tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/invention-3808/articlesInvention – The Conversation2023-08-25T12:27:58Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2115982023-08-25T12:27:58Z2023-08-25T12:27:58ZAI scores in the top percentile of creative thinking<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544631/original/file-20230824-19-dofq41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4071%2C2986&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Creativity involves generating something new -- a product or solution that didn't previously exist.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/red-apple-on-a-background-of-green-apples-royalty-free-image/536687143?phrase=repeated+objects+with+one+unique+object&adppopup=true">Maestria_diz/iStock via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Of all the forms of human intellect that one might expect artificial intelligence to emulate, few people would likely place creativity at the top of their list. Creativity is wonderfully mysterious – and frustratingly fleeting. It defines us as human beings – and seemingly defies the cold logic that lies behind the silicon curtain of machines. </p>
<p>Yet, the use of AI for creative endeavors is now growing. </p>
<p>New AI tools like DALL-E and Midjourney are increasingly part of creative production, and some have started <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/technology/ai-artificial-intelligence-artists.html">to win awards for their creative output</a>. The growing impact is both social and economic – as just one example, the potential of AI to generate new, creative content is a defining flashpoint behind the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-hollywood-actors-and-writers-afraid-of-a-cinema-scholar-explains-how-ai-is-upending-the-movie-and-tv-business-210360">Hollywood writers strike</a>.</p>
<p>And if our recent study into the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjoc.2023.100065">striking originality of AI</a> is any indication, the emergence of AI-based creativity – along with examples of both its promise and peril – is likely just beginning. </p>
<h2>A blend of novelty and utiliy</h2>
<p>When people are at their most creative, they’re responding to a need, goal or problem by generating something new – a product or solution that didn’t previously exist. </p>
<p>In this sense, creativity is an act of combining existing resources – ideas, materials, knowledge – in a novel way that’s useful or gratifying. Quite often, the result of creative thinking is also surprising, leading to something that the creator did not – and perhaps could not – foresee. </p>
<p>It might involve an invention, an unexpected punchline to a joke or a groundbreaking theory in physics. It might be a unique arrangement of notes, tempo, sounds and lyrics that results in a new song. </p>
<p>So, as a researcher of creative thinking, I immediately noticed something interesting about the content generated by the latest versions of AI, including GPT-4. </p>
<p>When prompted with tasks requiring creative thinking, the novelty and usefulness of GPT-4’s output reminded me of the creative types of ideas submitted by students and colleagues I had worked with as a teacher and entrepreneur. </p>
<p>The ideas were different and surprising, yet relevant and useful. And, when required, quite imaginative. </p>
<p>Consider the following prompt offered to GPT-4: “Suppose all children became giants for one day out of the week. What would happen?” The ideas generated by GPT-4 touched on culture, economics, psychology, politics, interpersonal communication, transportation, recreation and much more – many surprising and unique in terms of the novel connections generated. </p>
<p>This combination of novelty and utility is difficult to pull off, as most scientists, artists, writers, musicians, poets, chefs, founders, engineers and academics can attest. </p>
<p>Yet AI seemed to be doing it – and doing it well.</p>
<h2>Putting AI to the test</h2>
<p>With researchers in creativity and entrepreneurship <a href="https://www.vm.vu.lt/apie/destytojai/2-uncategorised/637-christian-byrge">Christian Byrge</a> and <a href="https://www.umwestern.edu/directory/christian-gilde/">Christian Gilde</a>, I decided to put AI’s creative abilities to the test by having it take the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/torrance-test">or TTCT</a>. </p>
<p>The TTCT prompts the test-taker to engage in <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-unlock-your-creativity-even-if-you-see-yourself-as-a-conventional-thinker-196198">the kinds of creativity required for real-life tasks</a>: asking questions, how to be more resourceful or efficient, guessing cause and effect or improving a product. It might ask a test-taker to suggest ways to improve a children’s toy or imagine the consequences of a hypothetical situation, as the above example demonstrates.</p>
<p>The tests are not designed to measure <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0099">historical creativity</a>, which is what some researchers use to describe the transformative brilliance of figures like Mozart and Einstein. Rather, it assesses the general creative abilities of individuals, often referred to as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2014.0099">psychological or personal creativity</a>. </p>
<p>In addition to running the TTCT through GPT-4 eight times, we also administered the test to 24 of our undergraduate students. </p>
<p>All of the results were evaluated by trained reviewers at Scholastic Testing Service, a private testing company that provides scoring for the TTCT. They didn’t know in advance that some of the tests they’d be scoring had been completed by AI. </p>
<p>Since Scholastic Testing Service is a private company, it does not share its prompts with the public. This ensured that GPT-4 would not have been able to scrape the internet for past prompts and their responses. In addition, the company has a database of thousands of tests completed by college students and adults, providing a large, additional control group with which to compare AI scores.</p>
<p>Our results? </p>
<p>GPT-4 scored in the top 1% of test-takers for the originality of its ideas. From our research, we believe this marks one of the first examples of AI meeting or exceeding the human ability for original thinking. </p>
<p>In short, we believe that AI models like GPT-4 are capable of producing ideas that people see as unexpected, novel and unique. Other researchers are arriving at similar conclusions in <a href="https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2303.12003">their research of AI and creativity</a>. </p>
<h2>Yes, creativity can be evaluated</h2>
<p>The emerging creative ability of AI is surprising for a number of reasons. </p>
<p>For one, many outside of the research community continue to believe that creativity <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/yoel_tawil_why_creativity_has_no_definition">cannot be defined</a>, let alone scored. Yet products of human novelty and ingenuity have been prized – and bought and sold – for thousands of years. And creative work has been defined and scored in fields like psychology since at least the 1950s. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.idsa.org/education-paper/exchanging-the-4ps-of-creativity/">The person, product, process, press model of creativity</a>, which researcher Mel Rhodes introduced in 1961, was an attempt to categorize the myriad ways in which creativity had been understood and evaluated until that point. Since then, the understanding of creativity has only grown. </p>
<p>Still others are surprised that the term “creativity” might be applied to nonhuman entities like computers. On this point, we tend to agree with cognitive scientist Margaret Boden, who has argued that the question of whether the term creativity should be applied to AI is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1609/aimag.v30i3.2254">philosophical rather than scientific question</a>. </p>
<h2>AI’s founders foresaw its creative abilities</h2>
<p>It’s worth noting that we studied only the output of AI in our research. We didn’t study <a href="https://theconversation.com/chatgpt-dall-e-2-and-the-collapse-of-the-creative-process-196461">its creative process</a>, which is likely very different from human thinking processes, or the environment in which the ideas were generated. And had we defined creativity as requiring a human person, then we would have had to conclude, by definition, that AI cannot possibly be creative. </p>
<p>But regardless of the debate over definitions of creativity and the creative process, the products generated by the latest versions of AI are novel and useful. We believe this satisfies the definition of creativity that is now dominant in the fields of psychology and science.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the creative abilities of AI’s current iterations are not entirely unexpected. </p>
<p>In their now famous proposal for the <a href="https://home.dartmouth.edu/about/artificial-intelligence-ai-coined-dartmouth">1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence</a>, the founders of AI highlighted their desire to simulate “every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence” – including creativity.</p>
<p>In this same proposal, computer scientist Nathaniel Rochester <a href="http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/dartmouth/dartmouth.html">revealed his motivation</a>: “How can I make a machine which will exhibit originality in its solution of problems?” </p>
<p>Apparently, AI’s founders believed that creativity, including the originality of ideas, was among the specific forms of human intelligence that machines could emulate.</p>
<p>To me, the surprising creativity scores of GPT-4 and other AI models highlight a more pressing concern: Within U.S. schools, very few official programs and curricula have been implemented to date that specifically target human creativity and <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_do_schools_kill_creativity?language=en">cultivate its development</a>. </p>
<p>In this sense, the creative abilities now realized by AI may provide a “<a href="https://www.space.com/10437-sputnik-moment.html">Sputnik moment</a>” for educators and others interested in furthering human creative abilities, including those who see creativity as an essential condition of individual, social and economic growth.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211598/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erik Guzik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Researchers had college students and AI take a standardized test in creative thinking, and all of them were scored by trained evaluators who didn’t know in advance that some had been completed by AI.Erik Guzik, Assistant Clinical Professor of Management, University of MontanaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2064982023-06-13T01:54:54Z2023-06-13T01:54:54ZWhat is a ‘toroidal propeller’ and could it change the future of drones? An expert explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530812/original/file-20230608-19-dgdz6q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=48%2C0%2C1088%2C673&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ll.mit.edu/news/six-lincoln-laboratory-inventions-win-rd-100-awards">Glen Cooper/MIT</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The basic configuration of traditional propellers has not fundamentally changed since the first powered flight <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wright-brothers">by the Wright brothers in 1903</a>.</p>
<p>However, as engineers learn more about aerodynamics and attempt new experiments, propellers are evolving to more complex shapes. These feature multiple blades, high sweep angles, blade tip devices and other features to optimise performance in different conditions.</p>
<p>A recent advancement in propeller technology are “toroidal” propellers. These devices are ring-shaped, with the blades looping around each other. A few recent <a href="https://newatlas.com/aircraft/toroidal-quiet-propellers/">articles</a> and <a href="https://undecidedmf.com/why-is-this-propeller-getting-so-much-attention/">videos</a> have been hyping these – but how “revolutionary” are they, really?</p>
<h2>Refining the shape</h2>
<p>In 2017, researchers at <a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US10836466B2/en?q=(Toroidal+Propeller)&oq=Toroidal+Propeller">MIT filed a patent</a> for toroidal propellers. Their patent claims the invention is more efficient than traditional propellers and is less noisy.</p>
<p>Coincidentally, already in 2012, US engineering company <a href="https://www.sharrowmarine.com/">Sharrow Marine</a> also developed a toroidal propeller for boats; they have demonstrated it to be more efficient and quieter than traditional marine propellers. </p>
<p>The reason toroidal propellers may be quieter is because of their complex shape – it minimises the strength of the vortex (a spiralling movement of air, water, or another fluid) that naturally happens over propeller blade tips.</p>
<p>This happens because there’s a high-pressure region under the blade, and low pressure above it. As high-pressure air from under the blade moves towards the low-pressure region above it, it travels in a spiral – a vortex.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531065/original/file-20230609-29-ovqfkz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A diagram showing low pressure above a plane wing and high pressure below it, with an arrow indicating air movement at the tip" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531065/original/file-20230609-29-ovqfkz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531065/original/file-20230609-29-ovqfkz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531065/original/file-20230609-29-ovqfkz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531065/original/file-20230609-29-ovqfkz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531065/original/file-20230609-29-ovqfkz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531065/original/file-20230609-29-ovqfkz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531065/original/file-20230609-29-ovqfkz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=681&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A tip vortex happens due to different pressures below and above the propeller blade or airplane wing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This phenomenon is not unique to propeller blades, which are essentially rotating wings. The wing of a plane also experiences this phenomenon. Engineers have done much research on <a href="https://akademiabaru.com/submit/index.php/arfmts/article/view/2734">wingtip devices</a> that can minimise this.</p>
<p>The use of closed-loop structures – like in a toroidal propeller – is one way of reducing tip vortices.</p>
<p>Even though the basic propeller shape has remained the same since its invention, many propeller blade designs have been put forward. To test these, engineers need to perform design trade-off studies. Some of these approaches have been tested to try and make <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376042112000644">helicopter blades</a> and <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8400169/">drones</a> more efficient and less noisy.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530811/original/file-20230608-22-g3nm04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530811/original/file-20230608-22-g3nm04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1177&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530811/original/file-20230608-22-g3nm04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1177&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530811/original/file-20230608-22-g3nm04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1177&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530811/original/file-20230608-22-g3nm04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530811/original/file-20230608-22-g3nm04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/530811/original/file-20230608-22-g3nm04.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Illustration from MIT’s 2017 patent, showing a regular propeller in 5a and a toroidal propeller in 5b.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US10836466B2/en?q=(Toroidal+Propeller)&oq=Toroidal+Propeller">US Patent US10836466B2</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>No magic propeller</h2>
<p>It’s important to understand propeller geometry must be optimised for a specific “operational envelope”. This means the properties of the fluid or air it operates in, rotation speed, forward speed, and other details. Outside that envelope, the propeller will perform poorly.</p>
<p>So far, nobody has achieved the magical propeller geometry that will achieve low noise and high efficiency for all operating conditions and scales. Toroidal propellers are no exception – from the sparse results available so far, their advantages are not yet fully quantified. </p>
<p>Comparing a well-designed toroidal propeller to a poorly designed traditional propeller will show a significant improvement, but is not a fair comparison.</p>
<p>Well-designed toroidal propellers may have advantages in specific operating conditions, such as dense fluids or a specific range of speeds. However, the question remains as to how a toroidal propeller compares to a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hanbo-Jiang/publication/362262696_Toward_high-efficiency_low-noise_propellers_A_numerical_and_experimental_study/links/62eb2cee88b83e7320a92a3b/Toward-high-efficiency-low-noise-propellers-A-numerical-and-experimental-study.pdf">well-designed traditional propeller</a> for the same conditions.</p>
<p>This is a challenge, since improvements are always relative to a benchmark – which may not be the most efficient design to start with.</p>
<p>Another aspect of a fair comparison that doesn’t seem to have been published for toroidal propellers is comparing different propellers at the same <a href="https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/what-is-thrust/">thrust force</a>. Only then you can see the true advantages regarding noise reduction and energy required to spin the propeller.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/drones-to-deliver-incessant-buzzing-noise-and-packages-116257">Drones to deliver incessant buzzing noise, and packages</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Home experiments are not representative</h2>
<p>An <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8L8I0dLh_o">MIT announcement</a> earlier this year about toroidal propellers winning one of MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s 2022 R&D 100 Awards generated significant excitement. There’s been <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C10XgojHu44">widespread experimentation</a> with 3D-printed toroidal propellers, but not all of these have delivered positive results.</p>
<p>This may be due to un-optimised geometry and poor scientific rigour by the general public conducting some of these experiments. This gives the scientific community a research opportunity – to truly assess and optimise toroidal <em>and</em> traditional propellers to enhance their performance. </p>
<p>Previous optimisation studies have been conducted, some of which even use <a href="https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2021/mar/quiet-propellers">machine-learning</a> techniques to identify suitable geometries. Engineers are also trying to make propellers that sound less annoying, by considering how <a href="https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2021-0713">humans perceive sound</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E8L8I0dLh_o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Expensive and hard to scale</h2>
<p>Toroidal propellers also have clear disadvantages. The main one is the difficulty to scale them to mass production due to their complex geometry, which leads to high production costs. </p>
<p>The complex structure also requires special care to avoid unwanted vibrations – a significant issue when rotating at high speeds. This also adds to higher manufacturing costs. </p>
<p>When it comes to using toroidal propellers for drones, their heavier weight will also have implications on the responsiveness and stability of the drone. This is critical when <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/7/1/22">operating in windy and turbulent conditions</a> such as windy weather.</p>
<p>Overall, toroidal propellers are an exciting recent development in propeller design, at least in some cases. While they can be more quiet, they won’t completely replace traditional props just yet – there’s no single propeller design that will suit all situations.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/got-a-drone-for-christmas-know-the-law-before-taking-to-the-skies-70341">Got a drone for Christmas? Know the law before taking to the skies</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206498/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abdulghani Mohamed is a researcher at RMIT university who receives funding from a few companies for undertaking aerodynamic optimisation. </span></em></p>Can one invention revolutionise propellers, whose basic design has been around for over 100 years? Not so fast.Abdulghani Mohamed, Senior Lecturer in Aerospace Engineering, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1960362022-12-07T19:05:42Z2022-12-07T19:05:42ZCan machines invent things without human help? These AI examples show the answer is ‘yes’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499447/original/file-20221207-1298-finln8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5898%2C3873&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The question of whether artificial intelligence (AI) can invent is nearly 200 years old, going back to the very beginning of computing. Victorian mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote what’s generally considered the first computer program. As she did, she wondered about the limits of what computers could do.</p>
<p>In 1843 <a href="https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Lovelace/quotations/">Lovelace wrote</a>, in regard to what is arguably the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/Analytical-Engine">first general purpose</a> programmable computer:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Analytical Engine has no pretensions to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its province is to assist us in making available what we are already acquainted with.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And this assertion has haunted the field of AI ever since. As many critics will note, computers only do what we tell them to do. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499454/original/file-20221207-3710-cus8fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A portion of the Analytical Engine computer designed by Charles Babbage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499454/original/file-20221207-3710-cus8fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499454/original/file-20221207-3710-cus8fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499454/original/file-20221207-3710-cus8fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499454/original/file-20221207-3710-cus8fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499454/original/file-20221207-3710-cus8fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499454/original/file-20221207-3710-cus8fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499454/original/file-20221207-3710-cus8fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ada Lovelace worked alongside Charles Babbage, who designed and partly built (as pictured) the Analytical Engine – considered the first mechanical computer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A century after Lovelace argued against machine invention, Alan Turing, one of the inventors of the electronic computer, returned to the topic. In 1950 Turing wrote what’s generally considered the first <a href="https://academic.oup.com/mind/article/LIX/236/433/986238">scientific paper about AI</a>. In it, he tried to refute Lovelace’s objection:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Who can be certain that ‘original work’ that he has done was not simply the growth of the seed planted in him by teaching, or the effect of following well-known general principles. A better variant of the objection says that a machine can never ‘take us by surprise’. This statement is a more direct challenge and can be met directly. Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This hasn’t changed. Today, machines are increasingly surprising us. Just take OpenAI’s new ChatGPT chatbot as an example. Indeed, there’s mounting evidence AI can help humans invent – and in some cases might even be considered the inventor itself. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-chatgpt-chatbot-is-blowing-people-away-with-its-writing-skills-an-expert-explains-why-its-so-impressive-195908">The ChatGPT chatbot is blowing people away with its writing skills. An expert explains why it's so impressive</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Things AI has invented</h2>
<p>The question of whether machines can invent has now started to tax courts around the world. Stephen Thaler, co-founder of Scentient.ai, has filed patent applications for two inventions in which a neural network is named the sole inventor. </p>
<p>These applications have been rejected in almost every jurisdiction, mostly on the legal grounds that an inventor should be a human. But none of the legal cases so far have tested Thaler’s claim that the computer is indeed the sole inventor.</p>
<p>In an article <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42256-022-00582-5">published today</a> in Nature Machine Intelligence, we examine Thaler’s claim. While we uncover multiple technical reasons the computer isn’t the sole inventor in this case, we also record a long history of AI being used to help people invent – and in some cases inventing itself. Here are just some examples.</p>
<p><strong>3D circuits</strong></p>
<p>In the 1980s, AI researcher Douglas Lenat’s <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/03/doug-lenat-artificial-intelligence-common-sense-engine/">Eurisko system</a> (<em>eurisko</em> is Greek for “I discover”) invented a number of novel 3D circuits. A provisional US patent application was even filed for one of these.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="The X-Band Antenna of the ST5 Satellite found with genetic programming." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499432/original/file-20221207-3971-r6ds4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499432/original/file-20221207-3971-r6ds4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499432/original/file-20221207-3971-r6ds4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499432/original/file-20221207-3971-r6ds4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499432/original/file-20221207-3971-r6ds4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499432/original/file-20221207-3971-r6ds4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499432/original/file-20221207-3971-r6ds4f.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The X-Band Antenna of the ST5 Satellite was found with genetic programming, an AI-based automatic programming technique.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>Strange aerials</strong></p>
<p>Starting in the 1990s, computer scientist John Koza applied genetic programming to invent several novel devices, including some rather bizarre radio antennae that resembled bent paperclips. One of these aerials is likely the first AI invention in space, as <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/nmp/st5/TECHNOLOGY/antenna.html">it flew on</a> NASA’s ST5 spacecraft. </p>
<p><strong>A toothbrush</strong></p>
<p>Although it’s not a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_a_better_mousetrap,_and_the_world_will_beat_a_path_to_your_door">better mousetrap</a>, in 1998 the Oral-B CrossAction Toothbrush was invented by the aforementioned Stephen Thaler in a brainstorming <a href="http://www.umsl.edu/%7Esauterv/DSS/creativitymachine_12504.html">session with a neural network</a>. </p>
<p><strong>Antibiotics</strong></p>
<p>More recently, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used a deep neural network to <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2020/artificial-intelligence-identifies-new-antibiotic-0220">identify Halicin</a> – a powerful new antibiotic compound. Halicin is named after HAL, the famous AI computer in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Multiple companies with billions of dollars of funding are using AI-based strategies for drug discovery and development.</p>
<p>It appears AI invention is here to stay. </p>
<h2>But is AI ‘inventing’, or helping humans invent?</h2>
<p>The abstract idea behind how AI programs can invent is relatively simple. You define some space of concepts, and the program explores this space. The space is typically very large, maybe even infinite. Therefore considerable effort must be invested in identifying whether a part of the space is worth exploring further, as well as to confirm any promise of a new concept. </p>
<p>As an example, the space of concepts might be <em>all the possible ways to bend a straight aerial</em>. The challenge is to find which of the infinite number of ways has the best electromagnetic properties. </p>
<p>We asked <a href="https://www.ai21.com/blog/announcing-ai21-studio-and-jurassic-1">the Jurassic-1 chatbot</a>, a cousin of ChatGPT, to come up with a patent along the lines of one of Thaler’s patent applications. Here’s what we got:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>PVC, latex or silicone rubber gloves, especially disposable gloves. The invention provides a glove having a flexible gripping portion formed from a fractal pattern. The gripping portion is formed from a continuous fractal pattern. The flexible gripping portion is sufficiently strong and rigid to perform its intended function.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To see if this idea was indeed original, or at least not patented, we searched the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s online database and found no patent with the words “glove” and “fractal”. It’s therefore possible that a glove with a flexible fractal gripping pattern could be patented.</p>
<p>Importantly, this idea was independently generated by the computer, without human help or prompts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499435/original/file-20221207-3544-tqmk5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a pair of purple latex gloves with a rubber fractal pattern dotted on one side" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499435/original/file-20221207-3544-tqmk5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499435/original/file-20221207-3544-tqmk5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499435/original/file-20221207-3544-tqmk5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499435/original/file-20221207-3544-tqmk5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499435/original/file-20221207-3544-tqmk5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499435/original/file-20221207-3544-tqmk5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499435/original/file-20221207-3544-tqmk5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Here’s a prototype of what fractal gloves might look like as imagined by the Stable Diffusion text to image AI generator.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>So where does this leave us?</h2>
<p>Just as AI is transforming other aspects of our lives, it appears likely it will soon transform how we invent. We need to give careful thought to how the innovation system adapts to these changes. AI could reduce the time and costs associated with inventing, while also increasing the technical depth of inventions.</p>
<p>Will we need a new form of intellectual property to protect inventions made by AI systems? Or will patent offices be inundated with new patent applications invented with the help of (or by) AI? </p>
<p>Put on your fractal gloves and expect to be surprised! </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/artificial-inventors-are-pushing-patent-law-to-its-limits-184047">Artificial 'inventors' are pushing patent law to its limits</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196036/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toby Walsh receives funding from the ARC via a Laureate Fellowship.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandra George does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ada Lovelace said computers could not invent. But a century later, Alan Turing pointed out inventiveness in machines could be found in their capacity to produce surprising and innovative results.Toby Walsh, Professor of AI at UNSW, Research Group Leader, UNSW SydneyAlexandra George, Associate Professor in Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1676912021-12-08T13:36:30Z2021-12-08T13:36:30ZHow Cup Noodles became one of the biggest transpacific business success stories of all time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430919/original/file-20211108-19-1o4ijx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C1936%2C1283&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The original Japanese packaging emphasized English characters over Japanese ones.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cup_Noodles.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>See a container of Cup Noodles at a convenience store and you might think of dorm rooms and cheap calories. </p>
