lemurs to settle into in their enclosure. They exposed the critters to 9.5 hours of light instead of a summery 11 hours to mimic winter’s shortened daylight. They also lowered the enclosure’s temperature to 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

For four months, the sleepy lemurs had dulled metabolisms, cooler body temperatures and much lighter appetites. Their heart rates slowed to eight beats per minute. When they arose again in spring, they bounced right back.

“It is important to remark that hibernators’ metabolic reduction is controlled, meaning that they can tolerate these extremes without ill effects,” says Blanco via email. Despite not moving or eating for months, these animals maintain muscle mass and organ function.

Learning about how another primate hibernates could improve our current methods for slowing down the body’s processes during life-saving surgeries or perhaps even long-term space travel, explains a Duke press release .

“Successful space travel [to distant destinations] will require months or years spent inactive in transit,” Blanco explains. “The closest to the needed suspended animation would be to induce hibernation-like states in astronauts.”

Scientists Decode the "Clap" of Butterfly Wings

A butterfly is shaped unlike any other flying animal, which makes analyzing their flight all the more exciting and inspiring to scientists. A study published in January 2021 found that butterflies use an efficient cupping and clapping method to generate thrust.

First, a pair of biologists from Lund University, Christoffer Johansson and Per Henningsson, conducted an aerodynamic analysis of free-flying butterflies. From these observations, they found that the broad-winged insects clap their wings together on upstrokes—but the wings don’t press flat together like a pair of hands mid-applause. Instead, butterfly wings bend, which researchers suspected might cup air between them to strengthen their downstroke.

To put their suspicions to the test, the scientists compared the flapping capabilities of two robotic clappers: one with rigid wings and one with flexible wings. They found that flexibility increased wing efficiency by 28 percent and added 22 percent more force to their flaps.

In nature, a butterfly’s wing clap probably gives them the extra boost they need to escape predators. Back in the lab, the pair hope their observations inspire new flying and swimming robots.

“Already today there are flapping drones that clap wings together, such as the DelFly , but they do not use the clap for propulsion, but instead mainly produce forces from the flapping,” Johansson says via email.

Making flexible flapping robots could be a low-energy way to boost thrust. Likewise, the addition of flexibility could be a boon for underwater robotics in cramped environments—perhaps for underwater archaeology.

“A drone designed for slow and precise maneuvering using paddling fins could improve performance by clapping the fins against the body,” he says. “Flexible fins could then create a cupped shape of the fin, similar to what we have seen in the butterfly wings, improving the directionality of the jet produced and the efficiency of the thrust production.”

Tardigrades Have an Insect-Like Walk

How inspiring are tardigrades? Let us count the ways.

First, they look like tiny, eight-legged, chunky bears —hence their nickname, water bears. These near-microscopic, aquatic extremophiles can survive in the most inhospitable places on Earth, including frigid absolute zero temperatures, boiling hot hydrothermal vents, a vacuum of space, and pressure six times more crushing than the deep ocean, per National Geographic .

While other soft-bodied creatures thrash, slither and wriggle like worms, tardigrades are the only soft-bodied animal that can walk. In a study published in the journal PNAS in August, researchers watched hours of footage of water bears walking on different surfaces from glass to gels.

The team found that tardigrades walk like insects 500,000 times their size . Though they move only half of their already-miniscule body length (0.5 millimeters) per second on average, they can move two body lengths in the same amount of time at top speed. Slow as they may be, they also seem to adjust their steps according to the terrain they’re navigating.

Because their strut has taken them to the far reaches of Earth, studying their gait could inspire new forms of locomotion for micro-scale robots.

“They have some simple, and highly effective ways of coordinating how their eight legs move, and they do this with minimal brain power using some simple rules that are strikingly similar to those used in certain much larger insect species,” says study author Daniel Cohen, a mechanical engineer at Princeton University. “This is great for inspiration because it shows that tiny robots, where computational power and weight are limitations, don’t need much to walk well.”

Tardigrade-inspired nanobots could be injected into damaged tissue to repair it or into an artery to remove plaque build-up—sort of like the shrunken submarine crew in the 1966 sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage .

“And for a completely sci-fi approach: Water bears show us what’s possible at that size when you look like they do. They are sort of like the ‘minimum model’ of what you can do with legs,” Cohen explains. “Perhaps we might someday be able to actually tissue-engineer our own multicellular ‘bio-bots’ made out of living cells and inspired by water bears.”

Slime Mold Stores “Memories” Without Even Having a Brain

Though they may occasionally resemble fungi, slime molds are globby, soil-dwelling amoebas that come in many odd shapes and bright colors . Despite lacking a brain or nervous system, slime mold can navigate a maze or recall the location of food.

Like gooey fractals, the single-celled organisms unleash tubular tendrils, which also transport fluid and nutrients throughout their sprawling network-like body plan, to explore new environments. In a study published in the journal PNAS in February, researchers found that they record important details of their surroundings by changing the diameter of these outstretched tubes.

When scientists studied a sunny yellow slime mold called Physarum polycephalum under a microscope, they observed the tubes become thicker when they encountered food and thinner when they found none. Some sort of chemical signal likely triggers these changes.

“Given P. polycephalum 's highly dynamic network reorganization, the persistence of this imprint sparked the idea that the network architecture itself could serve as memory of the past,” says study author Karen Alim, a biophysicist at the Technical University of Munich, in a statement.

This network sort of mimics how our brain stores memory using synaptic plasticity, meaning synapses become stronger or weaker based on use. Likewise, slime mold tubes that find food grow and dead ends wither away.

Using protein-based polymers, gels or other biological materials, researchers could adapt this sort of memory storage and chemical signaling in artificial intelligence without the need for electronics, Alim explains, which could be a boon for soft robotics that lack such hardware. If the rest of the bot is made using biomaterial, she says, a slime mold–inspired system could be used in situations when toxicity is of concern, like for medical applications or water processing.

“Here, fluid flows are an exciting method to both drive mobility but also encode decision making required for autonomous behavior,” Alim explains via email. “Building the robots out of responsive material that expands in response to the concentration of signaling molecules would here be a direct implementation of the memory mechanism we observed in Physarum.”

With a Soap-Like Protein, Human Cells Can Ward Off Bacteria

Our immune system has specialized cellular soldiers—like T-cells and B-cells —ready to fight off bacterial invasions. However, non-immune cells aren’t entirely defenseless. Research published in Science in July found certain proteins literally have a detergent-like ability to wipe out bacteria like a grease stain. Investigating these proteins further could inspire a totally new kind of antibiotic.

“This is a case where humans make their own antibiotic in the form of a protein that acts like a detergent,” says study author John MacMicking, an immunobiologist at Yale University, in a statement. “We can learn from that.”

First, the team infected non-immune cells with Salmonella , a rod-shaped bacteria that affects the intestines. Then, they screened the cell’s genes for protective proteins and found a match: APOL3. This protein has parts drawn to water and other parts drawn to fats—just like laundry detergent. APOL3 attacks the greasy lipids lining the inner bacterial membrane with precision, never mistaking a human cell membrane for the invader.

As resistance to antibiotics surges, an alternative option is needed. Pathogens may have their own proteins that interfere with APOL3’s counterattacks, but researchers could design a new antibiotic that targets those pesky proteins so APOL3 can do its thing. Cohen also suggests designing small molecules that mimic APOL3’s actions using what’s called host-directed therapy, which creates a harsh environment for the pathogen instead of directly disarming it.

But first, the scientists have to understand the breadth of infections controlled by APOL3 and other immune defense proteins. “That will incentivize the research effort in tackling important human bacterial, viral, and parasitic pathogens, especially if antibiotic resistance is already prevalent for those microbes and we need new drugs,” MacMicking says via email.

“Inventions that mimic host protein activities are still relatively understudied,” MacMicking explains. “This could be fertile ground since our immune defenses are largely indifferent to whether pathogens are currently sensitive or resistant to known antibiotics.”

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Rachael Lallensack is the former assistant web editor for science and innovation at Smithsonian .

