Invention no. 3: Automatic

By Heather Kelly, CNN

In the future we will have self-driving cars that weave in and out of traffic and coordinate silently with other vehicles on the road, all while we sit back with a latte, reading a book.
That future is still a ways off, and even when those cars arrive they will be expensive. But Automatic brings a bit of the smart-car future to our existing vehicles with a small device that attaches to a car's onboard computer via a port under the steering wheel.

It works with most gas-powered cars from 1996 or later. The hardware syncs with an iPhone app over Bluetooth. (There's an Android app coming in December.)
Automatic pulls data about your engine and driving habits and displays the results on your phone so you can save energy and money. It maps out each trip using GPS, tallies gas usage and mileage, and gives you a driving score. When your car flashes the dreaded "check engine" light, it deciphers the code and tells you exactly what the problem is. It even remembers where you parked.

Together, these small steps can add up to a positive environmental impact. When you're burning up fuel unnecessarily by speeding, accelerating too quickly or slamming on the brakes, the app will make a sound.
Automatic also can detect when you're in a car accident. If your smartphone is on, has a GPS signal and is still working, it will automatically contact local authorities and your family.

Source: www.cnn.com

Invention no. 2: Atlas humanoid robot

By Heather Kelly, CNN

Even just to look at, the Atlas humanoid robot is impressive.
At 6’ 2” and 330 pounds, it’s the size of an NFL defensive tackle. It can walk and lift heavy objects, replace its hands with customized attachments and complete tasks without direct human supervision, thanks to an on-board computer and plenty of sensors.

The hope is that Atlas someday soon will be working alongside human first responders to earthquakes, typhoons and other disasters, helping to carry supplies or clear debris. It also could be sent into situations deemed too dangerous for humans, such as the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.
But Atlas has a ways to go before it’s tackling search-and-rescue missions. The result of a $10.9 million contract with Boston Dynamics, the strapping robot must first take part in DARPA's Robotics Challenge, which invites teams of engineers to create a remotely controlled robot that can respond to disasters.
Variations of Atlas, programmed by different teams, will face off against other robots this December in a series of trials meant to test the machines’ readiness for the field. In a series of disaster scenarios, the robots must be able to navigate rough terrain on foot, move debris, climb a ladder and tear down doors or walls to get to victims.

Since communication can be spotty after a disaster, they must also be able to operate semi-independently. The robots will even be tasked with driving a vehicle.
The top-performing robots will then receive further funding, undergo improvements and go on to compete in the DARPA's Robotics Challenge finals in December 2014. At least one version of Atlas is expected to be among them.

Source: www.cnn.com

Woooow! Nice!
Lets look forward to Robots who would pound our yam *Hello Nigeria*

Invention no. 1: Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System

By Todd Leopold, CNN

In the old TV show “The Six Million Dollar Man,” astronaut Steve Austin was given bionic body parts after a horrific crash. Austin gets a new right arm, two replacement legs and a left eye with a zoom lens and night-vision capacities.

The Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System isn’t quite that advanced. But for the vision-impaired, the “bionic retina” is a huge leap forward.
The device, which was created by the California-based company Second Sight Medical Products, has been available in Europe since 2011. It received U.S. approval in February – the first visual prosthesis to do so. Second Sight CEO Robert Greenberg has devoted more than 20 years of his life to the invention.
The Argus II functions as an artificial retina, the light-sensitive part of the eye that collects image information and passes it along to the brain through the optic nerve. (It’s often considered similar to the film in a camera.) People with a disease called retinitis pigmentosa (RP) – about 100,000 Americans -- lose the retina’s light-sensitive cells. It’s here that the Argus II takes over.

The device is surgically implanted in and on the eye, according to the Argus II website. It contains an antenna and some electronics, and connects to an exterior system consisting of eyeglasses, a video processing unit (VPU) and a connecting cable. The glasses contain a camera that sends image information through the VPU and to the implant.

The end result is some vision restoration. "The device may help adults with RP who have lost the ability to perceive shapes and movement to be more mobile and to perform day-to-day activities," the FDA’s Dr. Jeffrey Shuren said in a news release.

The Argus II is available for adults 25 and over. It’s currently available at a handful of American eye centers. Though it’s expensive – about $144,000 – Medicare announced it would cover the costs, and other insurers are expected to follow.
And it’s just the beginning, Greenberg told the trade publication Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry.
“It's a computer-based system, so you can imagine in 10 years how much cell phone and computer technology has advanced,” Greenberg adds.
Expect much more light to shine in the future.
Source: www.cnn.com

Wooooow! Imagine! *shut of words*
Please what do you think, leave a comment!