<p>But there was a time when eating from the product’s iconic packaging exuded cosmopolitanism, when the on-the-go meal symbolized possibility – a Japanese industrial food with an American flair. </p>
<p>Cup Noodles – first marketed in Japan 50 years ago, on Sept. 18, 1971, with an English name, the “s” left off because of a translation mistake – are portable instant ramen eaten with a fork straight from their white, red and gold cups.</p>
<p><a href="https://eall.uoregon.edu/profile/alisaf/">I research how products move between America and Japan</a>, creating new practices in the process. To me, Cup Noodles tell a story of crossing cultures, and their transpacific journey reveals how Japan has viewed America since World War II. </p>
<h2>A flash of inspiration</h2>
<p>It is a story widely told in Japan: Cup Noodles were created by the same person who invented instant ramen, Ando Momofuku, who, in 1948, founded Nissin Foods. </p>
<p>Ando was born in Japan-occupied Taiwan and moved to Osaka in 1933. In war-torn Japan, Ando watched people line up to purchase cheap bowls of noodles <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520282353/the-untold-history-of-ramen">from stands in black markets</a>. The noodles were made from wheat flour donated by the United States to make bread, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26401820?refreqid=excelsior%3Af6bf75c3fcbf26297dd970f572b3071e">a food more filling but less common in the Japanese diet</a>.</p>
<p>Ando wanted to make noodles people could easily eat at home, so he built a <a href="https://www.cupnoodles-museum.jp/en/yokohama/attractions/work-shed/">laboratory shed in his backyard</a>.</p>
<p>After several failed attempts, inspiration struck in 1958. While observing his wife, Masako, frying tempura, he noticed that oil removed the moisture. </p>
<p>He then realized that fried and dried noodles <a href="https://www.nippon.com/en/views/b07206/">could be remoisturized when boiled</a>. Seasoning powder and dehydrated toppings could be added, making countless flavor combinations possible. Ando chose chicken for the first flavor because chicken soup seemed rich, nutritious and American.</p>
<p>Because Ando’s “Chikin Ramen” <a href="https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/topinventions/20210218/2072021/">cost six times the price of a bowl of fresh noodles</a>, he had trouble attracting investors. His solution was to take his product directly to the public through tasting events. Chikin Ramen caught on and later became one of the most prevalent foods in postwar Japan. </p>
<p>In the mid-1960s, Japanese sales of his Chikin Ramen – and spinoff products like “<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8P1ZHSR4ZJ4/Urf1W70EptI/AAAAAAAAEmc/OM0OPH_XToA/s1600/2013-12-22+13.05.23.jpg">Spagheny</a>,” an instant spaghetti created in 1964 – declined, in part, because of market saturation. Ando then sought a new market for instant ramen: the United States.</p>
<p>In the U.S. at that time, Japanese foods like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/sukiyaki">sukiyaki</a> – beef and vegetables cooked in a hotpot – were in vogue because they seemed exotic yet fit the general American palate. Ando believed instant ramen could do the same.</p>
<p>So in 1966 he traveled to the United States to promote Chikin Ramen. He was surprised to see Americans break packs of dried noodles into pieces, put them into cups and pour boiling water over them, rather than prepare Chikin Ramen in a pot and <a href="https://www.cupnoodles-museum.jp/en/yokohama/about/">then serve it in a bowl</a>.</p>
<p>When Ando returned to Japan, he set out to craft a new product inspired by this American preparation technique to sell in Japan.</p>
<h2>On the go becomes all the rage</h2>
<p>After much trial and error, the Nissin team devised a way to wrap a <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Construction_of_CUP_NOODLE.jpg">plastic foam cup around dried noodles placed in the center for easy expansion</a>. Different flavors were placed atop the noodles to help them cook better and make them look like a fuller meal. The cup had a pull-back lid <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520276345/the-noodle-narratives">inspired by a container of macadamia nuts</a> Ando had eaten on his transpacific flight.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Man in sunglasses and suit poses with food package." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434816/original/file-20211130-20-fi15fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434816/original/file-20211130-20-fi15fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434816/original/file-20211130-20-fi15fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434816/original/file-20211130-20-fi15fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=764&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434816/original/file-20211130-20-fi15fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434816/original/file-20211130-20-fi15fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434816/original/file-20211130-20-fi15fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Momofuku Ando.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/momofuku-ando-founder-of-japans-nissin-food-products-co-news-photo/51791739?adppopup=true">Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Otaka Takeshi, who created the <a href="http://www.logobook.com/logo/expo-70-osaka/">logo for the Osaka 1970 world’s fair</a>, designed the cup to look cosmopolitan and cutting edge, with large English words in a red psychedelic font above small Japanese words and with gold bands <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/08/22/reference/cup-noodles-slurping-strong-45-years/">inspired by expensive dinner plates</a>. Cup Noodle included around the same amount of ramen as the dried packs but <a href="https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/topinventions/20210218/2072021/">cost four times as much</a> because it was more expensive to make. The price made Cup Noodle seem luxurious. </p>
<p>But in Japan, eating while walking is considered rude. It’s also difficult to do with chopsticks. So Nissin decided to change how people eat. Each Cup Noodle came with a small plastic fork. </p>
<p>Nissin held tasting events in Japan to promote Cup Noodle and teach people how to eat it. The most successful was held on Nov. 21, 1971, in Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district. It targeted young adults strolling the “Pedestrian Paradise,” <a href="https://www.ginza.jp/en/history/2">Japan’s most fashionable street</a>. </p>
<p>More than <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090419075803/http://www.nissinfoods.co.jp/knowledge/madeby/cupnoodle/world.html">20,000 Cup Noodle units</a> sold in four hours.</p>
<p>Nissin also pitched the product to workers on the move, like the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Cup Noodle received an unintended media boost when coverage of a hostage crisis called <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2008/03/20/films/the-final-days-of-revolutionary-struggle-in-japan/">the Asama-Sansō Incident</a> showed <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Asama_Sanso_incident.jpg">police officers eating Cup Noodle to stay warm</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Men in uniform linger and eat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434814/original/file-20211130-23-1fj5oek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434814/original/file-20211130-23-1fj5oek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434814/original/file-20211130-23-1fj5oek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434814/original/file-20211130-23-1fj5oek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434814/original/file-20211130-23-1fj5oek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434814/original/file-20211130-23-1fj5oek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434814/original/file-20211130-23-1fj5oek.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Media coverage of the Asama-Sansō Incident depicted police officers eating from Cup Noodle containers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Asama_Sanso_incident.jpg">Shotaaa/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>More than a fashionable food</h2>
<p>Cup Noodle epitomized the dominant belief in postwar Japan that a better life could be achieved through convenience and comfort, whether it was through appliances like refrigerators and televisions or takeout food. </p>
<p>Japan’s first convenience stores <a href="https://web-japan.org/nipponia/nipponia19/en/feature/feature03.html">opened in 1969</a> and became primary marketers of Cup Noodle. Notably, Nissin held its Ginza Cup Noodle event in front of Japan’s first McDonald’s, which had opened on the Pedestrian Paradise four months earlier, <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Food-Beverage/Big-bluffs-and-little-lies-behind-the-rise-of-fast-food-in-Japan">on July 20, 1971</a>. Cup Noodle was one of the first foods sold in vending machines in Japan, with the <a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/The_vending_machine_of_CUPNOODLE.jpg">first Cup Noodle vending machine</a> installed near the Tokyo offices of the Nihon Keizai financial newspaper in <a href="https://www.nissin.com/jp/about/nissinfoods/">November 1971</a>. </p>
<p>Over time, the manufacturing process improved and prices dropped, and instant ramen became a go-to food for economically precarious populations.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People riding small train through snow tunnel." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434820/original/file-20211130-15-1d3stud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434820/original/file-20211130-15-1d3stud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434820/original/file-20211130-15-1d3stud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434820/original/file-20211130-15-1d3stud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434820/original/file-20211130-15-1d3stud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434820/original/file-20211130-15-1d3stud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434820/original/file-20211130-15-1d3stud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People ride a mini steam locomotive through a Cup Noodle snow tunnel in Hokkaido, Japan, in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-ride-a-mini-steam-locomotive-through-the-cup-noodles-news-photo/1198472301?adppopup=true">Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cup Noodle has deployed several successful Japanese marketing strategies. They include releasing a steady stream of new flavors – from Japanese comfort foods like chicken teriyaki to exotic fare like curries – along with attention-grabbing limited-edition flavors like “Cheechili Curmato” (chili, tomato and European cheese curry, anyone?). </p>
<p>Marketers <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Cup-Noodle-maker-spills-the-beans-on-mystery-meat">tapped into nostalgia</a> and <a href="https://gigazine.net/gsc_news/en/20171016-cupnoodle-milk-seafood/">fan collaborations</a> to help sell the product. Nissin also adopted the popular Japanese advertising practice of hiring American celebrities to pitch their products, with James Brown singing about miso-flavored Cup Noodle to the tune of “Get On Up” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PchguzIBRZE">in a memorable 1992 television ad</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PchguzIBRZE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">James Brown pitches miso-flavored Cup Noodle.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Cup Noodles hides its Japanese roots</h2>
<p>None of these strategies was used to sell Cup Noodle in the United States, however.</p>
<p>The product took a different path in the U.S. by downplaying foreignness and fashion and by becoming an ordinary American food. </p>
<p>Cup Noodle was first sold in the United States in November 1973 at a time when Japanese products <a href="https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/autos/0710/gallery.toyota_history/4.html">like Toyota cars</a> were designed to be different from those made in America yet easy for Americans to understand, pronounce and accept. </p>
<p>Americanized as “<a href="https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/cup-noodles-changing-name-back-to-cup-o-noodles">Cup O’Noodles</a>” – and later renamed “Cup Noodles,” with an “s,” in 1993 – it had shorter noodles that could be eaten with a spoon and fewer flavors than those offered in Japan.</p>
<p>Nissin’s first overseas factory opened in 1973 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Now, in 2021, Cup Noodles is made in 80 countries and territories, each with its <a href="https://instantnoodles.org/en/noodles/demand/ranking/">own local variants</a>. For example, <a href="https://nissinfoods.com/products/cup-noodles-global-favorites">you can eat masala Cup Noodles in India and mushroom Cup Noodles in Germany</a>. By May 2021, <a href="https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2021/08/d88ea23540df-nissin-foods-says-50-billion-cup-noodles-have-been-sold-worldwide.html">50 billion units</a> of Nissin’s Cup Noodles had sold worldwide.</p>
<p>In Japan, Cup Noodles now represents a mix of trendiness and nostalgia. Visitors to <a href="https://www.cupnoodles-museum.jp/en/yokohama/">Japan’s Cup Noodles Museums</a> can make their own personalized Cup Noodles. Popular characters <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwW-DmsHejA">like Yoda</a> and Hello Kitty have hawked Cup Noodles in Japan. </p>
<p>In the U.S., a neon 60-foot Cup Noodles ad hung in New York’s Times Square from 1996 to 2006 – a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090419075803/http://www.nissinfoods.co.jp/knowledge/madeby/cupnoodle/world.html">symbol of Nissin’s global reach</a>. It represented the idea – common in Japan – that making it big in America is the key to business success. </p>
<p>In America, however, Cup Noodles has succeeded by hiding its Japanese roots.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167691/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alisa Freedman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>See a package of Cup Noodles and you might think of dorm rooms and cheap calories. But there was a time when eating out of Cup Noodle’s iconic packaging exuded cosmopolitanism.Alisa Freedman, Professor of Japanese Literature, Cultural Studies and Gender, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1499072021-09-30T12:29:56Z2021-09-30T12:29:56Z50 years ago, the first CT scan let doctors see inside a living skull – thanks to an eccentric engineer at the Beatles’ record company<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423940/original/file-20210929-26-mhu7qn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=55%2C0%2C4034%2C2996&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Godfrey Hounsfield stands beside the EMI-Scanner in 1972.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-25-000-macrobert-award-and-gold-medal-were-presented-by-news-photo/828266748"> PA Images via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The possibility of precious objects hidden in secret chambers can really ignite the imagination. In the mid-1960s, <a href="https://doi.org/10.4103/0972-2327.194414">British engineer Godfrey Hounsfield</a> pondered whether one could detect hidden areas in Egyptian pyramids by capturing cosmic rays that passed through unseen voids.</p>
<p>He held onto this idea over the years, which can be paraphrased as “<a href="https://birorgukportal.force.com/CPBase__item?id=a0j20000006wvWqAAI">looking inside a box without opening it</a>.” Ultimately he did figure how to use high-energy rays to reveal what’s invisible to the naked eye. He invented a way to see inside the hard skull and get a picture of the soft brain inside.</p>
<p>The first computed tomography image – a CT scan – of the human brain was made 50 years ago, on Oct. 1, 1971. Hounsfield never made it to Egypt, but his invention did take him to Stockholm and Buckingham Palace.</p>
<h2>An engineer’s innovation</h2>
<p>Godfrey Hounsfield’s early life did not suggest that he would accomplish much at all. He was not a particularly good student. As a young boy his teachers <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/godfrey-hounsfield-intuitive-genius-of-ct/oclc/823708300&referer=brief_results">described him as “thick</a>.”</p>
<p>He joined the British Royal Air Force at the start of the Second World War, but he wasn’t much of a soldier. He was, however, a wizard with electrical machinery – especially the <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-radar-changed-the-second-world-war">newly invented radar</a> that he would jury-rig to help pilots better find their way home on dark, cloudy nights.</p>
<p>After the war, Hounsfield followed his commander’s advice and got a degree in engineering. He practiced his trade at EMI – the company would become <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/RCT.0b013e318249416f">better known for selling Beatles albums</a>, but started out as Electric and Music Industries, with a focus on electronics and electrical engineering.</p>
<p>Hounsfield’s natural talents propelled him to lead the team building the most advanced mainframe computer available in Britain. But by the ‘60s, EMI wanted out of the competitive computer market and wasn’t sure what to do with the brilliant, eccentric engineer.</p>
<p>While on a forced holiday to ponder his future and what he might do for the company, Hounsfield met a physician who complained about the poor quality of X-rays of the brain. <a href="https://www.medmuseum.siemens-healthineers.com/en/stories-from-the-museum/our-brain?">Plain X-rays show marvelous details of bones</a>, but the brain is an amorphous blob of tissue – on an X-ray it all looks like fog. This got Hounsfield thinking about his old idea of finding hidden structures without opening the box.</p>
<h2>A new approach reveals the previously unseen</h2>
<p>Hounsfield formulated a new way to approach the problem of imaging what’s inside the skull.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423821/original/file-20210929-18-8ywyce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="schematic of three X-ray beams through one 'slice' of brain" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423821/original/file-20210929-18-8ywyce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423821/original/file-20210929-18-8ywyce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423821/original/file-20210929-18-8ywyce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423821/original/file-20210929-18-8ywyce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423821/original/file-20210929-18-8ywyce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423821/original/file-20210929-18-8ywyce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423821/original/file-20210929-18-8ywyce.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">X-rays beam through each ‘slice’ of brain, oriented at each degree from 1 to 180 in a semicircle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Edmund S. Higgins</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First, he would conceptually <a href="https://doi.org/10.1259/0007-1285-46-552-1016">divide the brain into consecutive slices</a> – like a loaf of bread. Then he planned to beam a series of X-rays through each layer, repeating this for each degree of a half-circle. The strength of each beam would be captured on the opposite side of the brain – with stronger beams indicating they’d traveled through less dense material.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423822/original/file-20210929-24-lb50bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="simplified illustration of more X-rays making it through softer material" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423822/original/file-20210929-24-lb50bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423822/original/file-20210929-24-lb50bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423822/original/file-20210929-24-lb50bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423822/original/file-20210929-24-lb50bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423822/original/file-20210929-24-lb50bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423822/original/file-20210929-24-lb50bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423822/original/file-20210929-24-lb50bz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Calculating the strength of each X-ray once it’s passed through the object, and working backward with an impressive algorithm, it is possible to construct an image.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Edmund S. Higgins</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Finally, in possibly his most ingenious invention, Hounsfield created an algorithm to reconstruct an image of the brain based on all these layers. By working backward and using one of the era’s fastest new computers, he could calculate the value for each little box of each brain layer. Eureka!</p>
<p>But there was a problem: EMI wasn’t involved in the medical market and had no desire to jump in. The company allowed Hounsfield to work on his product, but with scant funding. He was forced to scrounge through the scrap bin of the research facilities and cobbled together a primitive scanning machine - small enough to rest atop a dining table.</p>
<p>Even with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1259/0007-1285-49-583-604">successful scans of inanimate objects</a> and, later, <a href="https://www.jweekly.com/1997/04/25/kosher-cow-brains-help-pioneer-ct-scan-technology/">kosher cow brains</a>, the powers that be at EMI remained underwhelmed. Hounsfield needed to find outside funding if he wanted to proceed with a human scanner. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423636/original/file-20210928-14-96ensy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="line drawing of CT scanner" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423636/original/file-20210928-14-96ensy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423636/original/file-20210928-14-96ensy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423636/original/file-20210928-14-96ensy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423636/original/file-20210928-14-96ensy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423636/original/file-20210928-14-96ensy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423636/original/file-20210928-14-96ensy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423636/original/file-20210928-14-96ensy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Schematic diagram of the CT scanner included in Hounsfield’s U.S. patent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CT_US4115698_Fig1.jpg">Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hounsfield was a brilliant, intuitive inventor, but not an effective communicator. Luckily he had a sympathetic boss, Bill Ingham, who saw the value in Hounsfield’s proposal and struggled with EMI to keep the project afloat. </p>
<p>He knew there were no grants they could obtain quickly, but reasoned the U.K. Department of Health and Social Security could purchase equipment for hospitals. Miraculously, Ingham sold them four scanners before they were even built. So, Hounsfield organized a team, and they raced to build a safe and effective human scanner. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Hounsfield needed patients to try out his machine on. He found a somewhat reluctant neurologist who agreed to help. The team installed a full-sized scanner at the <a href="http://www.impactscan.org/CThistory.htm?">Atkinson Morley Hospital in London</a>, and on Oct. 1, 1971, they scanned their first patient: a middle-aged woman who showed signs of a brain tumor.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1259/bjr/29444122">It was not a fast process</a> – 30 minutes for the scan, a drive across town with the magnetic tapes, 2.5 hours processing the data on an EMI mainframe computer and capturing the image with a Polaroid camera before racing back to the hospital.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423942/original/file-20210929-64926-b3svf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="pixelated image of a brain" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423942/original/file-20210929-64926-b3svf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423942/original/file-20210929-64926-b3svf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423942/original/file-20210929-64926-b3svf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423942/original/file-20210929-64926-b3svf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423942/original/file-20210929-64926-b3svf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423942/original/file-20210929-64926-b3svf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423942/original/file-20210929-64926-b3svf8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=665&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first clinical CT scan, with brain tumor visible as darker blob.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK546157/figure/ch8.fig2/">'Medical Imaging Systems: An Introductory Guide,' Maier A, Steidl S, Christlein V, et al., editors.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And there it was – in her left frontal lobe – a cystic mass about the size of a plum. With that, every other method of imaging the brain was obsolete.</p>
<h2>Millions of CT scans every year</h2>
<p>EMI, with no experience in the medical market, suddenly held a monopoly for a machine in high demand. It jumped into production and was initially very successful at selling the scanners. But within five years, bigger, more experienced companies with more research capacity such as GE and Siemens were producing better scanners and gobbling up sales. EMI eventually exited the medical market – and <a href="https://www.blackwellpublishing.com/content/GrantContemporaryStrategyAnalysis/docs/Grant_Cases_Guide_Chapter_10.pdf">became a case study</a> in why it can be better to partner with one of the big guys instead of trying to go it alone.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423941/original/file-20210929-66198-1pskqvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Hounsfield in tuxedo shaking hands with King facing away from camera" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423941/original/file-20210929-66198-1pskqvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423941/original/file-20210929-66198-1pskqvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423941/original/file-20210929-66198-1pskqvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423941/original/file-20210929-66198-1pskqvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=641&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423941/original/file-20210929-66198-1pskqvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423941/original/file-20210929-66198-1pskqvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423941/original/file-20210929-66198-1pskqvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">King Carl Gustaf awards the Nobel Prize to Hounsfield in Stockholm on Dec. 11, 1979.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/british-scientist-sir-godfrey-hounsfield-joint-nobel-news-photo/51867039">Keystone/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hounsfield’s innovation transformed medicine. He <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1979/press-release/">shared the Nobel Prize</a> for Physiology or Medicine in 1979 and was knighted by the Queen in 1981. He continued to putter around with inventions until his final days in 2004, when he died at 84. </p>
<p>In 1973, American <a href="https://doi.org/10.1197/jamia.M2127">Robert Ledley</a> developed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.186.4160.207">a whole-body scanner</a> that could image other organs, blood vessels and, of course, bones. Modern scanners are faster, provide better resolution, and most important, do it with less radiation exposure. There are even mobile scanners.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423640/original/file-20210928-26-3rul6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423640/original/file-20210928-26-3rul6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423640/original/file-20210928-26-3rul6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423640/original/file-20210928-26-3rul6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423640/original/file-20210928-26-3rul6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423640/original/file-20210928-26-3rul6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423640/original/file-20210928-26-3rul6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423640/original/file-20210928-26-3rul6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Modern CT scans provide much higher resolution images of the ‘slices’ of the brain than Hounsfield’s original scan did in 1971.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By 2020, technicians were performing <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200723115909.htm">more than 80 million scans annually in the U.S.</a>. Some physicians argue that number is excessive and maybe a third are unnecessary. While that may be true, the CT scan has <a href="https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/medical-x-ray-imaging/computed-tomography-ct">benefited the health</a> of many patients around the world, helping identify tumors and determine if surgery is needed. They’re particularly useful for a quick search for internal injuries after accidents in the ER.</p>
<p>And remember Hounsfield’s idea about the pyramids? In 1970 scientists placed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic-ray_observatory">cosmic ray detectors</a> in the lowest chamber in the Pyramid of Khafre. They concluded that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.167.3919.832">no hidden chamber was present within the pyramid</a>. In 2017, another team placed cosmic ray detectors in the Great Pyramid of Giza and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2017.22939">found a hidden, but inaccessible, chamber</a>. It’s unlikely it will be explored anytime soon. </p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct the spelling of the name of Hounsfield’s boss at EMI, Bill Ingham.</em></p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edmund S. Higgins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On Oct. 1, 1971, Godfrey Hounsfield’s invention took its first pictures of a human brain, using X-rays and an ingenious algorithm to identify a woman’s tumor from outside of her skull.Edmund S. Higgins, Affiliate Associate Professor of Psychiatry & Family Medicine, Medical University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1625762021-06-17T18:04:38Z2021-06-17T18:04:38ZToo few women get to invent – that’s a problem for women’s health<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406880/original/file-20210616-15-bv772g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1112%2C0%2C3622%2C2301&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Inequality has cost women the benefits of thousands of "lost" medical inventions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/researcher-in-hematology-lab-portrait-royalty-free-image/516052151">Ron Levine/Stone via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>MacArthur Genius and MIT professor Linda Griffith has built an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gZ-RhocAAAAJ&hl=en">epic career</a> as a scientist and inventor, including growing a human ear on a mouse. She now spends her days unpacking the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/health/endometriosis-griffith-uterus.html">biological mechanisms underlying endometriosis</a>, a condition in which uterus-like tissue grows outside of the uterus. Endometriosis can be brutally painful, is regularly misdiagnosed and misunderstood, and has affected Griffith’s life along with the lives of over 6 million other women in the U.S. </p>
<p>Griffith’s research and inventions have the potential to improve women’s health dramatically. The problem for women is that she stands out for another reason: She’s female. In 2020, <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/economic-research/publications/reports/progress-potential">only 12.8% of U.S. inventors</a> receiving patents were women, and historically male researchers have ignored conditions like endometriosis. </p>
<p>Male researchers have tended to downplay or even outright overlook the medical needs of women. The result is that innovation has focused mainly on what men choose to research. My colleagues <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZboIq6YAAAAJ&hl=en">John-Paul Ferguson</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GXbzIdkAAAAJ&hl=en">Sampsa Samila</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=sChrXHUAAAAJ&hl=en">I</a> show in a newly published study that patented biomedical inventions in the U.S. created by women are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aba6990">35% more likely to benefit women’s health</a> than biomedical inventions created by men.</p>
<h2>Bias by the numbers</h2>
<p>To determine which inventions are female-focused, male-focused or neutral, we analyzed the title, abstract and start of the summary text from 441,504 medical patents using the National Library of Medicine’s <a href="https://ii.nlm.nih.gov/MTI/">Medical Text Indexer</a>. The indexer uses machine learning to categorize the subject of a text document, including whether it has a female or male focus.</p>
<p>Our data reveal that inventions by research teams that are primarily or completely composed of men are significantly more likely to focus on the medical needs of men. In 34 of the 35 years from 1976 to 2010, male-majority teams produced hundreds more inventions focused on the needs of men than those focused on the needs of women. These male inventors were more likely to generate patents that addressed topics like “erectile” or “prostate” than “menopause” or “cervix.” Male inventors also tended to target diseases and conditions like Parkinson’s and sleep apnea that disproportionately affect men.</p>
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<p>Conversely, inventions patented by research teams that are primarily or completely composed of women were more likely to be focused on the needs of women in all 35 years of our data. These patents are more likely to address conditions like breast cancer and <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/postpartum-preeclampsia/symptoms-causes/syc-20376646">postpartum preeclampsia</a> and diseases that disproportionately affect women like <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fibromyalgia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354780">fibromyalgia</a> and lupus. However, in 1976 only 6.3% of patents were invented by teams with as many women as men. By 2010 that figure had risen to only 16.2%. As a result, while inventions by women were more likely to be female-focused, such patents were uncommon because so few inventors were women.</p>
<p>We found that across inventor teams of all gender mixes, biomedical invention from 1976 to 2010 focused more on the needs of men than women. Our calculations suggest that had male and female inventors been equally represented over this period, there would have been an additional 6,500 more female-focused inventions. In percentage terms, equal representation would have led to 12% more female-focused inventions.</p>
<h2>Looking out for women’s needs</h2>
<p>There are also more subtle benefits when more women invent. Female inventors are more likely to identify how existing treatments for non-sex-specific diseases like heart attacks, diabetes and stroke can be improved and adapted for the needs of women. Indeed, women are more likely to test whether their ideas and inventions <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0235-x">affect men and women differently</a>: for example, if a drug has more adverse side effects in women than in men. </p>
<p>In our study, we found that even within narrow disease areas like <a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/atrial-flutter">atrial flutter</a>, women are still more likely to see opportunities to target their inventions for the specific health needs of women. Our results suggest that increasing representation should address these <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/111/1113605/invisible-women/9781784706289.html">invisible biases</a>.</p>
<p>The growing number of female inventors is starting to close the gap. In three of the five years from 2006 to 2010, the U.S. granted more female- than male-focused patents. In fact, since 2010, there has been a boom in female-founded startups building new and disruptive women’s health products ranging from <a href="https://www.economist.com/business/2018/03/31/a-long-overdue-disruption-in-menstrual-products">new types of period underwear</a> to <a href="https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/life/work/femtech-innovators-revolutionising-womens-health-700549">smart breast pumps</a>.</p>
<h2>Mind the gaps</h2>
<p>Increasing the proportion of inventors who are women is important for improving women’s health care, but simply increasing the number of female scientists isn’t enough. It’s also the case that female scientists <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1124832">are 40% less likely</a> to commercialize their research ideas than male scientists. The causes of this gender gap are myriad, from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/dtm021">differences in mentoring</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3386/w28882">biases in the early-stage feedback</a> women receive when trying to commercialize female-focused ideas. </p>
<p>No matter the underlying causes, the result is that while nearly 33% of published scientific discoveries were produced by majority-female research teams in 2010, only 16.2% of patents were invented by majority-female inventor teams in the same year. As with invention, we found that scientific discoveries by female scientists as measured by published research papers are 12% more likely to benefit women than discoveries by men. At least in the short term, helping female scientists commercialize their current research should boost the number of female inventors and the number of female-focused inventions. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Dr. Patricia Bath, inventor of a laser treatment to remove cataracts.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More generally, our findings highlight how demographic inequities in who gets to invent lead to demographic inequities in who benefits from invention. Recent work shows how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20181446">increasing the number of Black physicians benefits Black patients</a>, and more generally the benefits of <a href="https://theconversation.com/minority-patients-benefit-from-having-minority-doctors-but-thats-a-hard-match-to-make-130504">matching minority patients with minority physicians</a>. This suggests the world doesn’t just need more inventors like MIT’s Griffith, but also more inventors like Dr. Patricia Bath, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/obituaries/dr-patricia-bath-dead.html">the first Black woman to receive a U.S. medical patent</a>. Bath’s invention, a laser treatment to remove cataracts, was inspired by her observation that Black Americans were twice as likely as white Americans to suffer from blindness. </p>
<p>Be it gender or race, biases in who gets to conduct research and commercialize inventions is more than a matter of who gets to play. It’s also a matter of who benefits from the march of progress.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s science, health and technology editors pick their favorite stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-favorite">Weekly on Wednesdays</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162576/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rem Koning does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Boosting the number of female inventors isn’t just a matter of fairness. Inventions by men are more likely to ignore women’s needs.Rem Koning, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1627532021-06-16T12:53:12Z2021-06-16T12:53:12ZThe first mobile phone call was 75 years ago – what it takes for technologies to go from breakthrough to big time<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406583/original/file-20210615-2626-ajj290.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5395%2C4245&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An engineer demonstrates a car phone five months before the historic first call on a competing company's commercial mobile telephone service in 1946.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/frederick-t-budelman-chief-engineers-of-the-fred-m-link-news-photo/515384226">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I have a cellphone built into my watch. People now take this type of technology for granted, but not so long ago it was firmly in the realm of science fiction. The transition from fantasy to reality was far from the flip of a switch. The amount of time, money, talent and effort required to put a telephone on my wrist spanned far beyond any one product development cycle.</p>
<p>The people who crossed a wristwatch with a cellphone worked hard for several years to make it happen, but technology development really occurs on a timescale of decades. While the last steps of technological development capture headlines, it takes thousands of scientists and engineers working for decades on myriad technologies to get to the point where blockbuster products begin to capture the public’s imagination. </p>
<p>The first mobile phone service, for 80-pound telephones installed in cars, was <a href="https://ethw.org/The_Foundations_of_Mobile_and_Cellular_Telephony">demonstrated on June 17, 1946</a>, 75 years ago. The service was only available in major cities and highway corridors and was aimed at companies rather than individuals. The equipment filled much of a car’s trunk, and subscribers made calls by picking up the handset and speaking to a switchboard operator. By 1948, the service <a href="https://ethw.org/The_Foundations_of_Mobile_and_Cellular_Telephony">had 5,000 customers</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">This promotional film from the 1940s touts Bell Telephone’s Mobile Telephone Service.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first handheld mobile phone was <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/the-first-mobile-phone-call-was-made-40-years-ago-today/274611/">demonstrated in 1973</a>, nearly three decades after the introduction of the first mobile phone service. It was nearly three decades after that before <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ITCELSETSP2USA">half the U.S. population had a mobile phone</a>.</p>
<h2>Big history in small packages</h2>
<p>As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=scNTosQAAAAJ&hl=en">electrical engineer</a>, I know that today’s mobile phone technology has a remarkable number of components, each with a long development path. The phone has antennas and electronics that allow signals to be transmitted and received. It has a specialized computer processor that uses advanced algorithms to convert information to signals that can be transmitted over the air. These algorithms have hundreds of component algorithms. Each of these pieces of technology and many more have development histories that span decades. </p>
<p>A common thread running through the evolution of virtually all electronic technologies is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17365-5_10">miniaturization</a>. The radio transmitters, computer processors and batteries at the heart of your cellphone are the descendants of generations of these technologies that grew successively smaller and lighter.</p>
<p>The phone itself would not be of much use without cellular base stations and all the network infrastructure that is behind them. The first mobile phone services used small numbers of large radio towers, which meant that all the subscribers in a big city shared one central base station. This was not a recipe for universal mobile phone service.</p>
<p>Engineers began working on a concept to overcome this problem at about the time the first mobile phone services went live, and it took nearly four decades to roll out the <a href="https://techchannel.att.com/play-video.cfm/2014/2/3/ATT-Archives-Advanced-Mobile-Phone-Service-AMPS">first cellular phone service</a> in 1983. Cellular service involves interconnected networks of smaller radio transceivers that hand off moving callers from one transceiver to another.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The author explains the ‘cell’ in cellphone service.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Military necessity</h2>
<p>Your cellphone is a result of over a hundred years of commercial and government investment in research and development in all of its components and related technologies. A significant portion of the cutting-edge development has been funded by the military. </p>
<p>A major impetus for developing mobile wireless technologies was the need during World War II for troops to communicate on the move in the field. The SRC-536 <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/dawn-of-electronics/the-scr536-handietalkie-was-the-modern-walkietalkies-finicky-ancestor">Handie-Talkie</a> was developed by the predecessor to Motorola Corporation and used by the U.S. Army in the war. The Handie-Talkie was a two-way radio that was small enough to be held in one hand and resembled a telephone. Motorola went on to become one of the major manufacturers of cellphones.</p>
<p>The story of military investment in technology becoming game-changing commercial products and services has been repeated again and again. Famously, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency developed the technologies behind the internet and speech recognition. But DARPA also made enabling investments in advanced communications algorithms, processor technology, electronics miniaturization and many other aspects of your phone.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fnKlVtTjBaw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A watch that’s a telephone.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Looking forward</h2>
<p>By realizing that it takes many decades of research and investment to develop each generation of technology, it’s possible to get a sense of what might be coming. Today’s communications technologies – 5G, WiFi, Bluetooth, and so on – are fixed standards, meaning they are each designed for a single purpose. But over the last 30 years, the Department of Defense and corporations have been investing in technologies that are more capable and flexible. </p>
<p>Your phone of the near future might not only fluidly signal in ways that are more efficient, enable longer ranges or higher data rates, or last significantly longer on a charge, it might also use that radiofrequency energy to perform other functions. For example, your communications signal could also be used as a radar signal to track your hand gestures to control your phone, measure the size of a room, or even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-29984-5">monitor your heart rate</a> to predict cardiac distress. </p>
<p>It is always difficult to predict where technology will go, but I can guarantee that future technology will build on decades upon decades of research and development. </p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162753/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Recently, Daniel Bliss received funding from John Hopkins University, Metawave, DARPA, Airbus, Interstate Broadcasting, Viasat, General Dynamics, L3Harris, Systems and Technology Research, AFWERX. He is a Fellow of the IEEE. </span></em></p>The ubiquity of mobile phones is a defining feature of the 21st century, but it’s been possible to place a phone call on the go since shortly after World War II.Daniel Bliss, Professor of Electrical Engineering, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1480752021-03-16T19:04:46Z2021-03-16T19:04:46ZPatent system often stifles the innovation it was designed to encourage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389683/original/file-20210315-23-1ia171j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3406%2C2328&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Attorneys for Apple heading to court during the so-called smartphone patent wars.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ADDITIONAppleSamsungTrial/0c156dac0ddf458dbab913fe270b6d44/photo?Query=patent%20AND%20lawyer&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=23&currentItemNo=9">AP Photo/Jeff Chiu</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over his career Thomas Edison garnered <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/edison-on-patents/">more U.S. patents than anyone</a> in his time. Edison profited from his patents, but he was also exposed to the dark side of the patent system. He had to contend with lawsuits by other patentees who sought – and sometimes won – a piece of his success. While the patent system is designed to spur innovation like Edison’s, it also hampers it.</p>
<p>Easy copying and imitation discourage innovation, because why make the effort if someone else will profit from it? The patent system works by enabling inventors <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics#heading-2">to block unauthorized use</a> of patented technology.</p>
<p>Most technologies are developed by many inventors over many years, a process called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107709409.010">“cumulative” innovation</a>. Too often, however, early inventors get a patent on a small and perhaps insignificant piece of the technological puzzle, yet their patent covers the entire puzzle. Inventors who solve subsequent parts of the puzzle may need to pay royalties to the patentee, even if their contributions are larger.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Xx0JFNwAAAAJ&hl=en">legal experts</a> who focus on <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SlW0VEkAAAAJ&hl=en">technology law and policy</a>, we suggest that the problem boils down to two issues: too many patents and too little accurate information about them.</p>
<h2>Too many patents</h2>
<p>The U.S. is awash in patents. <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/us_stat.htm">Over 350,000</a> U.S. patents were granted in 2019, four times the per capita rate in 1980. From the perspective of research managers at big firms, patents are cheap and easy to get. For example, in the early 2000s Bill Gates decided that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/31/business/digital-domain-why-bill-gates-wants-3000-new-patents.html">Microsoft was patent-poor</a>, and within a few years the company increased annual patent applications by 50%. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol51/iss2/11/">Patents are easy to get</a> because the standards of patentability are low and because the burden is on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to prove an invention is not patentable. <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/dashboard/patents/">Patent examination is slow</a>. It often takes three years or more. Despite increased staffing, the backlog of patent applications has continued to grow, and examiners spend on average only 20 hours reviewing each application. The patent examiner <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/InventionCon2020_Understanding_the_Patent_Examination_Process.pdf">is required to</a> read and understand the invention in an application, determine whether the invention meets the claims of the application, search existing technology to see if the invention already exists and write a response to the application.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-16-490">Helter-skelter examination causes errors</a> – many patents are too broad, or they cover obvious inventions. To draw attention to problems caused by the <a href="https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_journal_law_policy/vol8/iss1/12/">flood of low-quality patents</a>, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban <a href="https://www.wired.com/2012/12/eff-patent-donation/">endowed a chair</a> at the Electronic Frontier Foundation dedicated to elimination of “stupid patents.” </p>
<p>Innovative firms that succeed in assembling many pieces of a technology puzzle into a finished product must consult with a patent lawyer to learn whether their new technology is covered by one or more patents owned by others. Ideally an innovator will get permission to use patented technology, usually for a fee, or redesign its technology to steer clear of relevant patents. </p>
<p>In practice this patent “clearance” process is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jla/las019">difficult, costly and sometimes impossible</a>. For technologies like smartphones, a patent attorney likely would need to review hundreds of patents, including many patents that are not granted until long after the new product is launched. Failure to license relevant patents creates a risk of litigation and the threat the new technology could be forced out of the marketplace.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389676/original/file-20210315-15-2cp6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Screenshot of an iPod showing an image of the earth and the slide-to-unlock bar" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389676/original/file-20210315-15-2cp6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389676/original/file-20210315-15-2cp6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389676/original/file-20210315-15-2cp6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389676/original/file-20210315-15-2cp6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389676/original/file-20210315-15-2cp6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389676/original/file-20210315-15-2cp6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389676/original/file-20210315-15-2cp6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Apple secured a patent on slide-to-unlock despite earlier work that set the stage for the feature.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flickr.com/photos/angelosu/3590292559/">Angelo Su/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a result, smartphone patent litigation is far too common. Apple – a smartphone pioneer – has participated in scores of lawsuits around the globe as both a defendant and plaintiff. As a plaintiff, Apple sometimes uses its patents opportunistically to hinder innovation by its rivals.</p>
<p>For example, Apple sued Samsung using a patent that claimed the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/technology/patent-wars-among-tech-giants-can-stifle-competition.html">slide-to-unlock</a> feature on a phone as Apple’s invention. Despite strong evidence that inventors before Apple had already accomplished the key steps to implement this feature, Apple convinced the courts that their version of this feature was patentable, and after seven years Samsung agreed to pay license fees to Apple to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/technology/apple-samsung-smartphone-patent.html">settle the case</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2091210">Economic research</a> suggests that these litigation costs and license fees burden innovative firms to such a degree that on balance the patent system discourages innovation. In other words, innovative firms gain a benefit from their patents on their new technology, but that benefit is more than offset by the many patents owned by others that might be asserted against the new technology. </p>
<h2>Too little information</h2>
<p>When an inventor gets a patent, she is supposed to reveal the secret sauce behind the invention in the patent, a public document. This allows scientists and engineers to learn about the invention and use that information to improve the technology. </p>
<p>Or at least, that’s the theory. In practice, many inventors make shoddy disclosures. Experiments reported in patents are sometimes <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6445/1036">fictional</a> and often rely on <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3538746">dubious methodology</a>. For instance, patent law permits an inventor to disclose the fictional finding that a drug treats cancer as evidence that she deserves a patent on that drug. </p>
<p>Inventors applying for patents are allowed to include predicted experimental results. The intent is to allow for earlier disclosure and to help smaller companies secure funding. But when evidence in patents is wrong, other innovators can be <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3202493">misled</a>. Further, if other innovators want to figure out if the patented drug really treats cancer – or any other disease – they need a license from the patentee.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389680/original/file-20210315-15-1qujb86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graphical representation of an early electric incandescent lightbulb" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389680/original/file-20210315-15-1qujb86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389680/original/file-20210315-15-1qujb86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389680/original/file-20210315-15-1qujb86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389680/original/file-20210315-15-1qujb86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389680/original/file-20210315-15-1qujb86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389680/original/file-20210315-15-1qujb86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389680/original/file-20210315-15-1qujb86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edison was the victim of a broad light bulb patent that covered one of his subsequent inventions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://archive.org/details/TheEdisonIncandescentElectricLightItsSuperiorityToAllOther">Edison Electric Light Company</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sometimes key pieces of evidence are missing entirely from patents. This happens when a patent covers aspects of a technology that the patentee <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2785886">didn’t actually invent</a>. Imagine discovering that paper is a mediocre incandescent conductor in light bulbs and using that discovery to get a patent covering thousands of other conductors, including ones that, unbeknownst to you, work much better. Later innovators might want to figure out whether other substances are better conductors than paper, but they can’t even start experiments without a license. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1895/11/12/archives/sustained-the-edison-company-supreme-court-decides-against-the.html">This happened to Edison</a>. He was <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/159/465/">sued for patent infringement</a> after discovering a far better conductor than that discovered by the patentee – but because the patent was written broadly, it nevertheless covered Edison’s invention.</p>
<p>There is also too little information about the <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691143217/patent-failure">boundaries of patents</a>. When an inventor gets a patent, she is also supposed to provide clear boundary information – what a patent application covers and what it doesn’t – to the public about her patent rights. The patent system fails to ensure this, however. </p>
<p>The boundary information in patent applications is hidden for <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s1120.html">18 months</a> until the application is published, and even longer if the boundaries change later during examination. Once the patent is granted, lawyers, judges and the public often have <a href="https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/print/volume-103-issue-3/patent-clutter/">difficulty reaching agreement</a> on the meaning of boundary language that may be <a href="https://www.harvard-jlpp.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2010/01/39_1_Meurer_F.pdf">intentionally vague or ambiguous</a>.</p>
<h2>How to fix the system</h2>
<p>Inventors who come up with new chemicals, including pharmaceuticals, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2014.1047">tend to benefit from the patent system</a>. Unfortunately, the system appears to impose a <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2278255">net cost on most other technologies</a>, especially in high-tech industries.<br>
Opportunistic patent owners, often called patent trolls, surprise inventors with patent claims about inventions that are minor or distantly related to the technology that is the target of the suit. <a href="https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2012/5/v34n4-1.pdf">Economics research</a> shows such trolling activity slows innovation. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>The patent system can be improved to deliver a net gain to all inventors even without being drastically reworked. A good start would be to rigorously enforce existing standards about information disclosure. Courts should push inventors to clearly describe and explain their inventions. </p>
<p>The flood of patents on minor technical advances could be ended if patent <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_events/1494697/21_mark_schankerman.pdf">fees were increased and if the nonobviousness standard</a>, which screens out minor advances, was made stronger. Reducing the number of patents and increasing the amount of information about each patent would go a long way toward making the patent system work the way it was intended.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148075/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Meurer receives funding from the Technology and Policy Research Initiative at BU Law. The current funders are Google.org
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
Charles Koch Foundation
Schmidt Futures
<a href="https://sites.bu.edu/tpri/about/funders/">https://sites.bu.edu/tpri/about/funders/</a> </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet Freilich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Too many patents and too little information about them makes it hard for the system to weed out patents that unfairly block inventors.Michael J. Meurer, Professor of Law, Boston UniversityJanet Freilich, Associate Professor of Law, Fordham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1453722020-12-08T13:14:58Z2020-12-08T13:14:58ZThe iconic American inventor is still a white male – and that’s an obstacle to race and gender inclusion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372362/original/file-20201201-19-rbhm6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1%2C1024%2C818&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thomas Edison remains the poster child of American invention 89 years after his death.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3c10811/">Underwood & Underwood via the Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When President Barack Obama <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/newsletter/inventors-eye/president-obama-signs-america-invents-act">signed the America Invents Act</a> in 2011, he was surrounded by a group of people of diverse ages, genders and races. The speech he delivered about the legislation, which changed the technical requirements for filing a patent, highlighted this diversity by emphasizing that today anyone can become an inventor in the United States.</p>
<p>Despite Obama’s optimism about women and people of color inventing and patenting the nation’s new and innovative technologies, both groups still lag considerably behind their white male counterparts in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49843990">being recognized as inventors</a> and <a href="https://iwpr.org/publications/equity-in-innovation-women-inventors-and-patents/">owning patents</a>, in the U.S. and globally. Women and people of color possess the same intellectual capacities as their white male counterparts. Yet <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ablj.12159">empirical studies</a> consistently show that patent law overwhelmingly rewards white men for their labor and skill. </p>
<p>This is in part because <a href="https://ngcproject.org/statistics">women</a> and <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/01/09/blacks-in-stem-jobs-are-especially-concerned-about-diversity-and-discrimination-in-the-workplace/">people of color</a> join science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields in much lower numbers than white men. In 2017, women made up over half of the workforce, but held only <a href="https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-science-technology-engineering-and-mathematics-stem/">29% of STEM jobs</a>. But even women and people of color who go into STEM fields invent and patent far less often than their white male counterparts. </p>
<p>The question is why. </p>
<p>As a researcher who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ugCKmdMAAAAJ&hl=en">studies race, rhetoric and intellectual property law</a>, I can say that the U.S.’s race and gender invention and patent gap results partly from a failure of imagination. The stories that people tell about invention in the U.S. continue to focus on white men – the Benjamin Franklins, Thomas Edisons and Elon Musks – without affording women and people of color the same larger-than-life status. </p>
<p>National myths about inventorship and political barriers to patenting set up women and people of color for failure by normalizing <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/01/09/women-and-men-in-stem-often-at-odds-over-workplace-equity/">entrenched discrimination</a> even when they join STEM fields.</p>
<h2>The stories we tell about inventors</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-race-theory">Critical race theorists</a> show how legal terms and everyday narratives can look as if they create a level playing field while allowing implicit bias to thrive. In my new book, “<a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=27831">The Color of Creatorship</a>,” I look at how intellectual property law has evolved racially over 200 years. </p>
<p>Black and brown people are no longer legally prohibited from owning patents and copyrights, as they were in the 1700s and 1800s. However, seemingly colorblind patent and copyright laws continue to practically favor white male inventors and creators by using legal definitions and tests that protect inventions and creations that tend to match Western conceptions and expectations of, for instance, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-03056-z">expertise</a> and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/03/how-to-make-a-documentary-about-sampling-legally/38189/">creativity</a>. </p>
<p>From the now cliché “think outside the box” to Apple’s slogan “<a href="http://www.thecrazyones.it/spot-en.html">think different</a>,” innovation, a central component of invention, is associated with breaking limits. Yet Americans have largely failed to change the ways that they think and talk about invention itself. </p>
<p>Even Obama’s speech about the America Invents Act begins by explaining how Thomas Jefferson epitomized the nation’s mythic spirit of invention and innovation. Yet Jefferson held the racist view that Black people <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/03/26/henry-louis-gates-a-wheatley-reader/e7a097ac-8d42-4432-abf0-8366e5ea4528/">lacked the capacity to be truly imaginative creators</a>, let alone citizens of the nation. Breaking limits, it turns out, is most often <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/entrepreneurship-the-ultimate-white-privilege/278727/">a privilege afforded to white people</a>. </p>
<p>The current historical moment, in which facts are negotiable, white nationalism is on the rise and the nation is weathering a pandemic, is an important time to redefine American mythologies of invention. Celebrating the inventive capacity of women and people of color matters. Recognizing their innovative genius, in films like “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/hidden-figures-is-a-subtle-and-powerful-work-of-counter-history">Hidden Figures</a>,” helps transform what had been marginalized stories into narratives that are central to history. </p>
<p>Obama’s reference to Jefferson reinforced powerful, limiting conventional wisdom about invention and innovation. Popular cultural narratives frequently invoke the contributions of white men while erasing those of women and people of color. For example, the History Channel’s <a href="https://www.realclearhistory.com/articles/2012/11/09/who_are_the_men_who_built_america_40.html">The Men Who Built America</a> focuses on the inventions and innovations of Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Ford, business titans who achieved tremendous success via dubious ethics. </p>
<p>The show’s use of the Great Man theory of inventorship and entrepreneurship leaves out the many women and people of color, including Thomas Jennings, Elijah McCoy, Miriam E. Benjamin and Sarah E. Goode who, as legal scholar Shontavia Johnson shows, not only <a href="https://theconversation.com/americas-always-had-black-inventors-even-when-the-patent-system-explicitly-excluded-them-72619">invented and patented during the same period</a> but, as legal scholar Kara Swanson shows, used their work to <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-gilded-age-and-progressive-era/article/inventing-the-woman-voter-suffrage-ability-and-patents/B698232F40C9E4AF0E817097CA4F1987">lobby for suffrage rights for women and people of color.</a> </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gQo1cZtEpgY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A brief listing of notable Black American inventors.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Attacking Asian innovation</h2>
<p>America’s white-male-centered imaginings of inventorship and patenting extend beyond the nation’s borders, in xenophobic pronouncements frequently directed at Asian nations. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/success-in-india-is-based-on-studying-having-a-job-wheres-the-creativity/articleshow/63065361.cms?from=mdr">recently proclaimed</a>: “Success in India is based on studying, having a job … where’s the creativity?” </p>
<p>Similarly, President Trump claimed to be “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-protecting-america-chinas-efforts-steal-technology-intellectual-property/">protecting the innovations, creations, and inventions that power our country</a>” from Chinese graduate students, who are part of a racial group that has long <a href="https://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/how-asian-graduates-and-executives-boost-us-economy">boosted America’s economy</a>, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnmauldin/2018/09/19/china-is-building-the-worlds-largest-innovation-economy/#76f52ae66fd4">fueled global innovation</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-hcq/trump-thanks-india-for-decision-on-anti-malaria-drug-idUSKCN21Q2ZC">offered pandemic assistance</a>. </p>
<p>Refusal to recognize diversity in inventorship is a bipartisan affair. Then-presidential candidate and current President-elect <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-29/biden-makes-a-habit-of-dissing-chinese-innovation">Joseph Biden made a shocking assertion</a> about innovation in China: “I challenge you, name me one innovative project, one innovative change, one innovative product that has come out of China.” </p>
<h2>Inventing new ways to talk about invention</h2>
<p>Racist, sexist and xenophobic inventorship and patenting norms are not immutable facts. They are practices built on exclusionary stories and feelings, transformed into familiar myths, including that of the American dream. These exclusionary stories frequently function as <a href="https://www.chicagoreporter.com/dog-whistle-politics-is-gops-longtime-political-weapon-of-choice/">dog whistles</a> that have long been used to fuel white anxieties about people of color and men’s anxieties about women. They make it difficult for women and people of color to prove they have the expertise needed to invent and patent.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>However, as films like “Hidden Figures” emphatically show, it’s possible to tell inclusionary stories. I argue that telling them is an ethical act because it ensures that society recognizes the genius of people of all identities – race, gender, nationality, religion, ability, age – in contributing to invention and innovation, current and historical.</p>
<p>Rhetoricians frequently proclaim that “words mean things.” This is certainly true when imagining who has the capacity to perform certain tasks, such as inventing and patenting. At a moment in which the U.S. faces threats to democracy, environment and economy, it is more important than ever to invent new ways of talking about invention. People of all identities deserve the opportunities to create and own their innovative solutions for solving the world’s most pressing problems. More importantly, they deserve to be treated as full citizens in the realm of intellectual property and innovation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145372/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anjali Vats is affiliated with Microsoft Research New England's Social Media Collective. </span></em></p>The story of invention in America typically features larger-than-life caricatures of white men like Thomas Edison while largely ignoring the contributions of women and people of color.Anjali Vats, Associate Professor of Communication and African and African Diaspora Studies and Associate Professor of Law (By Courtesy), Boston CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1502532020-11-18T19:42:47Z2020-11-18T19:42:47ZCurved origami offers a creative route to making robots and other mechanical devices<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370127/original/file-20201118-21-aiooq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5760%2C3811&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">These beautiful curves hold the key to a simple way to vary the stiffness of robotic grippers.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/folded-sheet-of-paper-against-gray-background-royalty-free-image/917468268?adppopup=true">njekaterina/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Building robotic grippers that can firmly grasp heavy objects and also gently grasp delicate ones usually requires complicated sets of gears, hinges and motors. But it turns out that it’s also possible to make grippers out of simple sheets of flexible material with the right creases in them.</p>
<p>Our <a href="http://jiang.lab.asu.edu/">lab at Arizona State University</a> has designed curved fold patterns that can change stiffness and flexibility. Flexible materials shaped with these patterns can be used to make simple, inexpensive robotic grippers, swimming robots and other mechanical devices. </p>
<p>People naturally vary the amount of stiffness needed to handle fragile and sturdy objects appropriately. Robots interact with the environment in the same way. Curved folding is a simple way to give robots the ability to vary the amount of stiffness they use to interact with different objects and environments.</p>
<p><a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/47/eabe2000">Our team’s idea</a> was inspired by origami, the art of paper folding. Origami can be stiff or flexible depending on its folding pattern, but it is hard to give origami a range of stiffnesses.</p>
<p>To overcome this problem, we replaced straight origami folding lines, or creases, with curved creases. By using multiple curved lines between two points rather than just one straight line, a curved origami structure can take on multiple shapes. We found that each shape has its own unique stiffness. Building a robotic gripper, for example, based on this design allows it to apply different amounts of force to objects depending on which curved crease the robot uses.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Four small plastic sheets with curved folds forming different structures" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370096/original/file-20201118-19-1oz37u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370096/original/file-20201118-19-1oz37u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370096/original/file-20201118-19-1oz37u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370096/original/file-20201118-19-1oz37u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370096/original/file-20201118-19-1oz37u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370096/original/file-20201118-19-1oz37u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370096/original/file-20201118-19-1oz37u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Examples of curved origami with robotics applications.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zirui Zhai, Arizona State University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Compared with other methods for variable stiffness, this method is simple and compact, which means it can be used to make small and light devices.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Changing stiffness is important and ubiquitous in nature, and it’s a key variable in engineering. A heavy-duty robot gripper needs high stiffness, or low flexibility, to lift heavy objects. Other robot grippers need low stiffness, or high flexibility, to protect fragile objects.</p>
<p>Changing between a stiff state and a flexible state is critical in robots, but today’s adjustable stiffness systems are commonly bulky and cannot be used in micro-robots or soft robots. Micro-robots include insect-size robots being developed to monitor infrastructure and the environment. Soft robots under development are made of inflatable or flexible materials, which makes them safer to use alongside people. Our curved origami designs have a simple mechanical structure, making them easy to fabricate and control. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5fiRjtGrQjQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The authors demonstrate curved folds, variable stiffness and how curved folds can be used to make robots.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What other research is being done</h2>
<p>Traditional mechanical structures can also be used to vary stiffness: for example, grippers powered by variable pneumatics or electric motors. Our work is the first to achieve a full range of stiffness control with a simple structure. </p>
<p>The curved origami technique builds on our previous origami-inspired work, including <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/origami-batteries-and-accordion-sensors-could-power-smart-clothes/">origami-based stretchable lithium ion batteries</a> and origami-inspired structures that can be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720171115">collapsed and expanded on demand</a>. </p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>We are adding more remote control functions to the curved origami structures to trigger the folding. We are considering several different methods such as pneumatic, magnetic and electronic control. With on-board control, curved origami can be applied to fields beyond robotics. One possibility is haptic devices that change their stiffness to give people realistic force feedback in virtual reality. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A series of six photos of a blue plastic square with pleated folds floating in water" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369737/original/file-20201117-19-rxbh2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369737/original/file-20201117-19-rxbh2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=166&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369737/original/file-20201117-19-rxbh2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=166&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369737/original/file-20201117-19-rxbh2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=166&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369737/original/file-20201117-19-rxbh2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=208&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369737/original/file-20201117-19-rxbh2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=208&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369737/original/file-20201117-19-rxbh2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=208&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A pneumatic, swimming robot made from plastic sheets with curved folds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zirui Zhai, Arizona State University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150253/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hanqing Jiang receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zirui Zhai does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Curved origami isn’t just elegant art. It’s also a versatile way to vary the amount of force applied by robots and other machines.Hanqing Jiang, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Arizona State UniversityZirui Zhai, Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1413502020-11-12T13:27:03Z2020-11-12T13:27:03ZSmart concrete could pave the way for high-tech, cost-effective roads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351109/original/file-20200804-18-x6ho64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C0%2C5160%2C3445&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco averages more than 100,000 vehicles daily.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/tw1CjEGyUUI">Photo by Saketh Garuda for Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every day, Americans travel on roads, bridges and highways without considering the safety or reliability of these structures. Yet much of the transportation infrastructure in the U.S. is outdated, deteriorating and badly in need of repair. </p>
<p>Of the <a href="https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Bridges-Final.pdf">614,387 bridges</a> in the U.S., for example, 39% are older than their designed lifetimes, while nearly 10% are structurally deficient, meaning they could begin to break down faster or, worse, be vulnerable to catastrophic failure. </p>
<p>The cost to repair and improve nationwide transportation infrastructure ranges from nearly <a href="https://www.infrastructureusa.org/the-interstate-highway-system-turns-60-challenges-to-its-ability-to-continue-to-save-lives-time-and-money/">US$190 billion</a> to <a href="https://www.artba.org/government-affairs/policy-statements/highways-policy/">almost $1 trillion</a>. Repairing U.S. infrastructure costs individual households, on average, about <a href="https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ASCE-Failure-to-Act-Report-for-Web-5.23.16.pdf">$3,400 every year</a>. Traffic congestion alone is estimated to cost the average driver <a href="https://inrix.com/press-releases/2019-traffic-scorecard-us/">$1,400</a> in fuel and <a href="https://static.tti.tamu.edu/tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility-report-2019.pdf">time spent commuting</a>, a nationwide tally of <a href="https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Full-2017-Report-Card-FINAL.pdf">more than $160 billion per year</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6HpaCVGeSHc?wmode=transparent&start=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Purdue engineering lab has installed smart technology in three Indiana interstate highways.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iAdjF78AAAAJ&hl=en">professor</a> in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering and the director of the <a href="https://engineering.purdue.edu/CII/index_html">Center for Intelligent Infrastructures</a> at Purdue University. My co-author, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8k5XKIwAAAAJ&hl=en">Vishal Saravade</a>, is part of my team at the <a href="https://engineering.purdue.edu/SMARTLab">Sustainable Materials and Renewable Technology (SMART) Lab</a>. The SMART Lab researches and develops new technologies to make American infrastructure “intelligent,” safer and more cost-effective. These new systems self-monitor the condition of roads and bridges quickly and accurately and can, sometimes, even repair themselves. </p>
<h2>Smart, self-healing concrete</h2>
<p>Infrastructure – bridges, highways, pavement – deteriorates over time with continuous use. The life of structures could be extended, however, if damages were monitored in real time and <a href="https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2020/Q3/expert-tech-that-could-reduce-summer-road-construction.html">fixed early on</a>. In the northern U.S., for example, freeze-thaw cycles in winter cause water to seep into the pavement where it freezes, expands and enlarges cracks, which can cause significant damage. If left unrepaired, this damage may propagate and break down pavements and bridges. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355016/original/file-20200827-16-16y6zin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Self-healing concrete embedded with super polymers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355016/original/file-20200827-16-16y6zin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355016/original/file-20200827-16-16y6zin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=223&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355016/original/file-20200827-16-16y6zin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=223&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355016/original/file-20200827-16-16y6zin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=223&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355016/original/file-20200827-16-16y6zin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355016/original/file-20200827-16-16y6zin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355016/original/file-20200827-16-16y6zin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Self-healing concrete test study with cracked concrete (left) and self-healed concrete after 28 days (right).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SMART Lab/Purdue University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such damage can be identified and repaired autonomously. At an early stage of a crack, for example, <a href="https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2020/Q2/enabling-highways-and-bridges-to-prevent-their-own-damage.html">self-healing pavement</a> would activate super absorbent polymers to absorb water and produce concrete-like material that fills in the crack. Cracks as small as a few microns could be <a href="https://aashtojournal.org/2020/06/12/purdue-researchers-seek-to-create-smart-concrete/">healed to prevent significant damage</a> by preventing or delaying the later stages of the freeze-thaw cycle. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p-g_0wyhV9E?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The astonishing properties of absorbent polymers.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Roadway technology</h2>
<p>Many researchers in the world are working on improving construction infrastructure. Technologies recently being explored include <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspa.2019.0439">solar and energy-harvesting roads, charging lanes for electric vehicles, smart streetlights</a> and <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cement-producers-are-developing-a-plan-to-reduce-co2-emissions/">reducing carbon-related emissions from construction materials</a>.</p>
<p>At the Purdue SMART Lab, our team is also testing novel sensors that monitor transportation infrastructure by embedding them in several Indiana interstate highways. We plan to expand to other state highway systems in the next few years with a goal to better accommodate <a href="https://theconversation.com/traffic-congestion-reconsidered-111921">increased traffic</a> and provide accurate estimates of road conditions during construction and its life. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355020/original/file-20200827-16-4sfgrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355020/original/file-20200827-16-4sfgrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355020/original/file-20200827-16-4sfgrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355020/original/file-20200827-16-4sfgrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355020/original/file-20200827-16-4sfgrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355020/original/file-20200827-16-4sfgrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355020/original/file-20200827-16-4sfgrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355020/original/file-20200827-16-4sfgrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sensors installed on Indiana interstate I-74.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Erin Easterling/Purdue University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sensors embedded in concrete pavement acquire information about the infrastructure’s health condition in real time and communicate the data to computers. Electrical signals are applied through the sensors. Concrete’s vibrations are converted into electrical signals that are read and analyzed by lab-built customized software. This enables transportation engineers to make effective and data-driven decisions from opening roads to traffic and to proactively identifying issues that cause damage or deterioration. </p>
<p>After concrete is poured for highway pavement, for example, it takes hours to cure and become strong enough to open for traffic. The timing of when to open a highway depends on when the concrete mix is cured. If a roadway opens too early and the concrete is undercured, it can reduce the life expectancy of the pavement and increase maintenance costs. Waiting too long to open a road can result in traffic delays, congestion and increased safety risks for construction workers and commuters. Curing concrete for massive highway projects requires close attention by engineers in conjunction with the weather specific to that region. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LS0zXtIa2PA?wmode=transparent&start=7" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Sensors embedded in concrete can signal the health of roadways. Video by Erin Easterling/Purdue University.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2019.07.164">Smart sensors embedded in concrete</a> enable engineers to monitor the infrastructure and make data-driven decisions about when a road can open while retaining maximum life expectancy. Sensors can also help monitor the quality of concrete and whether it is robust enough to withstand traffic flow and corrosion after a roadway is opened. <a href="https://www.evaluationengineering.com/applications/environmental-test/article/21138925/purdue-university-aidriven-monitoringmaintenance-solution-enables-selfhealing-roads-and-bridges">Smart, efficient infrastructure</a> can significantly reduce structural failures, both catastrophic and through normal wear, as well as lead to reduced costs and provide new ways for structural engineers to assess real-time information about the pavement. </p>
<p>[<em>Get our best science, health and technology stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-best">Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Saving time and money</h2>
<p>Congress recognizes the need to invest in American transportation systems. A $494 billion legislation package, the <a href="https://transportation.house.gov/imo/media/doc/2020%20INVEST%20in%20America%20Bill%20Summary.pdf">INVEST In America Act</a>, was recently introduced to address America’s deteriorating highways and bridges while diminishing carbon pollution.</p>
<p>Smart sensors and intelligent infrastructure system can enable significant savings of time and money with improved construction safety. Sensors can provide engineers with real-time data of the quality of our infrastructure to make the best decisions for building and maintaining roads, bridges and pavements while improving safety for drivers and construction workers. The addition of self-repairing properties can help build sustainable and long-lasting infrastructure to reduce maintenance and costs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141350/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luna Lu receives funding from Indiana Department of Transportation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vishal Saravade receives funding from Indiana Department of Transportation. </span></em></p>What if roads and bridges could signal structural problems that need repair?Luna Lu, ACPA Scholar & Professor Of Civil Engineering, Purdue UniversityVishal Saravade, Post-doctoral Scientist, Purdue UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1470872020-10-06T19:18:57Z2020-10-06T19:18:57ZSurgical corsets, respirators: a new exhibition showcases the art hidden in medical devices<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361802/original/file-20201006-22-1b4ajqf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C2977%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An artificial respirator made by Both Equipment Ltd, Adelaide, South Australia, 1950-1959.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Belinda Christi/MAAS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Design for Life, the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.</em></p>
<p>Life is messy, yet on the surface it comes neatly packaged. Our skin both enfolds and conceals internal systems that are almost infinite in their complexity. No wonder it’s our largest organ. It also mediates the way we interact with the world, from expressive facial gestures to fine hairs bristling in a cool breeze.</p>
<p>So it is with the technologies that sustain, renovate or enhance our bodies. Their unique shapes and sequences are traced through <a href="https://maas.museum/event/design-for-life/">Design for Life</a>, the latest biomedical exhibition at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum.</p>
<p>It was a delight to return to the <a href="https://powerhousemuseumalliance.com/">resuscitated Powerhouse</a>. Its collections are extraordinary and this exhibition has drawn thoughtfully on the museum’s diverse artefacts. </p>
<p>The thematic arrangement spans our bodily functions from blood to breathing, as well as the capabilities embodied in therapeutic devices. </p>
<h2>Whimsy in minutiae</h2>
<p>Within the “modification and augmentation” display, visitors can appreciate the extraordinarily delicate stitchwork that underwear manufacturers applied to crafting surgical corsets. Painstakingly laced, these garments both embraced and reshaped the healing bodies beneath.</p>
<p>Design for Life is a very Powerhouse exhibition. Its objects are exquisitely organised, but minimally captioned. We don’t hear the voices of practitioners or patients, nor do we see human bodies or the technology at work. </p>
<p>The atmosphere is archetypically clinical. The staging and lighting are serene and austere, striking in their starkness. Display cases echo the functional, stainless-steel chic of the operating theatre. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Gallery install shot" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361752/original/file-20201005-14-16ffa71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C0%2C5530%2C3700&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361752/original/file-20201005-14-16ffa71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361752/original/file-20201005-14-16ffa71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361752/original/file-20201005-14-16ffa71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361752/original/file-20201005-14-16ffa71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361752/original/file-20201005-14-16ffa71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361752/original/file-20201005-14-16ffa71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There is a sparse clinical feel to the exhibition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jessica Maurer/MAAS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This sparseness draws attention to whimsical details. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cochlear.com/au/en/home">Cochlear</a>’s first prototype bionic ear <a href="https://collection.maas.museum/object/416643">from 1979</a> allowed users to optimise what they heard by flicking a switch to choose between “speech” or “music”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-what-music-sounds-like-through-an-auditory-implant-112457">Here's what music sounds like through an auditory implant</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We can see that <a href="https://www.eoas.info/biogs/A000347b.htm">Telectronics</a> upgraded their ventricular synchronised pacemaker Model PX2-B, because the code “PX2-C” has been crudely scratched onto the face plate of a prototype. Redolent of 70s-era graffiti, the date “1 – 2 – 75” is also carved roughly into its burnished and stencilled surface. </p>
<p>Such is the untidiness of innovation.</p>
<p>These minutiae matter. In 2020, the display devoted to “breath and resuscitation” is particularly pertinent. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361792/original/file-20201006-22-cnkkf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white, bright gallery space." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361792/original/file-20201006-22-cnkkf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361792/original/file-20201006-22-cnkkf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361792/original/file-20201006-22-cnkkf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361792/original/file-20201006-22-cnkkf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361792/original/file-20201006-22-cnkkf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361792/original/file-20201006-22-cnkkf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361792/original/file-20201006-22-cnkkf5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A section on breath and resuscitation feels particularly pertinent in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jessica Maurer/MAAS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I relished the opportunity to inspect a 1940s <a href="https://www.australiangasmasks.com/civilian-respirator">civilian respirator</a>. Mass manufactured during the second world war, this rubber mask was intended to protect our domestic populace from a feared <a href="https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/1553517">gas attack by air</a>. </p>
<p>In theory, its harness could be adjusted to provide an air-tight seal against inhaled poisons. In reality, the straps on the displayed respirator are secured with three homely safety pins.</p>
<h2>Advertising’s hidden messages</h2>
<p>No matter their clinical utility, therapeutic products also require marketing. The cabinet on “medicine and drugs” presents pharmaceutical packaging from the 1940s onwards. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361793/original/file-20201006-24-zu54lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361793/original/file-20201006-24-zu54lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361793/original/file-20201006-24-zu54lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361793/original/file-20201006-24-zu54lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361793/original/file-20201006-24-zu54lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361793/original/file-20201006-24-zu54lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361793/original/file-20201006-24-zu54lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361793/original/file-20201006-24-zu54lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">FLU OIA’, Optical Immuno Assay for the Detection of Influenza A and B, developed and made by Biota, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and Thermo Electron Corporation, Louisville, Colorado, 2004.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laura Moore/MAAS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Most cartons are Spartan, comprising neatly lettered information enlivened by the occasional splash of colour. Within this boxy assemblage, a 1967 packet of <a href="https://collection.maas.museum/object/566000">Bronkephrine</a> stands out. Featuring a cartoonish illustration of a doctor’s bag and syringe, what struck me most was its bold claim.</p>
<p>When used to treat asthma, promised Winthrop Laboratories, Bronkephrine would deliver “rapid, exceptionally safe bronchodilatation without tachycardia”. Clearly <a href="https://www.mydr.com.au/heart-stroke/palpitations">tachycardia</a> – an excessively fast heart rate – had proven problematic with previous asthma remedies. </p>
<p>Reassuring phrases such as “exceptionally safe” have since been <a href="https://www.tga.gov.au/advertising-health-products-rules-about-safety-claims-advertising">banned from pharmaceutical promotions</a>. The more widely we use medical technologies, the more we accept that humans respond to them in idiosyncratic and unanticipated ways, and broad claims about safety are no longer allowed.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/pivot-to-pandemic-how-advertisers-are-using-and-abusing-the-coronavirus-to-sell-135681">Pivot to pandemic: how advertisers are using (and abusing) the coronavirus to sell</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This is the fundamental tension undercutting the exhibition: life is not designed. Even in rude health, humans behave in erratic or capricious ways. Our unruly fluids seep onto operating tables and we push the wrong button. We change and adapt devices, and we lose or break objects. </p>
<p>While the emergent design of medical artefacts may represent new technological possibilities, it can also reflect the impact of ignorance, accidents or whimsy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361805/original/file-20201006-16-j49tnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A line of testing devices." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361805/original/file-20201006-16-j49tnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361805/original/file-20201006-16-j49tnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361805/original/file-20201006-16-j49tnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361805/original/file-20201006-16-j49tnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361805/original/file-20201006-16-j49tnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361805/original/file-20201006-16-j49tnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361805/original/file-20201006-16-j49tnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">MicroRapid lateral flow blood test device and prototypes, designed and made by Atomo Diagnostics and ide Group, Newington Technology Park, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laura Moor/MAAS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The medical utility of the hardware store</h2>
<p>This is why my favourite object in Design for Life is a <a href="https://collection.maas.museum/object/148876">carbon surgical laser</a>, introduced by Laser Industries in 1979. The battleship-grey device looks more like an assembly-line robot than a precision incision tool. </p>
<p>Yet it is entirely humanised. Printed operating instructions have been slipped into a cheap plastic sleeve and sticky-taped to its top surface. “If you are uncertain how to look after [the] machine”, they conclude, “please leave it for someone who does”.</p>
<p>The back of the laser unit reminds me of a patient who forgot to lace up their hospital gown, exposing their posterior to an unappreciative ward. </p>
<p>Here we find a chipped gas cylinder plastered with inspection certificates and stickers; a stencilled filter unit; yellowed tubing and electrical leads. Seemingly critical to the laser’s operation is a coiled length of garden hose, complete with an orange Nylex connector as found in backyards across Australia. Struggling to discipline these writhing and disorderly attachments is a length of hardware-store galvanised chain.</p>
<p>This is the reality of healthcare design: much as we might aim for purity of form, function, communication or operation, medical devices are never merely objects. They live with us – or within us – in all of our chaotic unpredictability. Life eludes our designs. </p>
<p>Yet this exhibition confirms the touching endurance of our belief one day – just maybe – we will actually be in control.</p>
<p><em>Design for Life is on at the Powerhouse Museum until January 31, 2021.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147087/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>From 1995 to 2010, Peter Hobbins was a professional medical writer whose clients included some of the manufacturers represented in this exhibition. He has not worked for or received commissions from those sponsors since 2010.</span></em></p>Drawing thoughtfully on the Powerhouse Museum’s collection, this exhibition lovingly exposes the humanity behind biomedical technology.Peter Hobbins, Honorary Associate, Department of History, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1438762020-09-15T19:28:25Z2020-09-15T19:28:25ZTo be a great innovator, learn to embrace and thrive in uncertainty<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357546/original/file-20200910-21-64uoh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=134%2C114%2C4055%2C2761&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Innovators are comfortable dealing with uncertainty. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/lost-and-confused-businessman-walking-in-meadow-royalty-free-image/1181272310?adppopup=true">Gremlin/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Madam C.J. Walker, born Sarah Breedlove, was America’s first <a href="https://theconversation.com/netflixs-self-made-miniseries-about-madam-c-j-walker-leaves-out-the-mark-she-made-through-generosity-132848">female self-made millionaire</a>. She pioneered a line of hair care and beauty products for people of color early in the 20th century, and the recent Netflix series “Self Made” details the story of this talented innovator and the challenges she overcame on the way to her success.</p>
<p>To accomplish her goals, she had to face overwhelming uncertainties. How would she finance her business? Would her partnerships fail? Would her products sell? Would ruthless competition and racism get in her way? Madame Walker’s future was far from certain when she began her journey, but that did not dissuade her.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358220/original/file-20200915-24-194sryj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A historical photo of Madam C.J. Walker" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358220/original/file-20200915-24-194sryj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358220/original/file-20200915-24-194sryj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358220/original/file-20200915-24-194sryj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358220/original/file-20200915-24-194sryj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=884&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358220/original/file-20200915-24-194sryj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1110&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358220/original/file-20200915-24-194sryj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1110&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358220/original/file-20200915-24-194sryj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1110&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Madam Walker was willing and able to face uncertain situations as she grew her business.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madam_C._J._Walker#/media/File:Madam_CJ_Walker_face_circa_1914.jpg">The Smithsonian via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is tempting to think that innovators are a breed apart or perhaps lucky to be in the right place and time. But research shows this is not the case. So what characteristics do innovators like Madam Walker have that lead them to the seemingly serendipitous moment? What makes for a successful innovator or entrepreneur? </p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=qxpLL24AAAAJ">researcher and professor</a> who studies strategy and entrepreneurship. I am also myself an entrepreneur, angel investor and board member for startups and innovative firms. Pop culture might have you believe it is a tolerance for or even an obsession with risk that makes great innovators. But in fact, research has for decades demonstrated that innovators and entrepreneurs are <a href="https://hbr.org/2009/12/the-innovators-dna">no more risk-taking than the average person</a>.</p>
<p>Generally, innovators are much more comfortable making decisions under conditions of uncertainty than the average person. Additionally, innovators tend to have a set of skills that allows them to better navigate this uncertainty. My experience and research has shown that not only are these abilities effective, but they can also be learned and practiced and anyone can improve their innovation skills.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357548/original/file-20200910-14-srmeoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dice with different numbers of sides of different colors." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357548/original/file-20200910-14-srmeoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357548/original/file-20200910-14-srmeoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357548/original/file-20200910-14-srmeoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357548/original/file-20200910-14-srmeoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357548/original/file-20200910-14-srmeoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357548/original/file-20200910-14-srmeoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357548/original/file-20200910-14-srmeoi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">With dice, the risks are known but out of your control.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dice#/media/File:Dice_(typical_role_playing_game_dice).jpg">Diacritica via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is risk? What is uncertainty?</h2>
<p>Risk is when the factors determining success or failure are out of your control but the odds of success are known – a game of dice, for example. You can’t control whether a 2 or a 12 is rolled, but you know the odds.</p>
<p>Uncertainty is when the factors determining success or failure are not necessarily out of your control, but are simply unknown. It is accepting a challenge to play a game that you do not completely know the rules of. Innovators tend to be more willing to venture into the unknown, and therefore are more likely to engage in ambitious projects even when <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0149206305279486">outcomes and probabilities</a> are a mystery.</p>
<p>Interestingly, risk and uncertainty appear to trigger <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00927">activity in different parts of the brain</a>. Functional magnetic resonance imaging has allowed researchers to discover that risk analysis is a largely rational and calculation-driven process, but uncertainty triggers the ancient fight-or-flight part of the brain. This research would suggest that experienced innovators are better able to maintain their analytical capabilities in spite of the adrenaline and instinctual response that arises when confronting uncertainty.</p>
<p>Innovators don’t ignore risk; they are just better able to analyze it in uncertain situations.</p>
<h2>Skills of innovation can be learned</h2>
<p>The chemical response to risk and uncertainty may be hardwired in our brains, but that doesn’t mean you are either born an innovator or not. Innovative capacity can be learned. </p>
<p>Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen and the late Clay Christensen spent years investigating the characteristics of successful innovators and broadly divide the skills of innovation into two categories: <a href="https://hbr.org/2009/12/the-innovators-dna">delivery skills and discovery skills</a>. </p>
<p>Delivery skills include quantitative analysis, planning, detail-oriented implementation and disciplined execution. These are certainly essential characteristics for success in many occupations, but for innovation, discovery must come before delivery.</p>
<p>Discovery skills are the ones more involved in developing ideas and managing uncertain situations. The most notable are:</p>
<ul>
<li>The ability to draw connections between seemingly disparate ideas and contexts.</li>
<li>A tendency to question assumptions and the status quo. </li>
<li>A habit of looking at what is contributing to a problem before rushing to a solution.</li>
<li>The frequent use of systematic experimentation to prove hypotheses about cause and effect. </li>
<li>The ability to network and broaden a set of relationships, even without an intentional purpose. </li>
</ul>
<p>Like any skills, these can be learned and cultivated through a combination of guidance, practice and experience. By asking the right questions, being observant or mindful, experimenting and networking with the right supporters, innovators will be more likely to identify opportunity and succeed.</p>
<p>My colleagues’ and my own research and experience are summed up in our book “<a href="https://www.titaniceffect.com">The Titanic Effect</a>.” We describe the PEP model of successful entrepreneurs and innovators. It stands for passion, experience and persistence. </p>
<p>Successful innovators are passionate about the problem they are solving and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/sej.1212">share this passion</a> with friends and family, potential customers, supporters and other stakeholders. </p>
<p>Innovators also tend to have personal experience with the problem they are solving, and this yields valuable insight and firsthand knowledge.</p>
<p>Finally, innovation takes persistence. As Walker experienced, growing a business – even with proven products – does not happen overnight. It takes someone willing to push the boulder uphill to make it happen, and often, the more disruptive the innovation, the longer society may take to embrace it. Madam Walker amply <a href="https://www.titaniceffect.com/blog/2020/7/17/self-madewhat-can-startups-learn-from-madam-cj-walker">personifies the PEP model</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357549/original/file-20200910-18-1rvs6q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A nurse setting up a telehealth appointment for an older man in his home." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357549/original/file-20200910-18-1rvs6q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357549/original/file-20200910-18-1rvs6q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357549/original/file-20200910-18-1rvs6q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357549/original/file-20200910-18-1rvs6q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357549/original/file-20200910-18-1rvs6q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357549/original/file-20200910-18-1rvs6q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357549/original/file-20200910-18-1rvs6q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The pandemic has created dozens of new problems in need of innovative solutions, like telehealth, which has seen a huge boom in use.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virus-Outbreak-Hospital-At-Home/3daf186c41be4dc0a715f759a45929f8/5/0">AP Photo/Elise Amendola</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Innovation now and in the future</h2>
<p>During this pandemic, many people might be inclined to batten down the hatches, tighten their belts and ride things out by sticking to what they already know.</p>
<p>But uncertainty and change create opportunity and a <a href="https://store.hbr.org/product/the-innovator-s-solution-creating-and-sustaining-successful-growth/16444">need for innovation</a>. The pandemic has created or exacerbated many problems that are ripe for innovative solutions.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Practices that were until recently on the fringe of acceptance – such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-telemedicine-is-great-when-you-want-to-stay-distant-from-your-doctor-but-older-laws-are-standing-in-the-way-134885">telehealth</a>, food or grocery delivery, <a href="https://theconversation.com/chess-is-taking-over-the-online-video-game-world-and-both-are-changing-from-this-unlikely-pairing-143790">e-sports</a> and online education – are now being accepted by mainstream society. As with anything relatively new, there is lots of room for radical improvement.</p>
<p>Now is not the time to put blinders on and close your eyes to uncertainty. If you build your discovery skills, you are more likely to create opportunity and persist through uncertainty. Like Walker, anyone can cultivate the abilities to navigate uncertainty and create positive change. Innovators are not a breed apart.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143876/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Todd Saxton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many great innovators have personality traits in common. Comfort with uncertainty is critical, but passion, curiosity and a number of other learnable skills can prime you for an innovate idea.Todd Saxton, Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1420152020-07-22T12:38:43Z2020-07-22T12:38:43ZDIY labs in homes will spur inventions after the coronavirus pandemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348655/original/file-20200721-19-1b0o5nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C12%2C4132%2C2769&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With the coronavirus pandemic, people are looking at more ways to explore and conduct research from home.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Do-it-yourself (DIY) and at-home labs gained popularity through movies and TV shows like <em>Breaking Bad</em>. DIY labs are increasingly influential and may change lives — the OpenInsulin project, for example, is looking for <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/25/the-rogue-experimenters">DIY ways to produce insulin and reduce its price to US$7 from US$300</a>. This impact will likely become even more prevalent in the new post-pandemic normal.</p>
<p>Innovation has <a href="https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/51/2/Symposium/51-2_Ikemoto.pdf">moved from corporate research and development labs into the private kitchens, bathrooms and basements around the world</a>. Innovators are not big names often affiliated to universities or think tanks, but may be your neighbour.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-coronavirus-tests-to-open-source-insulin-and-beyond-biohackers-are-showing-the-power-of-diy-science-138019">From coronavirus tests to open-source insulin and beyond, 'biohackers' are showing the power of DIY science</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<h2>Informal experimentation</h2>
<p>DIY labs today are not limited to biohacking and chemical applications anymore — they are found in many industries <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/00251741011082161">and have increasing impact</a>. Examples include DIY labs <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2015.07.020">for materials</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2014.07.001">maker spaces of all kinds, micro-electronics, hackerspaces and many more</a>.</p>
<p>This surge of DIY labs has mainly two sources. One is digitalization. It is easy to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/jun/16/diy-labs-exciting-alternative-university-science-research">find communities online and discuss expert topics with other specialists</a>. Access and budgets become less of an issue in a world that easily connects via the internet.</p>
<p>The second source is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/jun/16/diy-labs-exciting-alternative-university-science-research">accessible education and a revolution of workspace towards individual homes</a>. Since the pandemic, garages and basements all over the world have become hobby rooms. Hobbies have diversified with significant amateur expertise. As such, everyone can be an inventor, hacker or entrepreneur today.</p>
<h2>Craft breweries</h2>
<p>One prominent example in which DIYers have shaped an industry is the re-emergence of micro and craft breweries. In the 2010s, the beer market experienced mergers and acquisitions. This peaked with <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/07/21/7-near-monopolies-that-are-perfectly-legal-in-amer.aspx">the mega-merger of AB Inbev and SAB Miller to capture more than 80 per cent of the market in North and South America</a>. Accordingly, beer shelves in supermarkets were full of brands from the same companies.</p>
<p>In the past few years however, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/01/craft-beer-industry/550850/">we have seen a surge of craft beer</a>. Brands like Brewdog (United Kingdom) or Goose Island (Chicago, Ill.) emerged from passionate homebrewers who eventually commercialized their homebrews. Craft beer <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1326194/">does not make life easier for AB Inbev</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XuBwPWtwimI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Beer Wars’ is a 2009 documentary about the big business of American beer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Guelph, Ont., a small city with a population of approximately 135,000, <a href="http://www.twirltheglobe.com/canada/brewery-hopping-in-guelph-ontario/">there are at least five breweries and two distilleries</a>. One of these, Sleeman, is owned by Sapporo, a larger player with headquarters in Japan. Most of the other brewers started as at-home DIY breweries, and subsequently started to commercialize and scale their homebrews.</p>
<p>This means that the large corporations that used to enjoy near-monopolies now fight increasing competition from numerous niche players. The setting of the beer industry is an excellent example to see how frustration with existing products, combined with a passion for experimentation, can spur new innovations that can have implications for the industry.</p>
<p>New product innovations in the beer industry often emerge from acquiring smaller players and adopting their products, thus expanding the product portfolio. Plenty of smaller breweries in Canada have have been acquired by larger corporations, such as the <a href="https://www.gib.ca/en-CA/home">Granville Island Brewing Company</a> (acquired by Molson Coors in 2009), Hop City Brewing Co. (a subsidiary of Moosehead Breweries) or Unibroue (acquired by Sleeman in 2004), to name just a few.</p>
<h2>Post-pandemic experimentation</h2>
<p>The pandemic has triggered the realization that our homes are places where we spend much time and that may be part of our self-realization. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-coronavirus-is-changing-how-we-work-possibly-permanently-134344">The coronavirus is changing how we work — possibly permanently</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<hr>
<p>For many people, this means today to experiment with ideas they have. The emergence of DIY labs in homes is facilitated by this trend. Craft brewers have shown the way; other industries may be about to be disrupted. </p>
<p>Many megatrends from digitalization to automation have been accelerated by the pandemic. For example, many brick and mortar shops are now online, and much of the discussion about Canadian food security includes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/feb/18/automated-farming-food-security-rural-jobs-unemployment-technology">revolutionizing farming with more automatization</a>. We will likely see <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/06/01/city-relocate-pandemic/">a surge of people moving outside the densely populated cities</a> if they have the luxury to work from home.</p>
<p>This means that there will be more space to experiment, play, learn, innovate and possibly change the way things have been done.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142015/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felix Arndt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>DIY labs have disrupted industries from alcohol to pharmaceuticals. During the coronavirus pandemic, curious people have more opportunities to innovate from home.Felix Arndt, John F. Wood Chair in Entrepreneurship, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1401352020-07-09T12:16:59Z2020-07-09T12:16:59ZWhen states pass social liberalization laws, they create regional advantages for innovation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346212/original/file-20200707-194427-3370sk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=166%2C58%2C2755%2C1895&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Marriage equality supporters in 2006 probably had no idea the law they advocated would spur innovation.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/proponents-of-gay-marriage-hold-signs-outside-the-news-photo/71424729">Darren McCollester/Getty Images News via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What conditions lead to world-changing innovation? It’s an important question for business and government leaders.</p>
<p>Contrary to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/myth-of-the-genius-solitary-scientist-is-dangerous-87835">traditional notion of the solitary scientist</a>, new products, services and technologies are rarely conceived by a single person. Instead, they’re developed and refined through feedback from colleagues, end users and collaborators. So it’s not surprising that characteristics of the social context can influence innovation. </p>
<p>But how can you create the social context that facilitates innovation?</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5JSGP1sAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">My collaborator</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jMB68cgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">and I</a> zeroed in on the idea of looking at social liberalization policies – laws like those that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, for instance – as a measure for a more open and diverse social environment. We found that states that implemented socially liberal laws <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2778">significantly increased patenting</a> – and anti-liberalization policies reduced it.</p>
<h2>Measuring the effect of social context</h2>
<p>As a proxy for openness to diversity and different ideas, my colleague and I focused on two policies: legalization of same-sex civil unions and legalization of medicinal marijuana. We also looked at one type of policy we termed “anti-liberalization”: abortion restrictions. The staggered implementation of these laws state by state between 1994 and 2006 let us examine their effects on the rate and direction of innovation.</p>
<p>When policymakers at the regional and national level enact these kinds of policies, it’s often with the goal of influencing the social and political environment. Michigan, for example, is reviewing the impact of <a href="https://mibiz.com/sections/economic-development/michigan-s-push-to-expand-lgbtq-civil-rights-comes-amid-key-federal-lawsuits">civil rights laws on economic productivity</a>. They may be unaware, though, of the potential impact on innovation, an aspect that’s largely been left out of the discussion.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2778">We found that</a> the legalization of same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships increased state-level patenting by 6%. The legalization of medical marijuana increased patenting by 7%.</p>
<p>In contrast, the passing of each additional abortion restriction reduced patenting by about 1%.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346213/original/file-20200707-194405-hufwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346213/original/file-20200707-194405-hufwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346213/original/file-20200707-194405-hufwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346213/original/file-20200707-194405-hufwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346213/original/file-20200707-194405-hufwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346213/original/file-20200707-194405-hufwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346213/original/file-20200707-194405-hufwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346213/original/file-20200707-194405-hufwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marchers calling for restrictions on abortion rights in 1995 likely wouldn’t anticipate the impact on innovation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-anti-abortion-demonstrators-many-with-signs-behind-news-photo/675653610">Mark Reinstein/Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>There are a couple of thorny challenges when it comes to assessing the relationship between the policies and innovation. For instance, could the same factor be behind both the passage of the law and also the changes we observed in patenting? The staggered implementation of these laws state by state allowed us to compare states with different levels of openness to diversity while controlling for time-varying state-level factors that may separately influence innovation, like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/urb.2004.0005">education</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-7218(10)02008-3">R&D spending</a> and other economic conditions and political orientation. </p>
<p>The possibility of reverse causality is another concern. Were states with higher patenting rates more likely to implement socially liberal policies in the first place? Are we simply capturing a continuation of trends that started before these laws were passed? We ruled this option out because when we looked at state-level patenting rates before and after policy changes, we found no evidence of increased patenting before the implementation of the two socially liberal policies.</p>
<p>Along with other statistical tests we performed on the data, these factors gave us confidence that it’s the policies themselves driving changes in sentiment, which are reflected in increased innovation.</p>
<p>Understanding the underlying mechanisms that drive these findings is important for both executives and policymakers who want to tap into the benefits of innovation to facilitate regional growth. We explored three potential explanations of why innovation increases with social liberalization. </p>
<h2>Mobility, entrepreneurship and attitude</h2>
<p>Maybe socially liberal regions tend to attract more inventors. The <a href="https://creativeclass.com/rfcgdb/articles/4%20Cities%20and%20the%20Creative%20Class.pdf">creative class theory</a> argues that inventors prefer to work and live in regions with more tolerance and openness to diversity. As a result of this theory, states like Michigan have developed “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110611112140/http:/www.coolcities.com/mission.html">Cool Cities Initiatives</a>” that aim to revitalize neighborhoods through more green spaces and community gathering venues to attract well-educated individuals and creative types.</p>
<p>But based on the net flow of inventors in and out of states that implemented socially liberal policies, we found no evidence that these laws attract top inventors to a region. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>The second possibility is that socially liberal policies can lead more people to take a shot at entrepreneurship by promoting more diverse social interactions and better access to resources. Given that entrepreneurship requires assembling resources and talent, it’s not surprising that <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/68840">building diverse networks</a> could be vital for starting a business.</p>
<p>Using the number of new firms patenting as a proxy for entrepreneurship, we found preliminary evidence suggesting that liberalization policies are indeed associated with more entry into entrepreneurship.</p>
<p>We found the strongest support, though, for a third mechanism, which draws on the idea that social liberalization policies can influence individuals’ attitudes toward openness and diversity. In turn, this leads to more diverse interactions, including collaborations among inventors. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sianbeilock/2019/04/04/how-diversity-leads-to-better-outcomes/#1566f71365ce">More diverse teams tend to produce better outcomes</a> as a result of more creative problem-solving.</p>
