Archive for the "Science..Oh Yeah" Category

Brainport Vision Device

Watch as Erik Weihenmayer experiments with the Brainport Vision Device, a revolutionary new technology enabling a blind person to see with his tongue. Mounted on Weihenmayers head is a small video camera which translates visual information to a credit card-size tongue display. Four-hundred tiny pixels present electrical patterns on his tongue, which Weihenmayers brain then interprets as a visual picture in three-dimensional space. Watch as he uses the device to read words and numbers on note cards, to play tic-tac-toe and stone-paper-scissors with his daughter, and to rock climb. To learn more about Brainport, go to www.wicab.com.

Bonnie Bassler on how bacteria “talk”

Bonnie Bassler discovered that bacteria “talk” to each other, using a chemical language that lets them coordinate defense and mount attacks. The find has stunning implications for medicine, industry — and our understanding of ourselves. www.TED.com

Margaret Wertheim: The beautiful math of coral (and crochet)

Science writer Margaret Wertheim re-creates the creatures of the coral reefs using a technique invented by a mathematician — simultaneously celebrating the amazements of the reef, and deep-diving into the hyperbolic underpinnings of coral creation.  http://www.ted.com