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Inventions that drive modern life expectancy

Most people are familiar with historic life-saving inventions like penicillin and seat belts, but it’s difficult to place these things in the long history of human innovation and increased life expectancy. We reviewed research from every field of study and assembled a collection of 50 inventions that have had (or will have) the most definite and dramatic impact on human life expectancy.

All 50 inventions, listed in approximate order of appearance over the past two centuries.

The first boom of innovation followed the Industrial Revolution and spanned a strong half-century of legendary invention. The men and women who were pioneers in their fields at this time are responsible for saving literally billions of lives. In the pre-1900s, infection and contamination were among the biggest enemies of a long and healthy life. Major advancements in science and medicine for blood transfusions, pasteurization, antibiotics, and toilets meant that being able to clean, replace, sanitize, destroy, or flush away disease-riddled contaminates skyrocketed the mortality rate across the globe.

The development of synthetic fertilizers in 1909 cleared the way for the massive increase in plant growth and crop production in 1945, also known as the Green Revolution, which transformed the agriculture industry. Also by the mid-20 th century, vaccines advanced enough to be made available to the mass public and severely cut down the mortality rate of several diseases, such as measles, tuberculosis, small pox, and rubella.

Instead of wide-sweeping innovations, the second half of the 20 th century saw small yet significant steps in many directions, especially in technology tools. Between 1950-2000, inventions such as air conditioning, auto safety enhancements, radiology, pacemakers, and the bifurcated needle—which eliminated smallpox—are estimated to have saved approximately 171 million lives combined.

Some of the most exciting developments are happening in real time. The exponential growth in scientific fields like artificial intelligence and nanotechnology make estimating their positive effects nearly impossible. In other instances, advancements like genetic and brain mapping, self-driving cars, and desalination and renewable energy are still too new to be told but the benefit to human life behind these ideas is extremely promising. For these examples, “lives saved” is expressed as a speculative annual rate we might enjoy once a given technology is fully realized, in the near or distant future. It is simply too soon to tell.

It may be true that innovations of the past can end up hurting us in the present, such as with synthetic fertilizers helping accelerate the current level of environmental strain. However, we know that humans will never stop trying to improve the human experience. As long as there are barriers to having the best, healthiest, longest natural life possible, scientists, inventors, thinkers, and dreamers will continue to work towards breaking those barriers so that we humans can live our best lives.

Sources: World Health Organization Center for Disease Control Science Heroes https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/nuclear-power-may-have-saved-1-8-million-lives-otherwise-lost-to-fossil-fuels-may-save-up-to-7-million-more/ https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2011/march/acs-to-honor-mri-as-national-landmark-technology-during-ceremony-at-stony-brook-university.html http://www.foxnews.com/tech/slideshow/2013/10/10/20-inventions-that-could-change-our-world.html#/slide/robotic-surgery–automated-suturing-tool–canada- http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/us-wind-power-solar-energy-renewables-prevent-12700-deaths-2015-clean-air-climate-change-a7894066.html https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-malaria-who/millions-of-childrens-lives-saved-as-malaria-deaths-plunge-u-n-idUSKCN0RG31Q20150916 http://www.journalnow.com/business/study-finds-switching-to-e-cigs-could-save-up-to/article_5fc48d3d-7770-5e1a-8925-9945fd79c21e.html https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/self-driving-cars-could-save-300000-lives-per-decade-in-america/407956/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/04/21/big-data-saving-13000-lives-a-year-by-predicting-earthquakes/#18326e0d5d8d https://www.computerworld.com/article/3099668/mobile-wireless/heres-how-smartphones-can-save-125000-us-lives-each-year.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/robots-save-lives-of-500-men-battling-deadly-prostate-cancer-in-london-a3700751.html https://www.forbes.com/2009/02/19/innovation-internet-health-entrepreneurs-technology_wharton.html#275d1bc12b2f https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/apr/04/drug-excessive-bleeding-after-childbirth-save-lives https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/heres-how-many-lives-vaccines-save-each-year_us_57278a3ee4b01a5ebde634c0 http://www.nbcnews.com/id/23213424/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/how-satellites-saved-world/#.WnSkpainFjU https://www.popsci.com/article/technology/robots-may-replace-one-fourth-us-combat-soldiers-2030-says-general https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/study-50-years-of-anti-smoking-efforts-have-saved-8-million-lives.html http://www.nandamurifans.com/forum/index.php?/topic/240673-savings-millions-since-ages-invisible-heroes/ https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/1754418/Collateral_2017/Whitepapers/How_The_IOT_Can_Save_Lives_50014.pdf http://www.cracked.com/article_19343_6-mind-blowing-ways-genetic-engineering-might-save-your-life.html http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/environmental-health/food-safety-in-virginia/milk-safety/pasteurization/ https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2015/mortality-and-mental-disorders.shtml http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/2012/11/diabetes-kills-3-4-million-people-every-year-who/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/17/early-stage-the-startup-3d-printing-human-organs-save-lives/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2014/06/10/10-new-innovations-that-could-change-the-world/ http://www.mobihealthnews.com/39062/prediction-health-wearables-to-save-1-3-million-lives-by-2020 https://www.cnn.com/2014/02/25/business/10-ways-mobile-technology-will-save-your-life/index.html https://www.graham-center.org/rgc/press-events/press/all-releases/03012007-education-social.html https://chlorine.americanchemistry.com/Chlorine-Benefits/Safe-Water/Disinfection-Practices.pdf http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2016/08/history-pasteurization-saved-millions-lives/ https://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/26-billion-with-no-place-to-go-to-the-toilet/ http://asirt.org/initiatives/informing-road-users/road-safety-facts/road-crash-statistics https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/24/cdc-vaccine-benefits/8094789/ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/well/the-cost-of-not-taking-your-medicine.html https://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/communications/pdf/Lives-Saved-Fact-Sheet.pdf http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/media/news/2009/13_08_09/en/ https://www.livescience.com/16713-7-billion-people-world-poop-problem.html https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/jul/18/he-saved-a-billion-lives/ https://www.livescience.com/16713-7-billion-people-world-poop-problem.html https://futurism.com/artificial-organs-entering-era-transplants-obsolete/ https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0424-immunization-program.html http://www.publichealth.northwestern.edu/nphr/2014-v2i1/Ewaleifoh.html http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2012/20121009_sarsataniv.html https://80000hours.org/2012/08/how-many-lives-does-a-doctor-save/ https://www.awwa.org/store/productdetail.aspx?productid=34151948 http://www.cfour.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/chlorination.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/seatbeltbrief/index.html http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=48740#.WnHwPKinGUk https://www.nigms.nih.gov/education/pages/factsheet_sepsis.aspx https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170301093659.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170303163208.htm https://www.organdonor.gov/statistics-stories/statistics.html http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Alexander_Fleming https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2192245 http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs392/en/ https://www.globalhealthnow.org/object/car-seat http://www.bmj.com/content/1/4286/261 https://ourworldindata.org/famines https://unos.org/data/

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7 Life-Saving Inventions You Can’t Live Without

Explore groundbreaking inventions designed to save lives in emergencies. From advanced rescue tools to life-saving medical equipment, discover how these innovations enhance safety and efficiency.

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Our editorial process is built on human expertise, ensuring that every article is reliable and trustworthy. AI helps us shape our content to be as accurate and engaging as possible. Learn more about our commitment to integrity in our Code of Ethics .

In a world where emergencies can strike at any moment, innovative inventions are stepping up to save lives. From advanced rescue tools to life-saving medical equipment, these products are designed to enhance safety and efficiency in critical situations. Here’s a look at some of the most remarkable inventions that could make a difference in life-threatening scenarios. As we explore these innovations, it’s important to recognize the impact they can have on our communities and the potential they hold for future advancements in emergency response.

Zefhir Helicopter Parachute

Imagine a helicopter in distress. If the pilot loses control, a crash seems inevitable. Enter the Zefhir Helicopter Parachute , a groundbreaking invention that deploys a parachute to slow the descent of the helicopter. This parachute is stored above the propeller and activates automatically, allowing the helicopter to land safely even in adverse conditions. In tests, it reduced descent speed from 23 m/s to just 7.5 m/s, providing a crucial safety net for pilots and passengers alike.

The Zefhir also features crashworthy seats and landing gear designed to absorb impact, ensuring that even in the worst-case scenario, injuries are minimized. This innovative technology could redefine safety standards in aviation, making it a game-changer for helicopter travel.

Check it out here.

Extreme Shelter

When wildfires rage, having a safe place to take refuge is vital. The Extreme Shelter is a fire-resistant tent made from aluminum and fiberglass, designed to protect individuals from flames and extreme heat. It opens in seconds, allowing users to quickly curl up inside, which is crucial if the fire changes direction unexpectedly.

Priced at $373, this shelter is not just a tent; it’s a lifeline for firefighters and civilians alike. Its quick deployment and robust construction make it an essential tool in emergency situations, providing peace of mind when every second counts.

TY-3R Drone

The TY-3R Drone is a versatile tool that can operate in challenging conditions, including water landings and high winds. With a top speed of 13 m/s and a depth capability of 1.5 meters, this drone is equipped with a 720p camera and an automatic return feature if the signal is lost. It’s designed to function in extreme temperatures, making it suitable for various rescue operations.

At a price of $1,833, the TY-3R Drone is an investment in safety and efficiency. Its ability to gather real-time data and perform tasks in hazardous environments makes it an invaluable asset for rescue teams and emergency responders.

LEADER EASY 5000 Ventilator

In emergencies where breathing support is needed, the LEADER EASY 5000 Ventilator stands out as a powerful solution. This ventilator can move an impressive 1,120,000 cubic meters of air per hour, making it ideal for large areas like warehouses or parking lots. It’s equipped with a built-in fogging system and can operate for two hours on a full tank.

This ventilator is not just about airflow; it’s about saving lives in critical situations. Its ability to remove smoke and cool environments can be the difference between life and death in fire emergencies, making it a must-have for any emergency response team.

SB Rescue Sling

The SB Rescue Sling is a lightweight yet effective tool for rescuing individuals from drowning situations. Weighing only 3 kg, it stretches to 5.2 meters, allowing rescuers to save lives without entering the water. The sling is made from a polyester net attached to an aluminum frame, making it both durable and easy to use.

This innovative rescue tool can be deployed in under 30 seconds, and its tracking labels ensure that it can be reused efficiently. The SB Rescue Sling is a testament to how simple designs can have a profound impact on emergency rescue operations.

Black Diamond Guide BT Avalanche Beacon

For those who venture into snowy terrains, the Black Diamond Guide BT Avalanche Beacon is an essential piece of equipment. Priced at $500, this beacon can send signals up to 60 meters away and operates for an impressive 400 hours on three AAA batteries. It features Bluetooth connectivity and an inclinometer, making it a top choice for professional rescuers.

This beacon not only helps locate individuals buried in snow but also provides peace of mind for outdoor enthusiasts. Its advanced features and reliability make it a critical tool for avalanche safety.

Philips HeartStart FRx AED

The Philips HeartStart FRx AED is a compact and user-friendly defibrillator designed for emergency situations. It analyzes heart rhythms and provides step-by-step instructions for resuscitation, making it accessible even for those without medical training. With a battery life that supports at least 200 shocks, this device is a reliable companion in critical moments.

Its lightweight design and ease of use make it a favorite among ambulance crews and in public spaces. The HeartStart FRx AED exemplifies how technology can empower individuals to save lives in emergencies.

These amazing inventions are not just products; they are lifelines in emergencies. From advanced rescue tools to life-saving medical equipment, each invention plays a crucial role in enhancing safety and efficiency. Understanding these tools can prepare us for the unexpected, ensuring that we are ready to act when it matters most.

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Eight Brilliant Green Inventions that Save Lives

By Korbinian Sinzinger | Tuesday May 1st, 2018 | Uncategorized |

In an age where we completely take technology for granted, barely a second thought is given to the gadgets that protect us every single day. While they might seem very ordinary to us, here are five impressive feats of engineering that have been saving lives for decades or even centuries – followed by three inventions that could be the most impactful designs of the 21 st century.

Vehicles didn’t feature seatbelts until 1949, with the modern three-point configuration not being adopted until the 1970s. Since wearing a seatbelt became mandatory in the UK in 1983, the government estimates that they have saved around 60,000 deaths and prevented over 650,000 serious injuries.

Fire Sprinklers

The first modern sprinkler system was installed in 1812, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. During the following 200 years since, the design has been optimised – and approximately 40 million new sprinkler systems (like these at Applications Engineering ) are installed in commercial and domestic properties around the world each year.

While they are not mandatory in every country, their installation is widely encouraged as a life-saving and property protection measure. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), when a fire breaks out in a building with proper sprinkler protection, in 96% of cases, no other safety measure is needed to contain the blaze.

Life Jackets

Officially called a “personal floatation device” (PFD), the equipment known as a life jacket, life preserver or buoyancy aid has been saving lives since 1804. The modern jacket is attributed to Captain Ward of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, who created a cork vest for lifeboat his crews in 1854.

Nowadays they are ubiquitous in environments like watersports centres , lifeguard stations and any transport vessel that crosses water (including planes). Those used for water-based activities are mostly foam-based, while those designed for emergency situations are typically inflatable, so that the wearer can swim away from a submerged vehicle before choosing to fill their jacket with air.

Vehicle airbags are credited as being one of the world’s greatest safety assets. Designed by John W. Hetrick, the airbag was patented in 1953. By 1969 it was mandatory under US federal law for all motorised vehicles to include a form of ‘automatic occupant protection system’. There are some limitations to the protection that an airbag can provide, however, thanks to extremely precise engineering , lots of of drivers and passengers in road collisions have airbags to thank for their lives.

Three-pin plugs

The only times most people ever think about plug sockets is when they’re looking for somewhere to charge their phone or remembering that they need to bring an adapter when they go abroad. For international visitors, our three-pinned plug probably seems clunky and unrefined. Even the majority of Brits don’t realise why it’s shaped the way it is, but this comparatively awkward design actually makes it exceptionally safe .

Firstly, the dangerous live and neutral terminals in the socket are physically gated. You barely notice this when you plug something in, as the longer grounding prong (the top one) is used to unlock them, making them safe in the process. Secondly, in-built fuses automatically shut-off the supply in the event of a surge, preventing fires and electrocutions. Thirdly, the inner wiring is designed in such a way that if the cable is tugged or begins to fray, the live and neutral connections will break first, and the safe, earth wire will remain intact.

What about the future?

The Invisible Bike Helmet

In a bid to address adult cycling safety, Industrial Design students Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin have engineered a bike helmet that is incredible safe, while being totally invisible. Hövding is a collar that is worn around the neck while cycling, which contains an airbag helmet that inflates upon impact. No more excuses about looking uncool!

It’s not only human lives that are important! The state of our marine life is under huge scrutiny at the moment and for good reason, as the health of our oceans directly correlates to the future of our ecosystem.

The innovative creation from Australian surfers, Andrew Turton and Pete Ceglinski is essentially a floating rubbish bin, designed to attract and collect floating rubbish, debris and oil. The plan is to deploy these bins around areas with high human traffic, like marinas, to catch litter at its source and help to keep our oceans a little bit cleaner. The Seabin project is still in development, so check out the indiegogo campaign for more details.

The LifeStraw

Those of us with access to clean drinking water undoubtedly take it for granted, particularly considering there are approximately 844 million people in the world who don’t. The LifeStraw, produced by Alan Mortensen, is designed to change that by offering a way of purifying water as it travels up the straw, making it safe to drink. The technology involves a small iodine chamber within the straw, which, while making the water taste slightly bitter, can be used to rid up to 700 litres of water of parasites before the straw needs to be replaced.

These products have saved countless lives for decades. Now they are being refined to help preserve the environment as well. This will have a tremendous impact on our world and reduce our carbon footprint, while still saving lives in the process.

This article appeared first on April 19th, 2018 on blueandgreentomorrow.com. https://blueandgreentomorrow.com/environment/brilliant-green-inventions-save-lives/

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22 Inventions That Are Saving the World

We all know that we need to do our part to save the Earth, but the hardest part is knowing where to start. Everyday, it seems like there’s a new headline about how humans are destroying the planet. Under such circumstances, it is especially easy to feel overwhelmed by the state of the environment .

Beginning with the 22 inventions that are saving the world is a great place to start, however. These eco-friendly inventions prove that humans are capable of creating change. From solar-powered trash removal to water blobs, these inventions are helping the world move towards a more sustainable future.

Liter of Light

In 2011, Brazilian mechanic Alfredo Moser’s idea sparked the Liter of Light movement. During the day, Moser was able to light up the inside of his home by combining bleach and water in an empty bottle and inserting it in a hole in the roof. Through the process of refraction, the water bottle gets transformed into a source of illumination as powerful as a 40 to 60-watt lightbulb.

Edible water blobs

The water in an edible water bottle is contained in a transparent sachet composed of chloride and seaweed. The bottle is even biodegradable. In 2014, a group of London-based design students developed a prototype they named “ Ooho! ” In quick succession, Pierre-Yves Paslier and Rodrigo Garcia González founded Skipping Rocks Lab to market their product.

Mr. Trash Wheel

Jump aboard me this Thursday 10/6 in Fells Point! Register for the Harbor Heartbeat Report Card Release and you’ll get a FREE tour of your friendly neighborhood trash wheel. https://t.co/MY9zCsmuYZ pic.twitter.com/mC58UiaKyB — Mr. Trash Wheel (@MrTrashWheel) October 3, 2022

The Inner Harbor Water Wheel, often known as “Mr. Trash Wheel” in the area, is a hybrid of old and new technologies that use the force of water and sunlight to gather the trash from the Jones Falls River.

The garbage and debris in the river are collected by a water wheel powered by the river’s current and dumped onto a dumpster barge.

A solar panel array supplements the machine’s power needs when there is insufficient energy from the water current. As soon as the dumpster is full, it is removed by boat, and a fresh one is brought into its place.

Plastic-free shampoo pods

We're shaping the future of personal care 💧🔮 #plasticfree #sustainable #personalcare pic.twitter.com/lnoQTP9J3a — Nohbo (@nohbodrops) April 8, 2021

The Drop collection by NOHBO was introduced in 2018. The NOHBO team spent years perfecting its single-use, water-soluble Drop for personal care products, and they spent countless hours in the lab.

A single drop of shampoo in the palm of one’s hand while under running shower water completely dissolves, leaving no trace behind.

We have harnessed the power of slow moving water! #GreenEnergy #hydropower #waterotor #technews #power #environment pic.twitter.com/ktZl5geVAS — info (@waterotor) June 20, 2016

At speeds as low as 3.2 km/h (0.9 m/s), the Waterotor is capable of converting more than half of the available energy in slow-flowing water (streams, rivers, canals, and waterways) into electricity through the use of unique hydrokinetic technology.

The Waterotor’s exceptional efficiency can be attributed to its one-of-a-kind rotor, which was designed, tested, and optimized in a NASA wind tunnel.

Shipping container pool

Shipping container pools are made from recycled old containers.

Because of their robust construction, these containers may be used in anything from storage sheds to playground equipment. They are also put to use in the building of structures such as walls, fences, and even homes.

Shipping Container Pool https://t.co/RziZsmoQgu pic.twitter.com/2C5IUZNmMR — ThisIsWhyImBroke (@thisisyimbroke) February 25, 2020

Please share. Sick of seeing plastic pollution in the water? Have your say; https://t.co/0ZvaOVjIA5 pic.twitter.com/1tXkBd3Zcj — Seabin™ (@Seabin_project) November 21, 2022

The Seabin unit is an in-water “trash skimmer” that may be placed in the water of marinas, yacht clubs, ports, or any other calm body of water that meets certain requirements.

By pumping water into the unit, it serves as a floating waste bin that skims the water’s surface. Floating trash, macro and microplastics, and even microfibers are all things that the Seabin can filter out.

Edible spoons

In 2010, a researcher and agriculture consultant named Peesapaty from Hyderabad, India created an edible spoon from millet, rice, and wheat flour.

The “edible lunch spoon” is available in sugar, ginger-cinnamon, ginger-garlic, cumin, celery, black pepper, mint-ginger, carrot-beetroot, and other flavors. It can withstand boiling fluids for up to twenty minutes. There is a shelf life of between two and three years for the spoons.

SaltWater Brewery

Pick up a six pack today! Always fresh, always eco friendly 🍻🌿 #saltwaterbrewery #ecosixpackring #e6pr #screaminreelsipa https://t.co/XxQFz0hi1J pic.twitter.com/cDZdpU7ILK — SaltWater Brewery – Reef Room – Main Tasting Room (@TheReefRoom) July 11, 2019

New sustainable beer packaging described as “edible six-pack rings” was introduced by Saltwater Brewery of Delray Beach, Florida.

These six-pack rings, made from leftover barley and wheat ribbons from the brewing process, are completely biodegradable and edible. Animals that come into touch with trash can safely consume this packaging without being harmed in any way.

Portable turbine

River turbine manufacturer @Idenergie_Inc at #altesolarcon @altEstore pic.twitter.com/a1t6GFcKLK — Sascha (@SaschaDeri) February 23, 2016

Depending on the water velocity, the Idénergie river turbine can generate up to twelve kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity per day, more than enough to power a typical home.

In its most basic setting, the device can provide enough energy to run essentials such as a refrigerator, television, computer, and lights.

The manufacturer claims that one river turbine operating at full capacity can generate as much power as twelve solar panels.

Plastic bottle cutter

#asghedomshop Eco-Friendly Plastic Bottle Cutter pic.twitter.com/iq7AkGAw63 — Asghedom.com (@asghedomshop) March 3, 2021

The Plastic Bottle Cutter is a twenty-five dollar gadget essentially consisting of a razor blade enclosed in plastic and attached to a wooden handle with a cutting guide.

What comes out of the Plastic Bottle Cutter, though, is what is really impressive. In order to begin the cut, the user must first remove the bottle’s base and heat the plastic until it is flexible and free of ridges.

The bottle is then spun into a fine plastic rope by pushing on the cut piece. This rope can be unraveled into a length of line that can be used for a variety of purposes.

Bite toothpaste bits

Trying to minimize plastic use. Excited to use @bitetoothpaste pic.twitter.com/4ed44hi56j — Elizabeth Sturcken (@esturcken) July 13, 2022

As the name suggests, these “toothpaste bits” from Bite are small, chewable tablets of toothpaste that can be used in place of your regular toothpaste.

They have the benefit of being vegan and are easy to use. The bits are made with natural ingredients comprised of only a tiny proportion of the chemicals used in ordinary toothpaste. There are also no artificial chemicals such as flavorings, fillers, or dyes in the product.

Tire shredder

our shredder machine for plastic, wood, carton,tire,and other waste materials pic.twitter.com/dDmatVOokV — hekiki (@hekiki2) November 30, 2016

To dispose of or recycle old tires, tire shredding is a widespread practice. Tires can be shredded into pieces of various sizes before they are dumped into a landfill. Crumb tire or tire mulch can, for instance, be recycled into surfaces for playgrounds, athletic tracks, and highways. This process is known as tire recycling.

Water turbine portable power generator (Waterlily)

“This turbine uses water or wind to generate energy for your devices. Meet WaterLily water and wind turbine.” Source @gigadgets_ pic.twitter.com/4uQzOAFDwt — Tech Burrito (@TechBurritoUno) October 15, 2022

The WaterLily concept was first developed as a scalable power source for keeping data stations operational in the waters of the Northern Atlantic. Over the course of ten years of development and testing, this equipment was refined until it could be reduced in size to produce the modern WaterLily.

There are now two WaterLily turbine models to choose from. The first is a standard 12V output model, suitable for charging power packs, batteries, and other 12V technology. The second is a USB output model.

@IOM_Somalia welcomes use of Polyglu tech in ensuring vulnerable communities in #somalia have access 2 clean water pic.twitter.com/hp3T9sKc92 — IOM Somalia (@IOM_Somalia) August 25, 2016

Somalia has suffered through a severe drought, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is treating potential drinking water with a coagulant called Polyglu to help individuals who have been impacted.

Polyglu is a powder that helps remove toxins from water by using a coagulant derived from fermented soybeans. The product is one of a kind because it may be used without risk as a purification agent in the food and industrial equipment industries. It is sustainable for the environment.

Charcoal from human waste

@SustainaBizKe #Innovation Briquettes from human waste, sawdust taking place of charcoal @NAWASSCO #cleanenergy #Improvedhealth #Stopdeforestation #Sustainablealternatives https://t.co/i5II8UtCIE pic.twitter.com/jsjRaCdffV — Pracksidis A. Wandera (@PracksidisA) July 9, 2019

In the Nakuru, Kenya area, a company is turning human waste and sawdust into charcoal. The briquettes have been widely adopted and used by locals for a variety of applications, including cooking. The hope is that this initiative will help reduce pollution and improve cleanliness, particularly in underprivileged areas of town.

Biodegradable bags

The Cassava Bag is a biodegradable, plastic-free alternative that is sustainable, organic & safe for all, as it can dissolve in hot water. pic.twitter.com/WBVYFh4xpZ — GOOD (@good) February 7, 2022

It has been reported that a guy in Bali has developed a biodegradable and compostable ‘plastic’ bag created from cassava that dissolves in hot water and is even safe to consume. This is widely known in the area as the cassava bag.

Whirlpool turbine

This whirlpool turbine can be installed in a week and could power up to 60 homes https://t.co/hSFJ2IPntG pic.twitter.com/Aj1nD9h1Pq — Insider International (@InsiderIntl) February 7, 2018

A whirlpool turbine, which is a low-pressure turbine with a submersible generator, can produce enough electricity to continuously power sixty homes with no negative impact on the environment. A water level differential of 1.5 meters is needed for whirlpool turbine installation.

HomeBiogas system

HomeBiogas is an Israeli system that converts organic household waste into natural gas for cooking and into garden fertilizer. It helps people in more than 100 countries lower their gas bills and decreases dangerous greenhouse gas pollutants. #COP26 #mfacadets37 @Home_Biogas pic.twitter.com/PODzlAv9Zm — Yonatan Gonen (@GonenYonatan) November 10, 2021

In 2015, an Israeli startup business called HomeBioGas Ltd launched a crowdfunding effort under the name HomeBiogas.

The idea was to provide a place for people to store food waste (a digester) in order to produce their own cooking gas. Bacteria would eat the trash and produce natural gas.

The SpinCycle

A washer on wheels! The SpinCycle is an attachable device for a bike. It washes clothes in developing countries, where it has been used. It can be transported on the back of the bike or used to harness pedal power for washing clothes in a stationary position. #sustainability pic.twitter.com/FWBd0gXssr — ElectraFix Appliance Repair (@ElectrafixR) August 5, 2020

Wash your clothes on the go with the SpinCycle, a portable washing machine that can be mounted on almost any bicycle.

Rich Hewitt thought of it while traveling in Burundi, and he made it a reality. He had to wash a lot of laundry by hand and looked for a better way to do it while he was there.

The CampStove 2

There has never been a camping stove like the Biolite CampStove 2. Small and powerful, it adds a touch of elegance to your outdoor adventures.

You can use the Biolite stove for cooking, grilling, and charging devices outdoors. The CampStove 2 is very handy because it can burn wood and includes a USB connector for charging electronics.

The Barsha Pump

The Barsha pump by aQysta B.V. is an affordable and creative way for smallholder farmers to water their crops without the need for fuel or electricity. The hydro-powered pump can be installed nearly anywhere there is access to running water, and it requires minimal maintenance.

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22 inventions that could save the Earth

EDITOR'S NOTE: This video was originally published in February 2019.

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Top 10 Inventions of the Industrial Revolution

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The British Industrial Revolution transformed life at work and at home for practically everyone. Noise, pollution, social upheaval, and repetitive jobs were the price to pay for labour-saving machines, cheap and comfortable transportation, more affordable consumer goods, better lighting and heating, and faster ways of communication.

Any shortlist of inventions is bound to be far from complete, but the following have been chosen not only for what they could do but also for how they permitted other inventions to become possible and how they transformed working life and everyday living for millions of people. The period under consideration is also important and here is taken as 1750 to 1860. With these criteria in mind, the top 10 inventions of the Industrial Revolution were:

• The Watt Steam Engine (1778)
• The Power Loom (1785)
• The Cotton Gin (1794)
• Gas Street Lighting (1807)
• The Electromagnet (1825)
• The First Photograph (c. 1826)
• Stephenson's Rocket (1829)
• The Electrical Telegraph (1837)
• The Steam Hammer (1839)
• Mass Steel Production (1856)

The Watt Steam Engine

The steam engine, which harnessed power from the expansion of heated water, is often cited as the single most important invention of the Industrial Revolution, principally because so many other important subsequent inventions used it as their power source. The steam engine was born from the necessity to pump out flooded mine shafts and enable deeper mining. The first steam pump was invented by Thomas Savery (c. 1650-1715) in 1698. In 1712, Thomas Newcomen (1664-1729) perfected his more powerful steam pump to drain coal mines of water in Dudley in the Midlands.

To make the steam engine more useful for other purposes, it had to be made more efficient both in terms of fuel consumption and power. The Scottish instrument maker James Watt (1736-1819) and Matthew Boulton (1728-1809) kept tinkering with the workings of the steam engine until, in 1778, they had perfected a separate condenser to vastly increase the engine's efficiency. Power was also increased by the steam powering the piston down not just up (hence its name, a double-acting engine), increasing the 'horsepower', a term coined by Watt. The engine also had its power converted to a more versatile rotary motion using a flywheel. Using just one-quarter of the fuel of Newcomen's engine, Watt's engine was cheap enough to use almost anywhere. Steam engines kept on evolving, notably with the expansion steam engine, and they benefitted from ever-better tool machinery that could make stronger and better-fitting parts.

By 1800, Britain boasted over 2,500 steam engines, most of them used in mines, cotton mills, and manufacturing factories. 500 of these engines were made by the Watt and Boulton factory in Birmingham. Every walk of life was affected. Steam now powered fountains, threshing machines, sewage pumps, and printing presses. Essentially, any work that required pushing, pulling, lifting, or pressing could be made much more efficient using steam-powered machines. Steam engines were harnessed for trains and steamships, and, aptly, all these uses caused a boom in the coal mining industry, which had been the origin of the machine in the first place.

The Power Loom

The textile industry in the British Industrial Revolution was transformed by machines. The power loom weaving machine was invented by Edmund Cartwright (1743-1823) in 1785. The machine doubled the speed of cloth production and meant that skilled handweavers were no longer needed. The fully automated machine only needed a single worker to change the full spindles. The power loom was first used effectively in factories owned by Richard Arkwright (1732-1792). The British government awarded Cartwright £10,000 in 1809 in thanks for the significant contribution the power loom made to British industry. Other inventors improved the efficiency of Cartwright's loom, such as Richard Roberts (1789-1864) who made a more reliable iron version in 1822. Textile factories everywhere were not slow to equip themselves with large numbers of power looms. By 1835, there were 50,000 power looms in use in Britain, and factories could produce cloth cheaper than anywhere else in the world.

The spread of the power loom meant that inventors were obliged to come up with better spinning machines to provide sufficient yarn for the insatiable looms. Machine operators no longer needed any textile skills and were there to only make sure the machines kept running, often 24 hours a day. New jobs were created as more factories sprang up. Textile products became cheaper to buy for everyone, and supply industries like cotton plantations and coal mines boomed. In another knock-on effect, the abuses of workers in the factory system by unscrupulous employers created the trade union movement to protect workers' rights and health.

The Cotton Gin

Now that spinning and weaving could be fully mechanised, the speed and quantity of textile production increased enormously. What was needed next was to provide the ever-hungry machines with enough raw material to work with, cotton, in particular. Cotton was picked, sorted, and cleaned by hand, usually using slave labour on large plantations in the southern United States. Eli Whitney (1765-1825) from Massachusetts, moved to a cotton plantation in Georgia where he created a way to speed up cotton production. The time-consuming process of separating the sticky seeds from cotton balls was now done by Whitney's Cotton Gin ('gin' meaning 'machine' or 'engine'), which he invented in 1794.

First powered by horses or water wheels, the cotton gin eventually harnessed steam power. The machine pulled raw cotton through a comb mesh where a combination of revolving metal teeth and hooks separated it and removed the troublesome seeds. A single cotton gin could process up to 25 kg (55 lbs) of cotton every day. As cotton production rocketed, so more and more slaves were used on the cotton plantations to pick the cotton balls that fed the insatiable gins. The machine was so successful, it was illegally copied by plantation owners everywhere. The slave population in America rose to nearly 4 million by 1860. Cotton was exported far and wide, the USA accounting for 75% of the world's cotton production. In Britain in 1790, cotton accounted for 2.3% of total imports; by 1830, that figure had rocketed to 55%. British textile mills worked the raw material and exported it out again with such success that cotton textiles accounted for half of Britain's total exports in 1830. As the historian R. C. Allen notes, in global terms, "Cotton was the wonder industry of the Industrial Revolution" (182).

Gas Street Lighting

The dimness of nighttime lighting, traditionally provided by burning oil or tallow candles, was finally lifted by the invention of gas lighting. Around 1792-4, the Scotsman William Murdock (1754-1839) discovered that coal dust gave off a gas that could be ignited. Murdock successfully used gas lights in his foundry in Birmingham. The idea to use coal gas for street lighting was pioneered by the German inventor Frederick Albert Winsor (1763-1830) from 1807. Winsor spectacularly demonstrated the potential of his idea by setting up gas streetlights from Pall Mall to St James' Park in London. The demonstration caused a sensation with the public, and Pall Mall received 13 permanent gas-lit lampposts, thus becoming the first street in the world to be so illuminated. By around 1820, London had 40,000 gas streetlights.

The addition of light to previously dark streets transformed people's habits. No longer seeming quite so dangerous at night, more people ventured out to restaurants and places of entertainment. The idea quickly spread around the world, with Baltimore becoming the first city in the United States to use coal gas street lighting in 1816. In 1820, Paris installed its own gas lighting.

The Electromagnet

The Canadian engineer William Sturgeon (1783-1850) was inspired by the work of the French scientist André-Marie Ampère (1775-1836) and the Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted (1777-1851) to create the first electromagnet in 1825. The device was a horseshoe piece of iron within a coil of wire that could carry electricity and so magnetise or demagnetise the iron. The magnetic force created could then be used to lift an object, but when Sturgeon invented the commutator, his electromagnet could now drive a motor making it a much more versatile power source. This power source has been used in everything from the telegraph (see below) to today's washing machines.

The First Photograph

The first photograph was taken using a camera obscura by the Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833) in 1826. The photograph, titled View from the Window at Le Gras , is a little blurred, but it is the oldest surviving photograph of a real view. The camera obscura, essentially a box with a small aperture covered by a lens, was not new since artists and engravers had been using them to help their work. What was new was Nièpce's idea to permanently capture the image projected through the lens onto light-sensitive silver chloride-coated paper. This new technique was called heliography, but it had two significant drawbacks. The first problem was the image faded away into black when exposed to light. The second problem was the image was captured in negative (light areas in real life were shown dark and vice-versa). Niépce solved the problem using a bitumen solution to cover a glass or pewter plate, and so he captured the view from his window. The photograph idea was further improved by Louis-Jacques Daguerre (1789-1851), who used copper plates treated with silver to capture a positive image. The daguerreotype was bought by the French government and made public, which resulted in a boom in photographic studios. In 1840, the English inventor William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) made the first paper negatives from which any number of prints could be made.

The arrival of the photographic camera not only permitted people of all classes to have their portraits taken but it revolutionised art. Many fine artists no longer wished to recreate the world around them as accurately as possible because the camera could easily achieve this. Instead, artists strove to capture the momentary effects of light and colour or communicate a certain emotion in their work. The arrival of the camera was one of the reasons for the development of impressionism and symbolism in the last quarter of the 19th century.

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The first railways were short distances of tracks used at mines to transport material to where it could be shipped away. George Stephenson (1781-1848) owned a company in Newcastle that specialised in building railway trains to transport coal like this. Stephenson saw that passengers might travel in the same way as coal and designed the Locomotion 1 train engine, which was powerful enough to pull carriages. Locomotion 1 transported the first steam railway passengers from Stockton to Darlington in the northeast of England in 1825.

George's son Robert Stephenson (1803-1859) then outdid his father with Rocket , a pioneering steam-powered locomotive invented in 1829. The locomotive won the Rainhill Trials that year to see which machine would pull carriages on the world's first intercity line between Liverpool and Manchester. Rocket was the first powerful and reliable locomotive; it incorporated many new design features such as a multitubular boiler and a blast pipe that gave more power than rival locomotives. Rocket , capable of (at the time an amazing) 48 km/h (30 mph) top speed, deservedly won the Rainhill Trials cash prize of £500 (around £42,000 or $50,000 today). The Liverpool-Manchester line was soon carrying 1,200 passengers a day. It showed the way forward to revolutionise travel not only in Britain but worldwide.

'Railway mania' saw 24,000 kilometres (15,000 mi) of rail lines built across Britain by 1870. From 1848, passengers could travel from London to Glasgow in 12 hours, as trains reached speeds of 80 km/h (50 mph), a journey that would have taken five days or more by stagecoach. The railways created a boom in the production of coal (for fuel) and iron and steel (for rails, bridges, and trains). People began to take excursions to new places, especially the seaside. A massive quantity of jobs was created, everything from station masters to toilet cleaners. Letters could be delivered anywhere in Britain the next day, and the millions of tons of freight carried meant consumer goods became cheaper.

The Electrical Telegraph

The railways greatly improved the speed not only of travel but also communication, as sacks of letters were moved around by train. Britain introduced the universal penny post system in 1840, which permitted next-day delivery, but there was already a serious rival to postage. The telegraph was invented in 1837 by William Fothergill Cook (1806-1879) and Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875). The first telegraph machine had only 20 letters, indicated in the message sent by the slight movement of two needles (from the machine's set of five) towards a particular letter. The needles were moved by electrical impulses sent down the telegraph line connecting two machines. Short messages could now be sent quickly and were first used on the railways to communicate instructions to drivers and stations.

The first successful use of the machine was for the Great Western Railway in 1838, used between Paddington Station and West Drayton, a distance of 21 kilometres (13 miles). The cables were first laid underground but then adapted with insulation for hanging in the open air between what became known as telegraph poles. As the system was adopted across the British railway network, so for the first time it was possible to have a universal time when previously, town clocks had all varied. Consequently, the telegraph made Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) possible. Information could be sent wherever there were telegraph machines, meaning that news of events spread far quicker than previously. The speed of telegraph communication was also very useful for the police who could alert fellow officers far away of criminal activity and even to capture escaping criminals. Telegraph communication made a step forward when Samuel Morse (1791-1872) of Massachusetts, with the assistance of Alfred Vail, first put his Morse code into action in 1844. The giant steamship SS Great Eastern , designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859), laid the first cross-Atlantic telegraph cable in 1866, and this now allowed fast intercontinental communication. Suddenly, the world seemed a little smaller and life a lot faster.

The Steam Hammer

The steam hammer is not the most glamorous of inventions in this list, but it was crucial to making many other inventions possible. Developed in 1839 by the Scotsman James Nasmyth (1808-1890), this relatively simple device used a steam engine to let fall (and later push) with a precision of both speed and direction a great weight capable of forging or bending large pieces of metal resting on an adjustable anvil plate. As the steam hammer could be made in any size required, metal pieces could be worked that would not have been possible by any other means. In addition, the accuracy of the hammer meant different pieces of metal could be bent in exactly the same way, essential for components of large machines like giant steam engines, trains, iron ships, heavy weapons, and bridge girders.

Nasmyth's machine was so precise he could demonstrate to visitors to his foundry that a 2.5-ton weight could crush an eggshell sitting in a wine glass and do no harm to the glass. This precision meant a steam hammer could take on smaller tasks that required more finesse, like minting coins and printing banknotes. Another advantage was the speed the hammer could operate, sometimes delivering 220 blows per minute. No matter what the operation involved, all that was needed in terms of labour was one person casually operating a simple lever. Unlike so many of the other inventors in this list, Nasmyth made a staggering fortune from the hammer which revolutionised industrial production.

Steel Production

Iron was used throughout the Industrial Revolution for all manner of machines and construction projects, but steel is far superior in strength and malleability, and it is lighter. This meant that steel was particularly useful for larger projects like bridge-building and weight-bearing items like rail tracks. The problem was that making steel was an expensive process. As so often with inventions in the Industrial Revolution, a new idea was based on a pyramid of earlier inventions and produced because of the search for efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Henry Bessemer (1813-1898) invented a converter in 1856 that made steel production much cheaper and more reliable. The bigger Bessemer converters, filled with molten pig iron, could make up to 30 tons of steel in 20 to 30 minutes, removing carbon and other impurities by forcing air under high pressure through the molten metal. The impurities form oxides and so are separated as slag, leaving behind pure and strong steel. After Bessemer's invention, the cost of steel fell from £50 a ton to just £4 by 1875. Sheffield became one of the biggest steel producers in the world, making, in particular, railway tracks for Britain, the United States, and many other countries around the world.

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Bibliography

• Allen, Robert C. The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective . Cambridge University Press, 2009.
• Corey, Melinda & Ochoa, George. The Encyclopedia of the Victorian World. Henry Holt & Co, 1996.
• Dugan, Sally & Dugan, David. The Day the World Took Off. Channel 4 Book, 2023.
• Forty, Simon. 100 Innovations of the Industrial Revolution. Haynes Publishing UK, 2019.
• Hepplewhite, Peter. All About. Wayland, 2016.
• Horn, Jeff. The Industrial Revolution . Greenwood, 2007.
• Yorke, Stan. The Industrial Revolution Explained. Countryside Books, 2005.

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Top 5: Life-Saving Inventions

• March 11, 2024

CPR was invented by Dr. James Elm and Dr. Peter Safar and since then has gone on the save approximately 92,000 lives each year. However, CPR is not the only life-saving invention we have in our day-to-day lives. 

In this article, we’ll be looking a five common items, that we all take for granted, that have cumulatively saved millions of lives.

Know More: What Are the Three Different Types of CPR?

Table of Contents

The Seatbelt

Life jackets, fire sprinklers, learn to save lives, 5 best life-saving inventions.

The first seatbelts were invented by English engineer George Cayley to use on his glider, in the mid-19th century and were quickly taken up by racing car drivers as an extra layer of protection in a dangerous sport.

In the early 1950s, Dr. C. Hunter Shelden invented the retractable seat belt as a response to the high number of head injuries coming through his emergency room due to automotive accidents. 

Shelden also proposed recessed steering wheels, reinforced roofs, roll bars, automatic door locks, and passive restraints such as the airbag. All of which we take for granted today.

In 1966, Congress passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act requiring all automobiles to comply with certain safety standards, including seatbelts, which save around 15,000 lives per year.

Life jackets were invented by Captain Ward of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in 1854 when he fashioned cork vests for lifeboat his crews.

The cork might have been replaced by more modern materials, but life jackets have remained a constant feature of both maritime and air travel since then, saving hundreds of lives each year.

According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), in 96% of cases when a fire breaks out in a building with proper sprinkler protection, that sprinkler system is the only method needed to contain the blaze. 

Originally invented by John W. Hetrick in 1953, the original airbag design was so successful that, by 1969 Congress has made it mandatory under US federal law for all motorized vehicles to include a form of ‘automatic occupant protection system’. 

Airbags are more complicated than you might think, as the pressures and impact velocities involved in a vehicle collision and the development of the airbag could cause, not prevent injuries. The difference between your airbag deploying in time to cushion your head and face and not deploying at all is only 7/100ths of a second.

Here at Northwest Career College, we are committed to providing affordable, quality CPR Classes to the Las Vegas community. We pride ourselves on being an American Heart Association (AHA) testing center and we offer Las Vegas CPR classes designed to fit your personal needs and professional schedule. As part of our “student-focussed” approach to education we also off our CPR classes free of charge to all of our students. Call us today at (702) 403-1592  to book your CPR class and become qualified to save a life in just four hours!

Dr. Thomas Kenny was born in Chicago, raised in Las Vegas, but considers Northwest Career College his true home. He has been working at NCC for as long as he can remember. He started by moving and building furniture on… Read Full Bio

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What is the Recommended Chest Compression for Senior Citizens?

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September 2nd, 2024

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Essay: Innovations that Changed the World

• Essay: Innovations that Changed the…

Over the years that the humans have walk upon the earth there have been countless technological innovations, some dating back to the Stone Age.  Although the ancient world didn’t have all the resources that we have today, the people of those times did magnificent things that paved the road for us today; from the stone tools made in Paleolithic and Mesolithic times to the wheel in 3000 BC, all the way to the pyramids in 2560 BC.  These inventions helped make it possible for us to build smartphones, remote controls, and skyscrapers.

Throughout the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods, humans used stone tools.  These stone tools are the oldest technology that has evidence of surviving.  The humans would use flakes of rock, usually flint, to make different tools.  For example, the oldwan choppers, seen to the right, were designed to help break things down.  These stone tools can be compared to smartphones, the most useful tool of today. 

While the humans of the past had a different shape designed for different tasks, today we have “an app for that.”  Smartphones have different apps designed for each task; likewise, there are different designs of stone for each objective.  A smartphone is a tool that most people today could not live without.  Like stone tools, a smartphone is designed to make the lives of people easier. 

Lastly, stone tools were refined by Neolithic farmers.  These farmers sharpened the stone tools, making them better suited for hunting spears and knives.  The same goes for the smartphone.  It seems like every other month there is a new update to make the device better suited for the task at hand.

With the invention of the wheel, transportation was put on another level.  Although it is believed that the first wheels were meant for pottery in Mesopotamia, they ended up being an invention that changed the way humans traveled.  The remote is a great innovation to society. 

The remote, like the wheel, changed the lives of humans.  Before the wheel, people would have to walk everywhere.  In the same way, the remote made it so we did not have to get up to change a channel on the television.  The remote made life easier for people, as did the wheel.  These two inventions were made to help people in their everyday lives but actually helped to make people lazier. 

The wheel made it so people didn’t have to walk and the remote made it so people didn’t have to get up, leaving people able to sit most of the time.  Obviously, these technological breakthroughs had both positive and negative effects.

Around 2560 BC, the Egyptians created one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, the pyramids.  The Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest man-made structure for almost 4,000 years. Today, if we go to a city we can see buildings that are a quarter of a mile tall.  These buildings help to make more space for business by taking up unused air space, which is why they are an important invention. 

Skyscrapers have multiple purposes, one of these purposes is to be a living environment like hotels and apartments.  The pyramids were used as a final resting place for Egyptian kings.  Like the rich kings of Egypt who had the best, rich people today usually have the best living environment in hotel skyscrapers. These huge structures are all being outdone, like the pyramids were, losing the title of the tallest building. 

The Great Pyramid of Giza may have lasted 4,000 years without being outdone, now, however, it is hard for one to last 10 years.  The Burj Khalifa is currently the tallest building in the world, reigning 2,717 feet, but there is another skyscraper said to be built in 2017 which would be 3,280 feet tall, that is nearly one kilometer.  Clearly, the ancient world built up the way for us to soar to new heights.

To conclude, the inventions from the past can be seen in the innovations of today; from the stone tools and the wheel help making it possible to make the pyramids, all the way to discoveries today, like the smartphone, remote, and skyscrapers.  Nolan Bushnell once said, “The best ideas lose their owners and take on lives of their own.” 

This quote is seen in all of these technological discoveries that changed the world.  Ultimately, without these inventions we would be just cavemen without tools, never advancing in evolution.