<p>Inventors living in states with liberalized policies had greater collaboration diversity; they tended to form more new collaborative ties, and their collaborators had wider and more diverse knowledge bases. The patents that resulted from these more diverse collaborations were more novel. And they were of measurably higher impact, as they are more likely to be among the top 10% of most highly cited patents.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346210/original/file-20200707-194423-ioilvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346210/original/file-20200707-194423-ioilvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346210/original/file-20200707-194423-ioilvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346210/original/file-20200707-194423-ioilvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346210/original/file-20200707-194423-ioilvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346210/original/file-20200707-194423-ioilvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346210/original/file-20200707-194423-ioilvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346210/original/file-20200707-194423-ioilvh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Diversity of perspectives around the table is a valuable ingredient for innovation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/business-colleagues-in-meeting-with-female-amputee-royalty-free-image/1084168538">10'000 Hours/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Innovation springs from the social context</h2>
<p>The big takeaway for firms is that the social context can shape inventive collaborations, and thus influence innovation outcomes.</p>
<p>While firms traditionally make location decisions based on the human capital in a region, they should also consider a region’s social environment. Indeed, the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-get-anything-done-georgia-politicians-say-do-it-for-amazon-1517308201">broader social context</a> is rumored to have been a factor in <a href="https://atlanta.curbed.com/2018/11/12/18087396/atlanta-gulch-downtown-amazon-hq2-jeff-bezos">why Georgia did not score Amazon’s HQ2 location</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, our research suggests that corporate social responsibility practices that promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace help set the stage for greater innovative productivity. Managers who want to create competitive advantages for businesses should keep these policies in mind.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140135/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurina Zhang receives funding from the Kauffman Foundation. </span></em></p>Inventors in states with more socially liberal laws on the books end up with more diverse collaborators – and more higher-impact patents.Laurina Zhang, Assistant Professor of Strategy & Innovation, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1400812020-06-19T01:55:22Z2020-06-19T01:55:22ZHow 80s TV show MacGyver is inspiring doctors during the coronavirus pandemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342596/original/file-20200618-41238-117o09y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1433%2C849&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/124561666@N02/14218019828/in/photolist-nEp4WU-6PvWDW-2wyZ-D7KDpu-2iH4ymj-oKaRXp-23wdwTV-qWyW4Q-21o3L9f-e2wonA-pY81dU-brPdUR-26BZ9zb-21o3Lfs-bNvwfX-44h23d-Fehu4F-23wdwLa-21o3KXy-8cDKYW-23wdwuZ-23wdwE8-J5G2X-21o3Lk7-21o3L5h-Czc7B7-Czc7SN-ZQK7nL-21o3Lqh-ZCwtQu-22tiz7p-ZQK7cW-ZCwtWb-21o3LmE-ZCwtnA-YQN6tS-ZCwtuE-Czc7aA-ZCwtis-YQN62Q-23eDAUC-YQN6Dm-ZB2wEL-ZB2wJJ-ZCwu9q-Z93FdW-21o3LwE-ZQK7ro-23wdwAR-CPqRKS">TNS Sofres/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, health workers globally have been concerned about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/20/survey-finds-87-of-americas-nurses-are-forced-to-reuse-protective-equipment">inadequate supplies</a> of personal protective equipment, ventilators and other essential items of medical care. </p>
<p>So many have created workarounds to fill the perceived gap between what they have and what they need.</p>
<p>Those of us who grew up in the 1980s remember the fictional crime-fighting hero <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGyver">Angus “Mac” MacGyver</a>. He could seemingly <a href="https://www.metv.com/lists/the-12-coolest-craziest-contraptions-macgyver-ever-made">create anything</a> to get him out of a sticky situation using common household objects such as a magnifying glass and some duct tape.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">MacGyver saves the day with a paper clip, a wing mirror and a pair of binoculars.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now, we use the verb “to <a href="https://www.lexico.com/definition/macgyver">MacGyver</a>”, to make or repair something, using whatever items are at hand.</p>
<p>MacGyvering in health care was rife before the pandemic. But according to images of homemade gizmos on social media, COVID-19 has spurred health workers to make even more equipment using an array of small, common, <a href="https://bjanaesthesia.org/article/S0007-0912(17)33766-2/fulltext">interlocking devices at their disposal</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-love-reliving-the-1980s-but-only-as-farce-27435">We love reliving the 1980s, but only as farce</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Curbing the ‘MacGyver bias’</h2>
<p>But there are risks as well as potential benefits of this approach.</p>
<p>Last year, my colleagues and I wrote about the “<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12630-019-01361-4">MacGyver bias</a>”. This cognitive bias means that people who create and use homemade devices are likely to have an emotional connection to their inventions. </p>
<p>It’s related to the better-known “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1016/j.jcps.2011.08.002">IKEA effect</a>” related to the extra connection we have with flatpack furniture we’ve put together ourselves. </p>
<p>With the MacGyver bias, clinician-inventors might not see the pitfalls and dangers in using their creations. They may downplay the risks and overestimate the benefits. Many of these inventions have also been created and introduced with little or no proof they work or are safe.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ikea-effect-how-we-value-the-fruits-of-our-labour-over-instant-gratification-113647">The IKEA effect: how we value the fruits of our labour over instant gratification</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<hr>
<h2>Intubation boxes and gadgets for ventilators</h2>
<p>One such example during the current pandemic is the <a href="https://litfl.com/should-we-use-an-aerosol-box-for-intubation/">intubation box</a>, a clear perspex box that covers a patient’s head during an invasive procedure. </p>
<p>The aim is to better protect health workers from exhaled aerosols containing coronavirus emitted when placing tubes into patients’ lungs to help them breathe.</p>
<p>In the past few months, <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2007589">high-profile</a> <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00268-020-05542-x">journals</a> have published somewhat sketchy, preliminary reports of these devices. </p>
<p>Some of these reports are on actual patients, some under laboratory conditions, giving them an air of legitimacy.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1246593151743283200"}"></div></p>
<p>However, more <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/anae.15115">detailed studies</a>, carried out by researchers not involved in making or designing the boxes, show significant potential harms from using them. Intubations may take longer, risking patient safety, and the boxes can damage health workers’ personal protective equipment, risking theirs.</p>
<p>Another example involves using 3D-printed components called splitters <a href="https://twitter.com/iwashyna/status/1243881755230253056?s=20">to modify ventilators</a>, allowing patients to share machines.</p>
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<p>On face value, connecting two critically ill patients to the same life-saving machine seems sensible if ventilators are in short supply.</p>
<p>But a <a href="https://www.sccm.org/Disaster/Joint-Statement-on-Multiple-Patients-Per-Ventilato">strong consensus statement</a> issued earlier this year by several professional organisations advised against using ventilator splitters because of concerns these patients would be receiving poorer care. </p>
<p>This didn’t stop some clinicians from going ahead, saying “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/health/coronavirus-ventilator-sharing.html">the other option is death</a>”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/millions-of-products-have-been-3d-printed-for-the-coronavirus-pandemic-but-they-bring-risks-137486">Millions of products have been 3D printed for the coronavirus pandemic – but they bring risks</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Stifling innovation?</h2>
<p>Many great breakthroughs in medicine have been a result of happenstance and self-experimentation rather than a deliberate program of research. </p>
<p>For example, common surgical instruments and devices have been derived from <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3488887/">thumbtacks</a>, <a href="https://thejns.org/focus/view/journals/neurosurg-focus/36/4/article-pE8.xml?body=pdf-10653">spoons</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0310057X0603401S03">engine carburettors</a>.</p>
<p>Today, it takes a long time to navigate the processes required by medical device regulators, such as the <a href="https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices">US Food and Drug Administration</a> and Australia’s <a href="https://www.tga.gov.au/medical-devices-overview">Therapeutic Goods Administration</a>.</p>
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<p>Regulators need to see evidence of rigorous testing to see these devices not only work but are safe.</p>
<p>So, while these novel, MacGyvered devices might indeed save lives, the evidence for their use is often non-existent and raises serious ethical questions about when and how they are introduced. </p>
<h2>How could we find a balance?</h2>
<p>If regulatory requirements stifle innovation, lives might be lost from a lack of potential new inventions. </p>
<p>Clearly a compromise is needed that doesn’t involve the full and lengthy regulatory process, yet still maintains a rigorous, independent assessment. </p>
<p>This could be a stopgap on the way to full approval, particularly in time-pressured situations such as a pandemic, when even imperfect solutions might be needed.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1254787628970340356"}"></div></p>
<p>So what would <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/anae.15152">this process</a> look like?</p>
<p>We commonly use mock-ups of equipment or clinical spaces when educating health professionals. These simulation labs are now finding a new purpose, to <a href="https://stel.bmj.com/content/early/2019/10/08/bmjstel-2019-000519">test devices and processes</a> before implementing them.</p>
<p>This means we can anticipate many problems before the new device comes close to a patient. By using a structured process, we can find solutions and test them objectively, away from the patient, without harm. This way, we can <a href="https://www.revelx.co/blog/fail-fast-fail-often/">fail frequently, rapidly and safely</a> to find the ideas (and devices) we might want to actually use.</p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic poses difficult questions about how we might deal with innovation in medicine. However, it also provides us with a catalyst to improve safety and implement change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Marshall is a Councillor for the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists and receives funding from the NHMRC as an Early Career Fellow.</span></em></p>During a pandemic, what would MacGyver do? He’d cobble together masks and ventilators from the things around him. Now health-care workers are doing the same. But there are risks.Stuart Marshall, Senior Research Fellow, Anaesthesia Teaching & Research, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1318792020-05-07T12:23:33Z2020-05-07T12:23:33ZLasers could speed up coronavirus diagnostics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332415/original/file-20200504-83775-t8zptn.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A conceptual schematic of a laser-based method for identifying the coronavirus quickly.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penn State University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>The most common type of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-does-the-coronavirus-test-work-5-questions-answered-133118">test</a> for the new coronavirus takes several hours and is uncomfortable; samples are obtained by sliding a swab into the nose or throat. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332406/original/file-20200504-83745-ajkgp1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332406/original/file-20200504-83745-ajkgp1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332406/original/file-20200504-83745-ajkgp1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332406/original/file-20200504-83745-ajkgp1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332406/original/file-20200504-83745-ajkgp1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332406/original/file-20200504-83745-ajkgp1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332406/original/file-20200504-83745-ajkgp1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332406/original/file-20200504-83745-ajkgp1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shining a laser onto virus samples trapped in mesh of carbon nanotubes will produce a signature ‘reflection.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penn State University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I am collaborating with other scientists, including <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=z7GMEIAAAAAJ&hl=en">Yin-Ting Yeh at Penn State</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2_OASxMAAAAJ&hl=en">Elodie Ghedin at New York University</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=e2HHkukAAAAJ&hl=en">Shengxi Huang at Penn State</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iTtzc1UAAAAJ&hl=es">Sharon X. Huang at Penn State</a>, on a diagnostic tool to rapidly trap and identify viruses using a laser beam and a detector. The team includes <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=tX4aXC0AAAAJ&hl=en">myself</a>, a physicist, as well virologists, engineers, chemists and data scientists. </p>
<h2>How we do the work</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910113117">approach</a> uses a technique called <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/raman-spectroscopy">Raman spectroscopy</a> to identify viruses by shining a light on a disposable cartridge that collects samples from oral cotton swabs or a person blowing through the device. Once a sample is collected, a spectrometer measures the interatomic vibrations that result from shining the light on the collected viruses. Each virus has its own signature vibrations, which act as a sort of optical fingerprint that can distinguish the coronavirus from, for example, the virus that causes influenza.</p>
<p>We could capture viruses from patients’ saliva taken with a swab or by a person blowing through a device, called a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2211068216677820">microfluidic cartridge</a>. The air and liquid pass an array of <a href="https://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology/introduction/introduction_to_nanotechnology_22.php">carbon nanotubes</a>, cylinder-shape molecules used in different materials. </p>
<p>The diameters of the nanotubes are microscopic, between 10-60 nanometers. Because they are smaller than microbes – flu viruses range from 90-120 nanometers in diameter and coronaviruses range from 125-150nm in diameter – the pathogens collect on the carbon nanotubes. Once trapped by passing through the carbon nanotubes, the viruses can be optically identified by shining a laser on the sample. Shining the light on the carbon nanotubes and pathogens <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physrep.2004.10.006">creates a distinctive optical fingerprint</a>, or “Raman peaks.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332410/original/file-20200504-83757-1l9ya9b.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332410/original/file-20200504-83757-1l9ya9b.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/332410/original/file-20200504-83757-1l9ya9b.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332410/original/file-20200504-83757-1l9ya9b.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332410/original/file-20200504-83757-1l9ya9b.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=304&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332410/original/file-20200504-83757-1l9ya9b.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332410/original/file-20200504-83757-1l9ya9b.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/332410/original/file-20200504-83757-1l9ya9b.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">After being beamed with lasers, different microbes will give off radiation in different wavelengths that can be measured to identify the pathogen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penn State University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the laser shines on the trapped sample, machine learning algorithms identify the signature spectrum of the virus that results from the light that bounces off the virus particles. With the assistance of machine learning, the identification takes less than two minutes with an accuracy rate of up to 70% to 90%, comparable to state-of-the-art microbiology techniques.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Right now, the rapid and accurate detection of the novel coronavirus is of paramount importance. While Raman spectroscopy has the potential to be enormously helpful in identifying this virus, doctors can also use this technique to test for other illnesses, such as influenza. By identifying the virus easily, quickly and at the point of contact, Raman spectroscopy could significantly halt disease spread. </p>
<p>Compare that to our <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-does-the-coronavirus-test-work-5-questions-answered-133118">current methods of analyzing samples</a>; a process that is relatively slow, tedious, labor intensive and requires extensive scrutiny at laboratories. Early and rapid detection with this new device has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives every year. </p>
<h2>What other work is being done</h2>
<p>For the identification of viruses, <a href="https://theconversation.com/there-are-many-covid-19-tests-in-the-us-how-are-they-being-regulated-134783">existing technologies</a> do provide <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6988269/">relatively sensitive detection</a>. However, they take several hours and sometime days depending on the quality of the sample collected because low virus concentrations are very difficult to process and results in false negatives. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, both immune- and molecular-based methods, including <a href="https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/life-science/protein-biology/protein-biology-learning-center/protein-biology-resource-library/pierce-protein-methods/overview-elisa.html">enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay</a> (<a href="http://www.epitopediagnostics.com/covid-19-elisa">ELISA</a>) and <a href="https://theconversation.com/on-the-front-lines-of-developing-a-test-for-the-coronavirus-133124">polymerase chain reaction</a> (PCR), require prior knowledge of the strains. Another technique known as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6528456/">deep sequencing</a> is another promising new approach, but obtaining sufficient viral reads for it to work well depends on the quality of the sample and its preparation. Processing steps involve incorporating different benchtop equipment, reagents and technical expertise.
This Raman technique has been <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12898-9">recently developed to identify different bacteria</a>, thus demonstrating the technique is indeed novel and viable. </p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>We are applying for federal funds to demonstrate that this technology works for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that cause COVID-19, and then build reliable prototypes that can be scaled up for mass production and field deployment. We are also talking with several manufacturers and exploring ways to move the technology forward to help in the current crisis. </p>
<p>We have been successful in capturing human respiratory viruses from clinical samples using this technique. Eventually, we foresee this technology becoming available to anyone visiting their family doctor. Within two minutes, a person would know whether you have a respiratory virus by comparing the result of the spectroscopy test with other results in a database. In the future, this technology could be at hospitals, airports and inside commercial aircraft to avoid outbreaks. And the captured viruses, still viable, can be replicated to develop a vaccine. </p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131879/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mauricio Terrones and Yin-Ting Yeh have developed an earlier technology capable of enriching viruses from clinical samples for their rapid identification using PCR and NGS. The detection limits of this technology is improved >100 times when compared to PCR (<a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/10/e1601026">https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/10/e1601026</a>). This technology has been licensed to Virolock Technologies LLC (<a href="https://virolock.com/">https://virolock.com/</a>). The technology described in this article for the rapid optical identification using Raman spectroscopy and machine learning, has been disclosed and its patent is pending under Penn State University. The latter Raman technology has been performed with funds from the National Science Foundation’s Growing Convergence Research Big Idea (Grant # 1934977).
</span></em></p>A team of physicists, virologists and computer scientists are seeking to develop a coronavirus diagnostic tool that could deliver rapid results.Mauricio Terrones, Professor of Physics, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1353782020-04-03T18:01:11Z2020-04-03T18:01:11ZBlue dye from red beets – chemists devise a new pigment option<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324753/original/file-20200401-23143-1032w4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=233%2C170%2C1715%2C1386&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Through the wonders of chemistry, molecules can be rearranged to completely transform color.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Erick Leite Bastos</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What’s your favorite color? If you answered blue, you’re in good company. <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2015/05/12/why-blue-worlds-favorite-color">Blue outranks all other color preferences</a> worldwide by a large margin.</p>
<p>No matter how much people enjoy looking at it, blue is a difficult color to harness from nature. As a chemist who <a href="https://www.bastoslab.com/">studies the modification of natural products</a> to solve technological problems, I realized there was a need for a safe, nontoxic, cost-effective blue dye. So my Ph.D. student, Barbara Freitas-Dörr, and I devised a <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/14/eaaz0421">method to convert the pigments of red beets into a blue compound</a> that can be used in a wide range of applications. We call it BeetBlue.</p>
<h2>Natural sources of blue</h2>
<p>Blue is strongly associated with nature, largely because it is reflected in the sky and on bodies of water. But compared to other colors, blue pigments are not commonly found in living organisms.</p>
<p>The feathers of many birds are blue, not because they produce a pigment, but because the microscopic structure of their <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_coloration">feathers is able to filter light</a>. This physical phenomenon is very interesting but difficult to adopt for common applications.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324747/original/file-20200401-23130-yhy2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324747/original/file-20200401-23130-yhy2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324747/original/file-20200401-23130-yhy2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324747/original/file-20200401-23130-yhy2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324747/original/file-20200401-23130-yhy2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324747/original/file-20200401-23130-yhy2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324747/original/file-20200401-23130-yhy2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/324747/original/file-20200401-23130-yhy2og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The <em>Lactarius indigo</em> mushroom is one of Mother Nature’s rare examples of blue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:2013-08-06_Lactarius_indigo_(Schwein.)_Fr_359786.jpg">Alan Rockerfeller/Mushroom Observer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Plants seldom produce blue hues. When they do, their pigments rarely remain stable after extraction. The same is true for blue mushrooms like the indigo milky cap and other species that develop a blue stain when disturbed. </p>
<h2>Turning red into blue</h2>
<p>You might wonder how something red can be turned into something blue. One approach is to change the way its molecules absorb and reflect light.</p>
<p>The white light coming from your lamp contains a rainbow of colors, even though you cannot see them – without the use of a prism, that is. The surface of your red chair looks red because, at the molecular level, it is absorbing all the colors except red, which is reflected and eventually reaches your eyes.</p>
<p>The color of your chair would change from red to blue if you modified the molecular structure of its dye, making it reflect blue light instead of red. The secret is in the number of carbon atoms in the dye and how they are connected to each other. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325053/original/file-20200402-74889-mrhg0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325053/original/file-20200402-74889-mrhg0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325053/original/file-20200402-74889-mrhg0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=148&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325053/original/file-20200402-74889-mrhg0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=148&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325053/original/file-20200402-74889-mrhg0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=148&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325053/original/file-20200402-74889-mrhg0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325053/original/file-20200402-74889-mrhg0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325053/original/file-20200402-74889-mrhg0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">By changing the structure of molecular compounds, you can alter color.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Erick Leite Bastos</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beets produce chemical compounds called betalains, which are natural pigments and antioxidants. The chemical structure of betalains can be modified to produce almost any hue. We realized that if we increased the number of alternating single-double bonds in betalain molecules, we could change their color from orange or magenta to blue.</p>
<p>Making blue dye with adequate intensity and light-fastness is difficult because it must absorb yellow and orange light efficiently. Solving this problem required lots of molecular tweaking.</p>
<p>My lab has been working with betalains for over 10 years to understand their function in nature and their unique chemical features, so it took only one experiment to produce BeetBlue. (It took more than two years to optimize the process, though.) </p>
<p>We broke apart the betalain molecules using alkaline water with a pH of 11. Then we mixed the resulting compound, called betalamic acid, with a commercial chemical compound called 2,4-dimethylpyrrole in an open vessel at room temperature. BeetBlue is formed almost instantly. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FUS95BYqJ24?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">BeetBlue is created in a beaker at room temperature.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Because we changed the characteristic carbon-nitrogen chemical bond of betalains into a carbon-carbon bond, BeetBlue is a new class of pseudo-natural dyes we call quasibetalains.</p>
<h2>Color your life blue</h2>
<p>The chemical synthesis of BeetBlue is fast and very simple. In fact, it is so simple that anyone can do it if all the chemicals are available.</p>
<p>BeetBlue dissolves easily in water and other solvents, maintains its color in acidic and neutral solutions, and may provide an alternative to expensive blue colorants that often <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_inorganic_pigments#Blue_pigments">contain toxic metals</a>, which limit the scope of their applications. </p>
<p>Live zebrafish embryos as well as cultured human cells were not affected by BeetBlue. Although more experiments are necessary to make sure it is safe for human consumption, maybe you can dye your hair, customize your clothes or color your food in the future using a dye made from beets.</p>
<p>This work shows the importance of basic science for the development of technological applications. We did not patent BeetBlue. We want people to use it freely and understand, by interacting with nature in a different and sustainable way, the future can be bright. </p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135378/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erick Leite Bastos receives funding from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES).</span></em></p>A simple chemical reaction turns the red pigment of beets into a new, nontoxic blue dye.Erick Leite Bastos, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Universidade de São Paulo (USP)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1324792020-03-04T19:01:49Z2020-03-04T19:01:49ZVaccines without needles – new shelf-stable film could revolutionize how medicines are distributed worldwide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318665/original/file-20200304-66112-9v1pww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C43%2C1115%2C817&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Films that dissolve rapidly when placed under the tongue or high in the cheek will make vaccines cheaper and more reliable.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen C. Schafer</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The race is on to identify an effective vaccine for the COVID-19 virus. Once discovered, the next challenge will be manufacturing and distributing it around the world. </p>
<p>My research group has developed a novel method to stabilize live viruses and other biological medicines <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aau4819">in a rapidly dissolving film</a> that does not require refrigeration and can be given by mouth.</p>
<p>Since the ingredients to make the film are inexpensive and the process is relatively simple, it could make vaccine campaigns much more affordable. Large quantities could be shipped and distributed easily given its flat, space saving shape.</p>
<p>Globally, vaccination rates have improved over the past decade, but are still too low – 13.5 million children were <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/vaccination">not vaccinated in 2018</a>. This new technology, recently published <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aau4819">in the journal Science Advances</a>, has the potential to dramatically improve global access to vaccines and other biological medicines.</p>
<h2>Inspired by hard candy</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318397/original/file-20200303-66084-1403psg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C177%2C2297%2C1661&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318397/original/file-20200303-66084-1403psg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C177%2C2297%2C1661&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318397/original/file-20200303-66084-1403psg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318397/original/file-20200303-66084-1403psg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318397/original/file-20200303-66084-1403psg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318397/original/file-20200303-66084-1403psg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318397/original/file-20200303-66084-1403psg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318397/original/file-20200303-66084-1403psg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not your grandmother’s vaccine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Maria Croyle</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My research team began developing this technology in 2007, when the National Institutes of Health asked us to develop a needle-free, shelf-stable delivery method for a vaccine. </p>
<p>The idea of developing a film was inspired by a documentary about how the DNA of insects and other living things can be preserved for millions of years in amber. This got us thinking about hard candy, like my grandmother used to make.</p>
<p>It was a simple idea, yet no one had tried it. So we went to work mixing a variety of formulations containing natural ingredients like sugars and salts and testing them for their ability to form a solid amber-like candy.</p>
<p>Initially, many of the preparations we tested either killed the organism as the film formed or crystallized during storage, shredding the virus or the bacteria we were trying to preserve.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318668/original/file-20200304-66052-112hifn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318668/original/file-20200304-66052-112hifn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318668/original/file-20200304-66052-112hifn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=103&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318668/original/file-20200304-66052-112hifn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=103&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318668/original/file-20200304-66052-112hifn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=103&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318668/original/file-20200304-66052-112hifn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=129&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318668/original/file-20200304-66052-112hifn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=129&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318668/original/file-20200304-66052-112hifn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=129&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vaccines like those for measles, polio, influenza, hepatitis B and Ebola, as well as many of the therapeutic antibodies used to treat infections and cancer, can be carefully sandwiched between protective layers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen C. Schafer</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But finally, after about 450 tries over the course of a year, we found a formulation that could suspend viruses and bacteria in a peelable film.</p>
<p>As we gained more experience with the production process, we worked to simplify it so extensive technical training would not be needed to make it. Additionally, we tweaked the ingredients so they would dry faster, enabling one to make a batch of vaccine in the morning and ship it after lunch. </p>
<p>I’m involved with a startup aiming to get this technology to market within the next two years. </p>
<h2>More benefits</h2>
<p>All stored vaccines lose their potency over time. The rate at which they do so mostly depends on the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1586/erv.09.20">temperature at which they are kept</a>. Keeping vaccines continuously refrigerated is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2007.02.052">difficult and expensive</a> – and in some parts of the world, <a href="https://theconversation.com/cracking-the-cold-chain-challenge-is-key-to-making-vaccines-ubiquitous-99329">nearly impossible</a>. So creating a vaccine that can be stored and transported at room temperature is a huge advantage. </p>
<p>The biggest breakthrough for this project came when we were finishing up our Ebola vaccine project and found films containing virus made three years ago, stored in a sealed container on the lab bench. On a whim, we rehydrated them and tested them to determine if the vaccine was still capable of inducing an immune response. To our surprise, more than 95% of the viruses in the film were still active. To achieve this kind of shelf-life for an unrefrigerated vaccine was astonishing.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318436/original/file-20200303-66069-18ofksf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318436/original/file-20200303-66069-18ofksf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318436/original/file-20200303-66069-18ofksf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318436/original/file-20200303-66069-18ofksf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318436/original/file-20200303-66069-18ofksf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318436/original/file-20200303-66069-18ofksf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318436/original/file-20200303-66069-18ofksf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318436/original/file-20200303-66069-18ofksf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The film can stabilize the vaccine in a space-saving format, making it easier to ship and distribute around the globe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Schafer and Maria Croyle</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ecological footprint left by global immunization campaigns is not often considered. The 2004 Philippine Measles Elimination Campaign, which immunized 18 million children in one month, generated 19.5 million syringes, or 143 tons of sharps waste and nearly 80 tons <a href="https://noharm-global.org/documents/disposal-mass-immunization-waste-without-incineration">of nonhazardous waste</a> – empty vials, syringe wrappers, caps, cotton swabs and packaging. The implications for a larger campaign are significant.</p>
<p>Our film, by contrast, can be distributed by health workers equipped with only an envelope containing the vaccine. Once taken, it will leave no trace, except for a healthy global population.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132479/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The film technology developed in the Croyle Laboratory at the College of Pharmacy, University of Texas at Austin, has been licensed to a new startup company based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina for which Dr. Croyle is a scientific advisor. Dr. Croyle currently receives funding from the National Institutes of Health. </span></em></p>Inspired by amber and hard candy, researchers figured out a new, needle-free, shelf-stable way to preserve vaccines, making them easier to ship and administer around the world.Maria Croyle, Professor of Pharmaceutics, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1110402019-03-19T10:44:56Z2019-03-19T10:44:56ZWhy some counties are powerhouses for innovation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259968/original/file-20190220-148539-1uibfnn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Santa Clara County produced more patents than any other U.S. county in recent history.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hoover-tower-view-above-stanford-sunset-604763714?src=yZbyvE54TZ4jIws-7ibTtA-1-2">MintImages/shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>By the time the application window closed, Amazon had received <a href="https://qz.com/1119945/a-nearly-complete-list-of-the-238-places-that-bid-for-amazons-next-headquarters/">238 proposals</a> from cities and regions throughout North America looking to become the second headquarters of the behemoth tech company. </p>
<p>Amazon invited proposals especially from places that looked a lot like its native Seattle: metro areas with more than a million people; a stable and business-friendly environment; communities that could <a href="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/Anything/test/images/usa/RFP_3._V516043504_.pdf">“think big and creatively”</a> about real estate options; and a location that would attract and retain technical talent. </p>
<p>In the race to attract high-tech companies, what can cities and regions do to become centers of innovation? At the moment, some places are clearly in the lead. </p>
<p>By my analysis of <a href="https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/countyall/usa_county_gd.htm">data from the U.S. Patent Office</a>, Santa Clara County, California, is sprinting ahead of the country. Between 2000 and 2015, more than 140,000 patents were granted in Santa Clara County. That’s triple the number for second-ranked San Diego County. </p>
<p>Four other counties in California – Los Angeles, San Mateo, Alameda and Orange – make the top 10. Washington’s King County, Massachusetts’s Middlesex County, Michigan’s Oakland County and Arizona’s Maricopa County round out the list.</p>
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<p>These counties are in large metropolitan areas that are known as technology and innovation centers, including San Francisco, San Diego, Boston and Seattle. The other metro areas in the top 10, not the usual tech-hub suspects, are Greater Los Angeles, Detroit and Phoenix. </p>
<h2>Higher education</h2>
<p>Besides large concentrated populations, these metro areas share two other ingredients that support innovation. All of them have one or more leading research universities and a large proportion of college-educated people. </p>
<p>Santa Clara County is home to Stanford University, an institution that has become synonymous with the high-tech and innovation economy of Silicon Valley. </p>
<p>Stanford’s rise as a world-class research university coincided with a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK45556/">rapid increase in federal and military spending</a> during the Cold War. The university’s suburban location gave it an advantage, too, by providing land for expansion and for burgeoning high-tech companies. Stanford’s leadership <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/7859.html">aggressively courted</a> research opportunities aligned with the priorities of the military-industrial complex, including electronics, computing and aerospace.</p>
<p>As a leader in patents, Santa Clara County benefits from a well-educated population, with more than <a href="https://www.census.gov/acs/www/data/data-tables-and-tools/">half a million adults</a> over 25 years of age holding a bachelor’s degree or higher, the 10th-highest figure in the country. </p>
<p>Nationally, there is a strong relationship between the number of college-educated adults and the number of patents filed in those counties. I found that, for every increase of 1,000 college-educated people, one can expect 33 more patents to be granted in those counties. </p>
<p>For counties that contain one or more of the country’s “<a href="http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/lookup/srp.php?clq=%7B%22basic2005_ids%22%3A%2215%22%7D&start_page=standard.php">131 Doctoral Universities with Very High Research Activity</a>,” as ranked by Indiana University’s Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, the average number of patents filed was 6,686, compared to only 371 for counties lacking one of these research institutes. </p>
<p><iframe id="Qr3kh" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Qr3kh/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Cost of living</h2>
<p>Another common trait about most of these centers of innovation is the jaw-dropping cost of housing. </p>
<p>The median sale price for houses in San Jose in Santa Clara County exceeded <a href="https://www.zillow.com/research/data/">US$1 million</a> for every month in 2018. Between 2000 and 2017, house prices <a href="https://www.fhfa.gov/DataTools/Downloads/Pages/House-Price-Index-Datasets.aspx#qexe">more than doubled</a> in the California and Washington state counties with the highest number of patents. </p>
<p>Competition for higher-wage talent pushes up housing and other costs in these innovation centers. Although housing prices increased in greater Boston, Phoenix and Detroit, they remained relative bargains compared to the West Coast. </p>
<p>The threat of rising housing costs and gentrification was one of many reasons why residents protested the planned building of Amazon’s second headquarters in the New York City borough of Queens. The company has now <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/nyregion/amazon-hq2-queens.html?module=inline">decided to pull out</a>.</p>
<p>Facing rising rents in San Francisco, many residents are leaving for surrounding suburbs or farther afield. Gentrification in high-tech cities coincides with homelessness and growing inequalities, <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/18/rising-bay-area-rents-hit-communities-of-color-hardest/">hitting minority communities hardest</a>. </p>
<h2>Sparking innovation</h2>
<p>Rising living costs in these tech centers can create innovation opportunities for communities inland where living costs are lower. There are more than <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84">4,600 degree-granting institutions</a> located across the U.S. in communities large and small. </p>
<p>In my view, one way to unleash innovation would be to tap into the rich diversity of students, faculty and communities at two- and four-year colleges beyond the typical top 100 research institutes. </p>
<p>For example, universities might invest in <a href="https://dominicancaonline.com/professional-development/inquiry-based-education-awakens-innovation/">inquiry-based programs</a>, where learning is guided by questions, research and discovery rather than simply receiving knowledge. Or, they could focus on lifelong learning and entrepreneurship training. </p>
<p>In this way, it may be possible for smaller colleges and universities and the communities they serve to provide alternative pathways to innovation. If this happens, the technology giants of the future may be fighting to locate in the middle of the U.S., rather than the coasts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111040/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Boone receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development. </span></em></p>When it comes to innovation, Santa Clara County is way ahead of the rest of the US. Between 2000 and 2015, more than 140,000 patents were granted there – triple the number of the next-ranked county.Christopher Boone, Dean and Professor of Sustainability, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1005642018-08-14T10:32:39Z2018-08-14T10:32:39ZFrom slag to swag: The story of Earl Tupper’s fantastic plastics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231724/original/file-20180813-2891-ba9goj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A postcard from the 1950s advertises a variety Tupperware products.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/24781416158/">Thomas Hawk</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When “American Horror Story,” the Museum of Modern Art and “Napoleon Dynamite” pay homage to an invention, you know it’s made a cultural impact in a big way.</p>
<p>Tupperware has a staying power that most plastic products don’t. So far, it has evaded the anti-plastics movement, and it seems to survive most kitchen clean-outs. Its annual sales <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/tup/financials">exceed US$2 billion</a>. </p>
<p>I’ve taught the story of Tupperware products in a course on the American 1950s. I’m also teaching it in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqURhLnn9yA&feature=youtu.be">polymers</a> unit of an <a href="https://www.mrs.org/impact-of-materials-on-society">interdisciplinary course</a> in materials science engineering. </p>
<p>Tupperware products’ ability to bridge the humanities and STEM fields speaks to their cultural and utilitarian value – evidence of how a compelling, innovative design can have mass appeal.</p>
<h2>Polyethylene – ‘Material of the Future’</h2>
<p>Our relationships with plastics can be as richly diverse as the shapes and colors these malleable materials can assume. </p>
<p>Technically speaking, plastics are pliable, ductile and flexible synthetic materials that are easily shaped through heat and other applications of force. The word “plastic” also has an aesthetic meaning: A plastic actor is more versatile before the camera, and a medium such as stone can become plastic in an artist’s hands.</p>
<p>Literary and cultural critic Roland Barthes saw modern plastics as a form of alchemy – a way to transmute matter in seemingly infinite ways. </p>
<p>“More than a substance,” <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-uses-of-mythologies">he wrote in “Mythologies,”</a> “plastic is the very idea of its infinite transformation.” </p>
<p>Barthes imagined polystyrene, polyvinyl and polyethylene as Greek shepherds in a world of gods and monsters – magical materials alive with possibility. </p>
<p>Earl Tupper, inventor of Tupperware products, saw such promise in polyethylene – the plastic he used to craft his inventions – that he called it “Poly-T: Material of the Future,” as Alison J. Clarke notes in her book “<a href="https://www.smithsonianbooks.com/store/history/tupperware-promise-plastic-1950s-america/">Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950s America</a>.” </p>
<p>After failing at his first business as a tree surgeon, Tupper decided to try his hand at plastics production. In 1937, he got a gig as a sample maker at a Dupont-affiliated plastics factory. </p>
<p>At the time, DuPont employed amateur sample makers to further research and development. They could even take scrap materials home with them to work on new prototypes – a mutually beneficial arrangement, Clarke points out. </p>
<p>So when working with injection molding machines at the factory failed to yield the plastic Tupper envisioned, he turned to his home kitchen and tried the stovetop.</p>
<h2>It’s all about the lid</h2>
<p>The polyethylene that Tupper brought home from the factory was an industrial waste product – opaque, greasy, clumpy black slag. It was hardly the stuff that marketing dreams are made of. Tupper sought to overcome such material limitations by producing a plastic more durable than molded transparent <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=styrene&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjI0uXx1-DcAhWqct8KHWeIBscQ_AUICigB&biw=1440&bih=673">styrene</a>; he wanted to create something that could flex without cracking or snapping.</p>
<p>He and his son boiled the scrap samples at home, eventually finding the right balance of pressure and temperature so the polyethylene flowed into the desired shapes and thickness. Tupper also fashioned a system for dyeing his containers in pastel colors. </p>
<p>Eventually, Tupper was able to create what author Bob Kealing <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Tupperware_Unsealed.html?id=7rkTAQAAIAAJ">referred to</a> as “a polished, waxy, upscale plastic.”</p>
<p>But he still needed the right lid – something that could both preserve food and prevent spills.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231750/original/file-20180813-2894-azzsmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231750/original/file-20180813-2894-azzsmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231750/original/file-20180813-2894-azzsmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231750/original/file-20180813-2894-azzsmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231750/original/file-20180813-2894-azzsmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231750/original/file-20180813-2894-azzsmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231750/original/file-20180813-2894-azzsmx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Earl Tupper got the idea for his famous lid from paint cans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/giuntinijonathan/4457615235/">Giuntini Jonathan</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Inspired by paint cans, Tupper fashioned a flexible polyethylene lid that, when snapped onto the container, created an airtight seal. As Kealing points out, this worked much better than tin foil or a shower cap – materials many American women had relied on to cover their leftovers. </p>
<p>In 1947, <a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/US2487400?oq=Tupper+nonsnap+1949">Tupper patented</a> the nonsnap lid for his first plastic container. </p>
<p>Legendary saleswoman <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tupperware-wise/">Brownie Wise</a> – the first woman to appear on the cover of Business Week – would demonstrate how to “burp” the container by lifting part of the patented lid before sealing it. Her direct sales acumen made Tupper’s product come alive. At her iconic “Tupperware parties,” she would toss liquid-filled <a href="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/df/64/39/df6439845a60f0c2b42bb16083bb171b--tupperware-shop-perfect-wedding-gifts.jpg">Wonder Bowls</a> across American living rooms, astonishing housewives with the airtight seal that prevented spills.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-Mm_z5xwwbs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A 1958 ad markets Tupperware parties and showcases the air-tight seal.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From pantry shelf to gallery shelf</h2>
<p>In the 1972 film “<a href="http://www.eamesoffice.com/the-work/design-q-a/">Design Q&A</a>,” designer Ray Eames insists that design is fundamentally “a plan for arranging elements to accomplish a particular purpose,” although superior designs “may later be judged as art.” </p>
<p>Today, Tupper’s <a href="https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/earl-s-tupper-pitcher-and-creamer-1946">polyethylene pitcher and creamer</a> reside in the Museum of Modern Art, along with his tumblers, bowls and ingenious popsicle molds, called “Ice Tups.” Curators have included Tupperware products in exhibitions on mid-century design and most recently in the 2011 exhibit “<a href="https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/957?locale=en">What was Good Design? MoMA’s Message, 1944-1956</a>.”</p>
<p>As Clarke explains, Tupper’s products embodied modernism’s “ideal of a tasteful, restrained and mass-produced artifact, free of inauthentic decoration and gratuitous ornament.” </p>
<p>With their clean lines and elegant curves, they fused form and function. The plastic used in Tupperware products is top-shelf – aesthetically pleasing, meaningful and durable. </p>
<p>In today’s Tupperware products, we also see a refined design. Take the Eco Water Bottle. Its sleek curves – together with its softly translucent pink, blue and turquoise variations – conjure glass. The concave center looks pretty and fits the hand.</p>
<h2>Tales from Tupper’s wares</h2>
<p>Tupperware products continue to play a role in our cultural conscious. A friend who lent me her Ice Tups told me that she’ll always associate it with early memories of her mother. </p>
<p>In one “Seinfeld” episode, Kramer frantically tries to recover his Tupperware container that he’d loaned to someone, while Jimmy of “American Horror Story” <a href="http://americanhorrorstory.wikia.com/wiki/Tupperware_Party_Massacre">causes mayhem at a Tupperware Party</a>. Meanwhile, the synthwave band <a href="https://twrp.bandcamp.com/">Tupper Ware Remix Party</a> spins 80s-inspired dance tracks. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PfIJILHnpPU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Can you relate to Kramer?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Non-biodegradable plastic like Tupperware containers will be part of Earth’s future for centuries. <a href="http://www.plasticfreejuly.org/">The Plastics Free July initiative</a> has advocated against single-use plastics, like bags and straws. Luckily, Tupperware products are reusable, and the stories we tell about them will continue to reinvent our relationships with a material we won’t – and can’t – let go of.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100564/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marsha Bryant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>You know you’ve hit it big when your designs find their way into millions of kitchens – and the Museum of Modern Art.Marsha Bryant, Professor of English & Distinguished Teaching Scholar, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/992292018-07-12T09:58:37Z2018-07-12T09:58:37ZThomas Edison: visionary, genius or fraud?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225690/original/file-20180702-116143-1gfcgfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thomas Alva Edison played a starring role in the 1998 Simpsons episode, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0701270/">The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace</a>. Homer Simpson, depressed at hitting 40 with little to show for it, decides to emulate the American inventor by doing some inventing of his own. He churns out a series of useless contraptions, is visited by Edison’s ghost and travels to the perfectly preserved laboratory in the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/edis/index.htm">Edison National Historical Park</a> in New Jersey.</p>
<p>The Edison seen on screen follows a familiar narrative: an inventive genius and tireless worker, who singlemindedly generated some of the late 19th century’s most transformative technologies. Seen in this light, the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictures-and-sound-recordings/articles-and-essays/history-of-edison-sound-recordings/history-of-the-cylinder-phonograph/">phonograph</a>, the light bulb, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/Kinetoscope">kinetoscope</a> and a host of other innovations were all the products of one heroically ingenious mind. It is a view that taps into the romance of the American dream, but also looks <a href="https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2013/03/21/why-thomas-edison-isnt-the-inventor-of-the-light-bulb#close-modal">increasingly untenable</a>.</p>
<h2>Edison the publicist</h2>
<p>Edison himself would have loved this image, as it was one that he himself worked hard at cultivating. After his invention of the phonograph in 1877, he became known as the “Wizard of Menlo Park”, and although he did not invent the title himself, it expressed very well the image he wished to project. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225682/original/file-20180702-116152-1ya3k99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225682/original/file-20180702-116152-1ya3k99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225682/original/file-20180702-116152-1ya3k99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225682/original/file-20180702-116152-1ya3k99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=763&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225682/original/file-20180702-116152-1ya3k99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225682/original/file-20180702-116152-1ya3k99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225682/original/file-20180702-116152-1ya3k99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=959&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Edison’s many inventions ensured him a place in American folklore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/thomas-a-edison-18471931-washington-dc-244393174?src=fmA8coXfrGKkbaiUkO0Ydg-1-0">shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>A <a href="http://edison.rutgers.edu/vol4.htm">cartoon in a contemporary newspaper</a> featured Edison holding a glowing incandescent lamp, and dressed in a pointed hat and flowing cape decorated with images of his iconic inventions. These representations were not only tailormade to promote Edison the individual, but crafted to reflect prevailing ideals of American individualism, ingenuity and self-reliance.</p>
<p>Edison’s success partly depended on this symbiotic relationship with the media. He knew he needed them to sell his inventions, and newspaper editors recognised that the Edison name sold copies. In 1898, journalist Garrett P. Serviss penned <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19141/19141-h/19141-h.htm">“Edison’s Conquest of Mars”</a>, a novel serialised in William Randolph Hearst’s New York Evening Journal that capitalised on the success of H.G. Wells’s <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36/36-h/36-h.htm">War of the Worlds</a>. The narrative featured a future that very literally depended upon Edison and his inventions. Edison’s name sold the story and the newspaper, and the plot helped cement the myth that his inventions stemmed from the power of individual genius.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225681/original/file-20180702-116147-ymzpus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225681/original/file-20180702-116147-ymzpus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225681/original/file-20180702-116147-ymzpus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225681/original/file-20180702-116147-ymzpus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225681/original/file-20180702-116147-ymzpus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225681/original/file-20180702-116147-ymzpus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225681/original/file-20180702-116147-ymzpus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Going global: a Cambodian stamp commemorates Edison’s invention of the light bulb.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/kampucheacirca-1992-stamp-printed-cambodia-devoted-78707776">shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Edison’s story is a good example of the way we tend to think about the future – as shaped by great individuals making giant steps forward. Ironically, it’s this myth that he helped foster that is now taking the edge off his reputation, and making his very real achievements look suspect.</p>
<h2>Edison the businessman</h2>
<p>There is a striking contrast between this image of individual ingenuity, and the historical reality of intensive, production-line invention that Edison pioneered. When he established his laboratory in <a href="http://www.menloparkmuseum.org/history/thomas-edison-and-menlo-park/">Menlo Park</a>, and later in <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/agJyIGxTlBg6JA">West Orange</a>, he created a new, collective approach to the business of invention. </p>
<p>The stream of patents that these laboratories produced came more from systematic experimentation than from “eureka” moments, and Edison always had one eye trained on how a prospective product might sell. The light bulb illustrates this perfectly: far from conjuring the design out of thin air, he had teams of experimenters rigorously testing sample after sample to figure out what material worked best for the filament.</p>
<p>Edison knew that inventions in isolation were of little use: they had to be sold as elements in a practical system. Inventing the light bulb and coming up with systems for electric power generation and transmission had to go together. It was this brand of “big picture” thinking that made Edison’s companies such an attractive proposition to big financial backers like J.P Morgan.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225732/original/file-20180702-116152-y41u5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225732/original/file-20180702-116152-y41u5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225732/original/file-20180702-116152-y41u5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225732/original/file-20180702-116152-y41u5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225732/original/file-20180702-116152-y41u5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225732/original/file-20180702-116152-y41u5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225732/original/file-20180702-116152-y41u5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The kinetoscope – one of Edison’s first ever movie machines.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/edisons-first-movie-machine-kinetoscope-talkie-339962612?src=ibWEvLpt3jA4OOyonklt3w-1-2">shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Edison and others like him (Nikola Tesla, for example) worked hard to foster, and perhaps even invent the image of the inventor as an individual, iconoclastic and disruptive maker of the future. It remains a romantic and alluring vision, but the more historians study Edison, the clearer it becomes that the myth does not match the reality. </p>
<h2>Reassessing an American icon</h2>
<p>This mismatch between history and fantasy has led some to turn the conventional view of Edison on its head. If he cannot be cast as the hero of invention, he must be recast as its villain. Instead of the masterful inventor, we have Edison the dodgy dealer, the media manipulator, the appropriator of other people’s work. </p>
<p>It is perhaps ironic that Edison’s detractors, just like his supporters, seem to think that invention is a business for individuals. So if not Edison, <a href="https://owlcation.com/humanities/Nikola-Tesla-Inventor">then who</a>? A more nuanced response might argue that what Edison’s history actually demonstrates is the ineluctably collective nature of all inventive work.</p>
<p>This matters now in particular – and this is perhaps one reason why Edison’s reputation is currently taking a battering. As we face up to existential challenges like climate change, the way we think about innovation and those with the skills to drive it, has rarely mattered more. The stories we once told about how to navigate the future safely and who we should trust with getting us there are starting to look less convincing. Does the responsibility for inventing (and reinventing) the future belong to certain heroic individuals, or does it fall upon us all?</p>
<p>The rejection of the Edison myth may be timely, but rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater, perhaps it’s time to understand that invention might be at its most successful when it’s a collective endeavour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iwan Morus receives funding from AHRC in connection with the Unsettling Scientific Stories project (<a href="http://unsettlingscientificstories.co.uk">http://unsettlingscientificstories.co.uk</a>)</span></em></p>One of America’s favourite sons is slowly losing his reputation, and he might just deserve it.Iwan Morus, Professor of History, Aberystwyth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/886762017-12-12T10:25:53Z2017-12-12T10:25:53ZGrowing food from mattresses: what experts can learn from working in refugee camps<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198010/original/file-20171206-894-1osvnu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anthony Ryan</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I am a scientist who has spent his career working with industry at the interface of science, engineering and medicine. I have served on many advisory boards on translating research into practice. But I never feel the flames of knowledge exchange burn as bright as when I’m at Za’atari refugee camp, in Jordan.</p>
<p>The news is often full of refugee crises couched in terms such as “how will we cope?”, without much thought for the refugees themselves. And Europe has seen only a fraction of the number of refugees compared to countries like Jordan. Za’atari alone holds <a href="http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/settlement.php?id=176&country=107">80,000 people</a>. I had my eyes opened to the complexity of refugee life for the first time in July 2016, when Helen Storey from the London College of Fashion and I were invited to visit Za’atari by the UNHCR. Now we’re part of an international team of experts – varying from engineers to fashion designers – trying to come up with solutions to some of the most complicated problems on the planet.</p>
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<p>The refugees’ legal status usually prevents them from taking up employment, owning property or moving freely, stripping them of agency. At home they were farmers, engineers, teachers, doctors, so not only have they been forcibly displaced, but also forcibly unemployed. And they can’t do anything that even looks like it might lead to permanence, like getting a job or fixing their house. Despite this, the eagerness to put a plan into action was truly astounding, and many smiles and jokes were exchanged. It is incredible to see the resilience of the Za’atari folk.</p>
<p>I learned the expression “necessity is the mother of invention” as a child and here I saw it play out in front of me: limitations improve creativity and we think up solutions we would never have thought of in a lab. We’ve made windmills, wheelchairs and recycling trucks out of old bikes, and grown tomatoes without soil. Our partners at the London College of Fashion work on the human end of well-being, recognising that personal care and making skills have profound effects on people’s self-worth and mental health – and provide the framework for building livelihoods and communities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198005/original/file-20171206-894-1npibr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198005/original/file-20171206-894-1npibr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198005/original/file-20171206-894-1npibr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198005/original/file-20171206-894-1npibr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198005/original/file-20171206-894-1npibr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198005/original/file-20171206-894-1npibr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198005/original/file-20171206-894-1npibr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Raw materials to get inventive with.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anthony Ryan</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bed meals</h2>
<p>The majority of refugees in Za’atari come from the Dara’a region in Syria which is known for its fertile soil and the camp is full of farmers. We wanted a way to tap into those skills, but we can’t plant anything in the ground due to Jordanian law. Water is very limited here too, and the soil is very salty. I have a couple of horticulture projects on the go that use specialised high-tech polyurethane foam as synthetic soils with lower water requirements, so I repurposed this science to use the foam mattresses from the camp. We were successful in growing tomatoes in Sheffield in mattresses that I brought back from my first visit to Za'atari and have tested the crop to make sure it is safe to eat.</p>
<p>We then worked with enthusiastic residents and the Norwegian Refugee Council to repurpose waste materials into hydroponic pot systems in Za’atari. Hydroponics is a way of growing plants without soil, using just a nutrient solution, and the roots supported in an inert medium. Yogurt tubs provided the pots and polyurethane foam from mattresses the growing media. We introduced the basic principles of hydroponics at a workshop run by Grantham PhD student Harry Wright with Za’atari residents (and in many cases they knew more than us).</p>
<p>The attendees quickly set up a production line, cutting raw materials, making up nutrient solutions, planting seedlings and cuttings in the pots. Within an hour we had 30 odd pots. Since our initial visit there has been ongoing collaboration and progress with partners in Za'atari.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198008/original/file-20171206-938-773c1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198008/original/file-20171206-938-773c1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198008/original/file-20171206-938-773c1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198008/original/file-20171206-938-773c1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198008/original/file-20171206-938-773c1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198008/original/file-20171206-938-773c1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198008/original/file-20171206-938-773c1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two types of farming, with hydroponic tomatoes on the right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anthony Ryan</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>Scrap yard challenge</h2>
<p>A team of seven scientists and engineers also went to Za’atari for a week of “scrap yard challenges” to come up with co-created solutions for home-scale water heating and electricity generation. There are plenty of materials to hand, sheet steel and angle bar, wood, canvas and poles from tents, and a stock of recovered bicycles donated by the Amsterdam Police. The bicycles provided lots of parts for subsequent build projects and we were helped by donations from two Sheffield companies, bicycle parts <a href="https://www.planetx.co.uk/">Planet X</a>, cable and rigging equipment from <a href="https://www.gripple.com/gb/en/about-us">Gripple</a>.</p>
<p>The Syrian farmers are very adept – as soon as there is a plan agreed as what to build they are away building it, and sometimes they were so eager to get going that there was no plan and it got built anyway. We were truly amazed at what could be built using a hammer and angle grinder and a welding torch.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198004/original/file-20171206-920-1at4riu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198004/original/file-20171206-920-1at4riu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198004/original/file-20171206-920-1at4riu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198004/original/file-20171206-920-1at4riu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198004/original/file-20171206-920-1at4riu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198004/original/file-20171206-920-1at4riu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198004/original/file-20171206-920-1at4riu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198004/original/file-20171206-920-1at4riu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The finished windmill.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anthony Ryan</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>For example, Patrick Fairclough, a professor in mechanical engineering, led a project aiming to produce energy from windmills. He is very familiar with windmills to run pumps and generators from his childhood in South Africa. He’d already built some prototypes at home and was ready to go with three different designs. Two vertical prototypes were built to generate electricity at the home level and the horizontal bucket windmill is meant to provide a direct drive to a fan inside a caravan, to provide some effective cooling in the hot summer months. </p>
<p>We ended up using the bottom bracket (where the pedals and cranks attach) from a bicycle as the bearing for this windmill and thin aluminium wash basins for the buckets. It worked a treat and now the team, both in Sheffield and in Za’atari, are thinking about how to safely deploy it, in particular how to shut them down in case of a storm.</p>
<p>All this goes to show what can happen when you get in on the ground. In doing so we learn a lot about what does and doesn’t work, irrespective of what is theoretically possible or even preferable. The initial beneficiaries of this work will be refugees but eventually the wider population throughout Jordan can use these technologies we have co-created. They would never have been developed without us all being there together in the camp. Knowledge and research has to be exchanged on the ground – laboratories and theory are not enough.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony J Ryan receives funding from the EU, EPSRC, AkzoNobel, Aliaxis, The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment and Unilever.</span></em></p>Limitations improve creativity: we think up solutions we would never have thought of in a lab.Anthony J Ryan, Professor of Physical Chemistry, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/821042017-09-08T00:18:35Z2017-09-08T00:18:35ZHow fashion adapted to climate change – in the Little Ice Age<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185176/original/file-20170907-9599-1hmvfjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hendrick Avercamp's 'Ice Scene' (c. 1610).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Hendrick_Avercamp_-_The_Pleasures_of_Winter.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One could say the consequences of the planet’s warming climate can be seen on fashion week runways and the shelves of Anthropologie and H&M. Silhouettes shrink as midriffs and backs open. Sheer fabrics, breathable textiles and flowy draping <a href="http://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/fashion/advice/a41303/summer-style-tricks-to-keep-you-cool/">are in</a>. And in response to climate change’s rapid pace, some corners of the fashion industry are moving toward implementing <a href="http://eco-age.com/green-carpet-challenge/">sustainable business practices</a> and incorporating <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/climate-change-forces-fashion-students-to-study-the-weather-a7445361.html">more flexibility</a> within their <a href="http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-cool-shirt-20160901-snap-story.html">designs</a>. </p>
<p>Today people may see global warming as a modern phenomenon, but fashion has a long history of responding to worldwide climate change. </p>
<p>The only difference is that while we sweat, early modern Europeans froze. The Little Ice Age was an interval of erratic cooling that ravaged the Northern Hemisphere roughly between the 14th and 19th centuries. And like today’s designers, Renaissance fashion designers were forced to contend with shifting temperatures and strange weather.</p>
<h2>A menacing chill settles on Europe</h2>
<p>Scientists have yet to determine the primary cause of the <a href="http://earthsky.org/earth/volcanoes-might-have-triggered-the-little-ice-age">Little Ice Age</a>, and historians are still pinning down its exact chronological parameters. But voices from the era describe a rapidly cooling climate.</p>
<p>“At this time there was such a great cold that we almost froze to death in our quarters,” a soldier <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300208634/global-crisis">wrote in his diary</a> while traveling through Germany in 1640. “And,” he continued, “on the road, three people did freeze to death: a cavalry-man, a woman, and a boy.”</p>
<p>The entry was from August. </p>
<p>Scholars do agree that the Little Ice Age <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Little_Ice_Age.html?id=LwvkmXt5fQUC">impacted our shared global history</a> in myriad traceable ways. Its unpredictable temperature fluctuations and sudden freezes devastated harvests, escalated civil unrest and left thousands to starve. It may have inspired the menacingly chilly settings of Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” Darkness and clouds <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.1477-8696.1970.tb03232.x/abstract">haunt the skies</a> of <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_Hunters_in_the_Snow_(Winter)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">paintings</a> created during the period. </p>
<p>And the Little Ice Age also <a href="http://www.madamegilflurt.com/2015/09/the-little-ice-age-and-fashion.html">altered the history of fashion</a>. As the cold ramped up in the 16th century, fashion championed warmer styles: Heavy drapery, multiple layers and sleeves that trailed on the floor became more common across the visual and material record, while examples of the oldest surviving European <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/119576?sortBy=Relevance&amp;deptids=8&amp;when=A.D.+1400-1600&amp;ft=gloves&amp;offset=0&amp;rpp=20&amp;pos=1">gloves</a>, <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/84052?sortBy=Relevance&amp;deptids=8&amp;when=A.D.+1400-1600&amp;ft=*&amp;offset=40&amp;rpp=20&amp;pos=46">hats</a>, <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/79091">capes</a> and <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/85059?sortBy=Relevance&amp;deptids=8&amp;when=A.D.+1400-1600&amp;ft=*&amp;offset=20&amp;rpp=20&amp;pos=34">coats</a> from the era populate museum costume collections today. </p>
<p>“No one in Egypt used to know about wearing furs,” a Turkish man traveling through northern Africa <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300208634/global-crisis">wrote in 1670</a>. “There was no winter. But now we have severe winters and we have started wearing furs because of the cold.”</p>
<h2>Staying fashionably warm</h2>
<p>This change can be observed by comparing medieval and Renaissance dress.</p>
<p><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moralia_in_Job_MS_dragonslayer.jpg">In one French medieval manuscript</a> (illustrated between 1115 and 1125), the knight’s skirt is slit to the hip, and his squire’s hemline stops above the knee. There are no capes, fur or headgear; the garments are light and loose – especially compared to what men wore 400 years later, when the Little Ice Age was in full swing.</p>
<p>Take Hans Holbien’s iconic 1553 painting “<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hans_Holbein_the_Younger_-_The_Ambassadors_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">The French Ambassadors</a>,” which depicts two courtiers to King Henry VIII. The man on the left, wearing thick, dark velvets and a heavily fur-lined overcoat, is the French ambassador to England, Jean de Dinteville. Georges de Selve, the bishop of Lavaur, stands on the right. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185174/original/file-20170907-9603-1t92oi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185174/original/file-20170907-9603-1t92oi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185174/original/file-20170907-9603-1t92oi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185174/original/file-20170907-9603-1t92oi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185174/original/file-20170907-9603-1t92oi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185174/original/file-20170907-9603-1t92oi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185174/original/file-20170907-9603-1t92oi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185174/original/file-20170907-9603-1t92oi7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hans Holbein’s ‘The Ambassadors.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Hans_Holbein_the_Younger_-_The_Ambassadors_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/1039px-Hans_Holbein_the_Younger_-_The_Ambassadors_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The cleric has donned a floor-length coat befitting his godly station. But it would have also been very effective against cold. Both men sport fashionable caps and undergarments. The laced collar of De Selve’s undershirt peaks above his robes, and those white slashes in de Dinteville shiny pink shirt show off his hidden layers. </p>
<p>As with all portraits from the era, these men dressed to impress for the sitting – meaning their fanciest clothes were possibly their warmest.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185170/original/file-20170907-9568-17z0fee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185170/original/file-20170907-9568-17z0fee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185170/original/file-20170907-9568-17z0fee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185170/original/file-20170907-9568-17z0fee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185170/original/file-20170907-9568-17z0fee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1098&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185170/original/file-20170907-9568-17z0fee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1380&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185170/original/file-20170907-9568-17z0fee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185170/original/file-20170907-9568-17z0fee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1380&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A c. 1545 portrait of Catherine Parr.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Catherine_Parr.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women’s clothing also had to sustain temperature fluctuations that tended to range colder during the Little Ice Age. In a 16th-century <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Catherine_Parr.jpg">portrait of Katherine Parr</a>, the sixth wife of Henry VIII, Parr wears a headdress and a multi-layered gown with billowing sleeves. </p>
<p>Several petticoats would have been required to sustain the bell shape of her skirts. If you look closely, you’ll see a thin, translucent layer of fabric that shields her exposed skin where the neckline ends. Meanwhile, a large fur mantle – at the time, an essential accessory – is draped over her arms. </p>
<h2>A removed opulence</h2>
<p>New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has a <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/curatorial-departments/the-costume-institute">surviving collection of clothes from the late 16th century</a>, some of which could point to the cold’s influence on Renaissance clothing.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/98291?sortBy=Relevance&amp;deptids=8&amp;when=A.D.+1400-1600&amp;ft=*&amp;offset=0&amp;rpp=20&amp;pos=15">one Spanish dress</a> is outfitted with a cape atop the thick fabrics that make up the bodice, skirt and stacked sleeves. Beneath this densely layered gown, the wearer would have also needed to don several tiers of skirts and undergarments. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185171/original/file-20170907-9563-6fe09j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185171/original/file-20170907-9563-6fe09j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185171/original/file-20170907-9563-6fe09j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185171/original/file-20170907-9563-6fe09j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185171/original/file-20170907-9563-6fe09j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185171/original/file-20170907-9563-6fe09j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185171/original/file-20170907-9563-6fe09j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185171/original/file-20170907-9563-6fe09j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A late 16th-century Spanish ensemble features thick fabrics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/ci/original/DP204340.jpg">MoMA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/81132">British lady’s jacket</a> from around 1616 also may hint at cold weather. Tailored from linen, silk and metal, this tight bodice probably kept its wearer very warm. (Early modern clothing often featured cloth-of-gold thread, which was made from actual thin strips of gold metal and painstakingly wrapped around sewing thread.) </p>
<p>Portraits and preserved garments from the Little Ice Age tend to have one thing in common: They are all the pictures or products of elites who enjoyed the means to have a likeness made of themselves. Their wealth is evident in the very existence of these images and the expensive clothes they wear. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/81551?sortBy=Relevance&amp;deptids=8&amp;when=A.D.+1400-1600&amp;ft=hat&amp;offset=0&amp;rpp=50&amp;pos=1">Knit wool caps</a> are perfectly suitable for fending off freezing temperatures, but the wealthy women of the era instead opted for elaborate, <a href="http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw02075/Queen-Elizabeth-I">pearl-lined headdresses that trailed yards of gauzy veils</a>. </p>
<p>Their opulence ignores the various crises of the era. While countless peasants were displaced from their homes and died from starvation or rampant disease, the rich simply transitioned to sable-lined sleeves and mantels threaded with gold. </p>
<p>It’s dangerous to oversimplify historical narrative. But the parallels to our current situation are hard to ignore. Climate change is a looming threat, with deep social and political ramifications. </p>
<p>Yet for many, it remains a distant phenomenon, something that – beyond buying lighter, looser clothing – is easy to dismiss.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82104/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lane Eagles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While today we sweat, early modern Europeans froze. Furs to the rescue.Lane Eagles, Ph.D. Candidate in Art History, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/777602017-06-23T01:14:49Z2017-06-23T01:14:49ZForget the insight of a lone genius – innovation is an evolving process of trial and error<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175072/original/file-20170621-9586-18nagvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Out of all these ideas, will one rise to the top?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-idea-concept-crumpled-office-paper-538395124">KlingSup/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scientific discovery is popularly believed to result from the sheer genius of intellectual stars such as Darwin and Einstein. Their work is often thought to reflect their unique contributions with little or no regard to their own prior experience or to the efforts of their lesser-known predecessors. Conventional wisdom also places <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/science/louis-pasteur-chirality-chemistry.html">great weight on insight</a>, preconception and design in promoting breakthrough scientific achievements, as if ideas <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/opinion/sunday/eureka-yes-eureka.html">spontaneously pop into one’s head</a> – fully formed and functional.</p>
<p>There may be some limited truth to this view. However, as an experimental psychologist and a philosopher of science, we believe that it largely misrepresents the real nature of scientific discovery, as well as creativity and innovation in many other realms of human endeavor.</p>
<p>Setting aside the Darwins and Einsteins – whose <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1279086/">monumental contributions</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5673782/">are duly celebrated</a> – we suggest that innovation is more a process of trial and error, where two steps forward may sometimes come with one step back, as well as one or more steps to the right or left. Instead of revolution, think evolution. This evolutionary view of human innovation undermines the notion of creative genius and recognizes the cumulative nature of scientific progress.</p>
<h2>Wrong ideas on the path to right ones</h2>
<p>In a 2017 book, one of us (ERS) <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-tale-of-seven-scientists-and-a-new-philosophy-of-science-9780190232993">discusses seven little-known scientists</a> whose partly “wrong ideas” yielded major advances in the hands of others.</p>
<p>Consider one of those unheralded scientists: John Nicholson, a Cambridge University mathematical physicist working in the 1910s, when atomic theory was in an early stage of development. Nicholson postulated the existence of “proto-elements” in outer space. Using a fanciful atomic theory, Nicholson estimated the relative weights of his atoms of coronium, nebulium, proto-fluorine and so on. By combining different numbers of these alleged proto-atoms, Nicholson could recover the weights of all the elements in the then-known periodic table. On a dramatically larger scale, Nicholson could also account for astrophysical details in the Milky Way’s Orion Nebula.</p>
<p>These successes are all the more noteworthy given the fact that none of Nicholson’s proto-elements actually exist.</p>
<p>Yet, amid his often wild speculations, Nicholson also proposed that a defining aspect of atoms – what physicists call the angular momentum of their electrons – can have only certain discrete values, or quanta. Niels Bohr, the father of modern atomic theory, jumped off from this interesting idea to conceive his <a href="https://www.universetoday.com/46886/bohrs-atomic-model/">now-famous model of the atom</a>.</p>
<p>What are we to make of this history? One might simply conclude that science is a collective and cumulative enterprise. Ideas spread and some scientists are more adept than others at exploiting them. That may be true, but there may be a deeper insight to be gleaned.</p>
<h2>Orderly march or random stroll?</h2>
<p>We propose that science is constantly evolving, much as species of animals do. In biological systems, organisms may display new characteristics that result from random genetic mutations. In the same way, random mutations of ideas may help pave the way for advances in science. If mutations in either biology or science prove beneficial, then the animal or the scientific theory will continue to thrive and perhaps reproduce.</p>
<p>In this decidedly Darwinian scenario, there is no design, intelligent or otherwise. There is only random variation and selection, with biological or behavioral evolution unfolding in a trial-and-error fashion.</p>
<p>Support for this evolutionary view of behavioral innovation comes from many <a href="https://evolution-institute.org/article/what-we-make-and-do-can-evolve-with-no-end-in-sight/">diverse realms of human endeavor</a>, as one of us (EAW) has recently documented. Consider one striking example.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175073/original/file-20170621-14473-1gb1plt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175073/original/file-20170621-14473-1gb1plt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/175073/original/file-20170621-14473-1gb1plt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175073/original/file-20170621-14473-1gb1plt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175073/original/file-20170621-14473-1gb1plt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175073/original/file-20170621-14473-1gb1plt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175073/original/file-20170621-14473-1gb1plt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/175073/original/file-20170621-14473-1gb1plt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A serendipitous improvement can spread like wildfire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Breeders-Cup-Classic-Horse-Racing/b9c63b94d35e4dae86bddc9b45d86ba3/2/0">AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>A particularly influential innovation can be spotted at the thoroughbred racetrack. It requires viewing horse and jockey from either the front or rear: the jockey’s left stirrup is often placed as much as a foot lower than the right. This so-called <a href="http://racehorseherbal.com/wordpress/?p=217">“acey-deucey” stirrup placement</a> is believed to confer important advantages on oval tracks, where in the U.S., only left turns are encountered in counterclockwise races. Although science has yet to prove its efficacy, acey-deucey placement may permit the horse and rider to “lean” into the turn and provide the pair with greater strength by harnessing the centripetal force of a tight turn.</p>
<p>A relatively unknown jockey named Jackie Westrope developed acey-deucey, although it was popularized by a far more famous rider, Eddie Arcaro. Had Westrope conducted methodical investigations or examined extensive film records in a shrewd plan to outrun his rivals? Had he foreseen the speed advantage that would be conferred by riding acey-deucey? No. He suffered a leg injury which left him unable to fully bend his left knee. It was a gimpy left leg that led to Westrope’s off-kilter style – which just happened to coincide with enhanced left-hand turning performance. That’s serendipity.</p>
<p>What was not serendipitous was the rapid and widespread adoption of riding acey-deucey by many of Westrope’s competitors, a racing style which continues in today’s thoroughbred racing.</p>
<h2>Variation and selection, with no end in sight</h2>
<p>Plenty of other examples show that, in many realms of human endeavor, <a href="https://evolution-institute.org/article/what-we-make-and-do-can-evolve-with-no-end-in-sight/">fresh advances can arise from error, misadventure and serendipity</a>. Examples such as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2012/may/08/50-stunning-olympic-moments-dick-fosbury">Fosbury Flop</a>, <a href="http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/11/post-it-notes-were-invented-by-accident/">Post-It Notes</a> and the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/dr-heimlich-got-maneuver/">Heimlich Maneuver</a> all give lie to the claim that ingenious, designing minds are responsible for human creativity and invention. Far more mundane and mechanical forces may be at work; forces that are fundamentally connected to the laws of physics, chemistry and biology. </p>
<p>The notions of insight, creativity and genius are often invoked, but they remain <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sudden-genius/201011/can-we-define-genius">vague and of doubtful scientific utility</a>, especially when one considers the diverse and enduring contributions of individuals such as Plato, Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Picasso and Tolstoy; Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Curie, Pasteur and Edison. These notions merely label rather than explain the evolution of human innovations. We need another approach, and there is a promising candidate.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1901/jeab.2012.98-213">Law of Effect</a> was discovered by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-L-Thorndike">psychologist Edward Thorndike</a> 40 years after Charles Darwin published “The Origin of Species.” This simple law holds that organisms tend to <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/edward-thorndike.html">repeat successful behaviors and to refrain from performing unsuccessful ones</a>. Just like the Law of Natural Selection, upon which evolution depends, the Law of Effect involves an entirely mechanical process of variation and selection; further, it too blindly proceeds with no end in sight.</p>
<p>Of course, the origin of novel ideas and behaviors demands much further study. In particular, the provenance of the raw material on which the law of effect operates is not as clearly known as that of the genetic mutations on which the law of natural selection operates. The generation of novel ideas and behaviors may not be entirely random, but constrained by prior successes and failures – of the current individual (such as Bohr) or of predecessors (such as Nicholson).</p>
<p>The time seems right for jettisoning the jejune notions of <a href="http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/designing-minds/1">intelligent design</a> and genius, and for scientifically exploring the true origins of creative behavior.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77760/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We don’t know much about the origins of most human achievements – scientific and otherwise. Like evolution, does progress occur as random insights are selected for or against?Edward Wasserman, Professor of Experimental Psychology, University of IowaEric Scerri, Science Author & Chemistry Lecturer, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.