CNN 10: Inventions

As school children, we learned the names of famous inventors from history: Alexander Graham Bell, Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison. Ask someone to name a famous modern-day inventor, though, and you’ll probably get a blank look. Today's heroes are celebrities: Actors, athletes, singers.

But where would we be without the Post-It Note, the smartphone, the luggage with wheels that rolls through the airport? Somebody invented each of those things, and we owe them all a debt for making our lives easier.
The best inventions make us wonder what we ever did without them.

As part of our focus on innovation, CNN is honoring 10 new inventions in technology and related fields. These are gadgets or prototypes with big, game-changing potential: to power villages in the developing world, to assist search-and-rescue teams in responding to disasters, to restore some vision to the blind.
Some are available now, while others won’t come for a year or two, if ever. But all of them are ingenious in their approach to solving problems. And someday, the names of their inventors may be spoken by future schoolteachers.
May we present The CNN 10: Inventions.

Source: www.cnn.com

I will post the ten of them in details as time progresses. Do not be in a haste, just sit tight!
Visit the blog every day and you'll see the intriguing inventions of the year! In details!!!
*I'm elated*
 

 

GULSHAN ESTHER

Early life

Esther was born in 1952 to a wealthy and prominent family of Jhang in the Punjab, Pakistan. She claims that at the age of six months she became ill with Typhoid Fever and as a result became paralyzed on her left side. At the age of 14, in the search for a cure for her paralysis, her father brought her to England to see a specialist, who allegedly declared her beyond healing and recommended prayer.^{[citation needed]} From England, Esther proceeded directly on a pilgrimage to Mecca with her father and two maids. Esther later stated that despite not being healed while on Hajj she did not initially lose her Islamic faith.^{[citation needed]}

Conversion

In her book, Esther claims that beginning after her father's death when she was 16 years old, she began to hear the voice of Jesus, encouraging her to read about him in the Quran. At the age of 19, she had a vision of Jesus and twelve other radiant beings in her bedroom at 3 A.M., just before morning prayers. At that time, her limbs were instantly and completely healed. At the same time as he healed her, Esther claims that Jesus said, "What you have seen now with your eyes you must take to my people," then he taught her The Lord's Prayer and told her one more time before departing, "I want you to be my witness." As a result of her healing, Esther immediately became a local celebrity.
Later, in light of some hostility from Muslims who didn't like her claim that Jesus had healed her, Esther began to wonder why he was considered an unimportant or peripheral character by Muslims. She further began to question why, if Jesus could heal the sick and raise the dead, he was considered less important than Prophet Muhammed, who could not perform these feats. She also puzzled over the fact that the Quran contained almost no information or teachings about Jesus, even while stating that he was a noble and favored prophet. Esther wrote that The Lord's Prayer taught her that Jesus has primacy over any prophet, and is proof of the kingship of Jesus, since it was he who taught her the prayer and who will establish the earthly kingdom of God upon his return from heaven.
Following her conversion she was punished under the Pakistani law against apostasy, including the loss of a large inheritance and being jailed for a month, and also received death threats from two of her brothers.

Today

Gulshan Esther now lives in Oxford, England. She travels widely on speaking tours, on which she discusses her book and answers questions about her faith^. Her book has sold over 200,000 copies.

Source: www.wikipedia.com

Kimani Ng'ang'a Maruge

 Kimani Maruge (1920 - August 14, 2009) holds the Guinness World Record for being the oldest person to start primary school—he enrolled in the first grade on January 12, 2004, aged 84. Although he had no papers to prove his age, Maruge believed he was born in 1920.

Maruge attended Kapkenduiywo Primary School in Eldoret, Kenya; he said that the government's announcement of universal and free elementary education in 2003 prompted him to enroll.
In 2005 Maruge, who was a model student, was elected head boy of his school.
In September 2005, Maruge boarded a plane for the first time in his life, and headed to New York City to address the United Nations Millennium Development Summit on the importance of free primary education

Maruge's property was stolen during the 2007-2008 post-election violence, and he contemplated quitting school During early 2008 he lived in a refugee camp, where he was reportedly a minor celebrity, four kilometers from his school, but still attended classes every day.In June 2008, he relocated to the capital Nairobi
In June 2008, Maruge was forced to withdraw from school and relocate to a retirement home for senior citizens. However, soon after, on June 10, 2008, Maruge enrolled once again into grade 6 at the Marura primary school, located in the Kariobangi area of Nairobi.