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How Innovation and Technology Makes Life Easier Essay

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Introduction

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For the people living in the age of highly developed technological progress, it is rather hard to imagine life without all of the existing innovations. Contemporary society can hardly function on the proper level without machines. It is difficult to overestimate the input of modern technologies in making the life of common people easier and happier.

Some people believe that modern inventions contribute to our laziness and inability to communicate. In my opinion, the negative effects of technology overuse really exist, but they are mostly caused by our lack of education and irresponsibility. They can be easily avoided if people behave properly. The machines were created for making our life easy, and it is not their fault if we use them unduly.

Without innovations, our world would look different. It goes without saying that the invention of such widely used devices as the washing machine or a vacuum cleaner gave more free time to common people. However, the influence of technologies is not limited to this side of everyday life. On the contrary, all of the essential parts of the life of our society are based on the use of technology.

The technologies made the studying process easy and accessible for people with any income and location. Owing to modern gadgets and Internet, contemporary students have the possibility to find any scholarly source needed at any time. Without innovations, the work of firefighters, police officers, and rescuers would be much less productive. Thanks to the machines, our healthcare system is constantly making progress in finding solutions for different health problems. Without technologies, the level of medical services would be much lower. Besides, the adoption of technologies maximizes the independence of older adults and makes their life easier and safer (Adams et al. 1718). The use of technologies results in millions of lives and loads of time saved.

The efficacious use of technologies in all spheres of life is directly associated with the level of development of a country. It is a well-known fact that a permanent introduction of innovative technologies into the functioning of different systems results in providing better services and increasing the perception of quality of life. It leads to a higher standard of life for citizens and the elaboration of the country’s reputation all over the world. Therefore, the implantation of innovations is one of the main characteristics of the developed countries, recognized as leaders in the world community.

The United Arab Emirates is a country that has gained the reputation of the leader in implementing up-to-date innovations into life. His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the UAE, has announced 2015 to be the year of innovations in the country. Within the framework of the project, plans for a major museum of the future in Dubai have been launched. The museum “will produce futuristic inventions” and support the UAE in reaching the object of being the most path-breaking country in the world (Sophia par. 2). Different sections will present the newest inventions and demonstrate simulations, enabling the visitors to see the future with the use of 3D printing techniques (Sophia par. 4). Besides, the museum will unite the most prominent specialists under one roof. It will create an opportunity for realizing the whole potential of the best inventors in constructing futuristic prototypes. It seems that this incredible institution will attract much attention from researchers and common people from the whole world.

Technologies and innovations are the main engines driving our society towards a happier future. The most developed countries support inventions and embody them into life. The UAE remains the leader in implementing innovations and strikes the world with its new projects.

Adams, Anne, Julie Boron, Neil Charness, Sara Czaja, Katinka Dijkstra, Cara Bailey Fausset, Arthur Fisk, Tracy Mitzner, Wendy Rogers, and Joseph Sharit. “Older Adults Talk Technology: Technology Usage and Attitudes.” Computers in Human Behavior 26.6 (2010): 1710-1721. Print.

Sophia, Mary. Sheikh Mohammed Launches Museum of the Future in Dubai . 2015. Web.

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Essay on Invention

Students are often asked to write an essay on Invention in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Invention

The magic of inventions.

Inventions are the creations of brilliant minds. They are new devices, methods, or processes made from innovative ideas. Inventions have shaped our world, making life easier and more interesting.

Types of Inventions

Inventions can be physical, like the telephone, or conceptual, like mathematical formulas. They can also be improvements of existing things, like the smartphone.

Impact of Inventions

Inventions have a great impact. They can change how we live, work, and play. For instance, the internet has transformed communication and information access.

Inventing the Future

Inventing is about solving problems and imagining new ways to do things. It’s a key part of progress and the future of our world.

250 Words Essay on Invention

The genesis of invention, the role of necessity.

The axiom “necessity is the mother of invention” holds true. The need to solve problems or improve existing conditions often sparks the flame of invention. For instance, the invention of the wheel was driven by the need for easier transportation, while the development of the internet was a response to the need for global connectivity.

The Power of Curiosity

However, necessity alone can’t fuel invention. It’s the marriage of necessity and curiosity that truly births invention. Curiosity pushes us to question the status quo, to seek answers, and to venture into the unknown. It’s this curiosity that led to inventions like the telescope, which expanded our understanding of the cosmos.

The Impact of Invention

Inventions have a profound impact on society. They revolutionize industries, transform lifestyles, and redefine societal norms. The printing press democratized knowledge, the steam engine propelled the Industrial Revolution, and digital technology is reshaping our world today.

Conclusion: The Continuum of Invention

Invention is a continuum, a never-ending journey of discovery and improvement. Every invention is a stepping stone to the next, creating a chain reaction of progress. As we stand on the brink of a new era of innovation, the power of invention promises to continue shaping our collective destiny.

500 Words Essay on Invention

Introduction to invention.

Invention is a creative process that has been the cornerstone of human progress. It is the act of bringing ideas or objects together in a novel way to create something that did not exist before. Inventions have shaped and reshaped our world, influencing every aspect of our lives, from communication and transportation to healthcare and entertainment.

The Essence of Invention

Invention and society.

Inventions have profound impacts on society. They can stimulate economic growth, improve living standards, and even redefine societal norms. The invention of the printing press, for instance, revolutionized information dissemination, fostering literacy and the spread of new ideas. Similarly, the invention of the internet transformed the way we communicate, access information, and conduct business.

Invention and Technological Advancement

Technological advancements are often the result of inventions. For instance, the invention of the transistor led to the development of the digital computer, which has since revolutionized many fields, from data processing to artificial intelligence. Technological inventions, in turn, often spur further inventions, creating a cycle of innovation.

The Role of Invention in Scientific Discovery

Challenges and ethical considerations in invention.

However, invention is not without its challenges and ethical considerations. The process of invention often requires significant resources, and there is always the risk of failure. Moreover, some inventions can be used for harmful purposes or have unintended negative consequences. For example, the invention of nuclear technology has brought both the potential for clean energy and the threat of nuclear weapons. Therefore, it is crucial to consider the ethical implications of inventions and to strive for responsible innovation.

In conclusion, invention is a powerful force that drives human progress. It is a process of creative problem-solving that leads to new products, technologies, and scientific discoveries, with far-reaching impacts on society. However, it also brings challenges and ethical considerations that need to be carefully managed. As we continue to invent and innovate, we must strive to do so in a way that benefits society and minimizes potential harm.

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

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Life-Saving Inventions

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IELTS writing task 2 online course

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Modern inventions essay IELTS Band 7

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Advantages and disadvantages of modern inventions essay IELTS 7 band

In this lesson, you will find IELTS writing task 2 essay and answer “Advantages and disadvantages of modern inventions essay IELTS 7 band”

You should spend about  40  minutes on this task.

The modern invention brings many disadvantage to society, do you agree or disagree? You should write at least  250  words.

Advantages and disadvantages of modern inventions essay IELTS 7 band sample answer

The evolution in science has picked up pace like never before, now a days we are inundated with the new inventions which promise to be the best so far and make our lives better but at the same time there are quite a few people who argue that new inventions have caused more problems to us by making us totally materialistic in approach with utter disrespect for human values. They opine that these so called new inventions have made the pace of life extremely fast and have not left any leisure time for us to enjoy.

It is undoubtedly true that modern inventions have brought lot of benefits to our society and these inventions have made our lives better, its hard to imagine how life would be without these inventions such as mobile phone and internet which allow us to remain connected with whole world the entire time, the wealth of invaluable information on every conceivable topic is available at the touch of few buttons using internet. It has also allowed little known people to be heard all over the world by integrating social media. These are just a few examples of how well modern inventions have served us and this list is countless. Therefore, it is easy to conclude that modern inventions have served us really very and helped us evolve over these years.

Conversely modern inventions have also brought their own set of problems to us for example because of fast pace of life our lives have become more stressful as pressure to achieve more is takes heavy toll on our life it has brought to the fore many diseases unheard of, furthermore easy availability has made us lazy and aloof as gadgets have taken over the place of leisure time. Also excessive use of social media over internet is waste of time that could have been used for other meaningful activities.

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