A feature film about Kimani Maruge, starring Oliver Litondo and Naomie Harris titled The First Grader, was released on May 13, 2011. The British-produced film was shot on location in the Rift Valley in Kenya, despite earlier reports that it would be filmed in South Africa.
Director Justin Chadwick said: "We could have shot it in South Africa, but Kenya has this unbelievable, inexplicable energy - inherent in the children, and the people we were making the film about"

On Sunday May 24, 2009, Maruge was baptised at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Kariobangi and took a Christian name, Stephen.
Maruge was then using a wheelchair.
Maruge was a widower, and a great-grandfather (two of his 30 grandchildren attend the same school). He was a combatant in the Mau Mau Uprising against the British colonizers in the 1950s.

 Maruge died on August 14, 2009 of stomach cancer, at the Cheshire Home for the Aged in Nairobi.He was buried at his farm in Subukia

Source: www.wikipedia.com

How old are you that you cannot get educated?

'Vampire therapy' could reverse ageing, scientists find...

A transfusion of youthful blood may halt or even reverse the ageing process as two studies find that the chemical make-up of younger blood has surprising health benefits

It may seem the stuff of gothic horror novels, but transfusions of young blood could reverse the ageing process and even cure Alzheimer’s Disease, scientists believe. 

Throughout history, cultures across the globe have extolled the properties of youthful blood, with children sacrificed and the blood of young warriors drunk by the victors.

It was even rumoured that the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il injected himself with blood from healthy young virgins to slow the ageing process.

Now scientists have found that young blood actually ‘recharges’ the brain, forms new blood vessels and improves memory and learning.

In parallel research, scientists at Harvard University also discovered that a ‘youth protein’ which circulates in the blood is responsible for keeping the brain and muscles young and strong.
The protein, known as ‘GDF11’, is present in the bloodstream in large quantities when we are young but peters out as we age.
Although both the discoveries were made in mice, researchers are hoping to begin human trials in the next two to three years, in studies which could bring rapid improvements for human longevity and health.
“This should give us all hope for a healthier future,” said Prof Doug Melton, of Harvard's Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology.
“We all wonder why we were stronger and mentally more agile when young, and these two unusually exciting papers actually point to a possible answer.
“There seems to be little question that, GDF11 has an amazing capacity to restore aging muscle and brain function.”
Last year the team discovered that the protein could repair damaged hearts. But the new study showed that that raising the levels of the GDF11 protein in older mice improved the function of every organ in the body.
Harvard stem cell biologist Prof Lee Rubin added: “We do think that, at least in principal, there will be a way to reverse some of the decline of aging with a single protein.
"It isn't out of question that GDF11, or a drug developed from it, might be worthwhile in Alzheimer's Disease.”
It is likely that the protein is at least partly responsible for the parallel finding by Stanford University that young blood can reverse the signs of ageing.
In the study, the blood of three-month-old mice was repeatedly injected into 18-month-old mice near the end of their natural life span.
The "vampire therapy" improved the performance of the elderly mice in memory and learning tasks.
Structural, molecular and functional changes were also seen in their brains, the study published in the journal Science found.
If the same were seem in humans, it could lead to new therapies for recharging our aging brains and novel drugs for treating dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease.
“We’ve shown that at least some age-related impairments in brain function are reversible. They’re not final,” said Dr Saul Villeda, of Stanford’s School of Medicine.
Ageing mice given eight infusions of young blood over three weeks improved their performance in mental tests of fear condition and locating a hidden platform in a water maze.
Evidence was seen of new connections forming in the hippocampus, a brain region vital to memory and sensitive to ageing.
Dendritic spines - finger-like extensions from the branches of neurons that are thought to play a role in memory formation - also became more dense.
Infusions of blood from other elderly mice had no effect, the study, published in the journal Nature, found.
“This could have been done 20 years ago,” said lead researcher Dr Tony Wyss-Coray of Stanford.
“You don’t need to know anything about how the brain works. You just give an old mouse young blood and see if the animal is smarter than before. It’s just that nobody did it.”
"Our data indicate that exposure of aged mice to young blood late in life is capable of rejuvenating synaptic plasticity and improving cognitive function.
"Future studies are warranted in aged humans and potentially those suffering from age-related neurodegenerative disorders."
Dr Eric Karran, from the dementia charity Alzheimer's Research UK, said: “This technically complex study looks at the effects of exposing old mice to blood-borne factors from young mice on age-related cognitive decline.
“Although the treatments tested here rejuvenate certain aspects of learning and memory in mice, these studies are of unknown significance to humans.
“This research, while very interesting, does not investigate the type of cognitive impairment that is seen in Alzheimer's disease, which is not an inevitable consequence of ageing.”

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk