As far as we know, every animal must rest at some point. We didn’t used to think so. Some animals, like the dolphin or bullfrog, simply have sleep habits that look an awful lot like not sleeping to the human eye.

But even those that don’t sleep at all still rest. Most insects enter into a state called torpor, which significantly reduces their awareness. Even bacteria have been shown to follow a circadian rhythm, cycling through different levels of activity based on changes in the light.

Sleep is still somewhat mysterious to us. We know that it is somehow linked to memory and we die when we miss enough of it. That covers a lot of what we know about our own sleep.

We know even less about what sleep does for each member of the animal kingdom. We do know that the need for sleep tends to exist in a delicate balancing act with the need to not become some other creature’s midnight snack. Sometimes, that means that animals develop bizarre sleep habits that we find hard to imagine copying.

10 Apes Sleep Like We Do

Every species of great ape sleeps in some kind of bed, whether those are the platforms that wild apes build in trees or the plush mattresses that humans nestle into in the comfort and safety of our own homes.

Lesser apes and monkeys don’t do this, opting instead to sleep sitting on a tree branch while they wobble and sway and occasionally waking up to check for predators. This difference is thought to have been instrumental in the evolution of great apes and, eventually, humans.

As great apes grew bigger, it became harder for them to find branches that could easily and comfortably support them. When the first great ape built a platform to sleep on sometime between 23 to 5 million years ago, the benefits of doing so became apparent.

Those who slept on platforms could shelter higher and were a bit more hidden from predators. At the same time, they were able to rest out of the range of mosquitoes. But the best advantage was that great apes could now get restorative deep sleep which helped enable the improved cognitive functions needed to grow bigger and better brains.^[1]

9 Elephants And Giraffes Sleep Standing Up

As large prey animals, elephants and giraffes are the opposite of great apes when it comes to sleep. They cannot hide away to rest and need to be ready to run at any moment. So they have naturally evolved to sleep standing up.^[2]

Sometimes referred to as a “stay apparatus,” these animals have a knee that locks in place so that they don’t have to rely on their muscles to stay standing in sleep. They share this mechanism with horses, cows, and even birds.

These animals still have to lie down sometimes, though. While standing, they cannot enter into REM sleep. Even though these two creatures require very little REM sleep, they still need it.

An elephant needs REM sleep about once every three to four days and only for about 30 minutes at a time. If they stay on the ground any longer than that, their internal organs may give out under the pressure of their immense weight.

A giraffe sleeps about 30 minutes a day. They tend to get this sleep in very short bursts, usually no longer than five minutes at a time.

8 Dolphins Sleep With One Eye Open

As well as other cetaceans, the dolphin is another creature that can’t exactly lie down to sleep. Most marine mammals have to be on the lookout for predators, but they also have to contend with the fact that they need to consciously breathe oxygen to live.

Unlike humans, dolphins breathe voluntarily and can’t become unconscious without the risk of drowning. Finally, dolphins are warm-blooded mammals living in the cool waters of the ocean. They need to keep moving to keep up their body temperature. When an animal has to keep moving, there’s only one logical thing to do: Just sleep one-half of the brain at a time. Easy.

Unihemispheric slow-wave sleep allows dolphins to get the sort of restorative sleep needed by intelligent animals, but it isn’t just for cetaceans. Many species of birds, especially migratory ones, also engage in unihemispheric sleep.

Unlike migratory birds, dolphins don’t tend to cover large distances while half asleep. Many dolphins manage to hang near the surface or swim slowly, but all generally close one eye to sleep. Probably because of this habit, some have been observed sleeping while swimming in circles.^[3]

7 Newborn Orcas Can’t Sleep

Orcas and other cetaceans don’t sleep for the first month after birth. Usually, adult orcas will sleep about 5–8 hours a day, but neither the mother nor her calf can sleep until 3–4 weeks after birth.

The mortality rate is extremely high for calves, so at least part of this is likely to keep predators away. Not many creatures are willing to contend with a mother orca defending her calf. However, there are a few more reasons that orca calves can’t sleep.^[4]

The calf doesn’t have the muscle strength to keep up with the pod, and it doesn’t have the necessary blubber to stay warm and afloat. To stay alive, the calf needs to stay in its mother’s slipstream where it will be pulled along without getting separated.

As the adult orca must keep moving to generate that slipstream, she can’t sleep, either. Researchers also believe that orca mothers forgo the unihemispheric sleep that cetaceans rely on, too, as none have been observed to swim with an eye closed.

6 Ducks Sleep All In A Row

Unlike orcas, ducks aren’t keen to miss any of their beauty sleep. There’s a reason that to “get one’s ducks in a row” means to have one’s affairs and priorities in order. It turns out that ducks are pretty smart when it comes to catching a few z’s. They can engage in unihemispheric sleep, but they do so using an interesting strategy that wards off any predator looking for a fatty duck dinner.^[5]

Ducks often sleep in a row where the ducks on either side sleep with the outward-facing eye open and one hemisphere of the brain alert. The ducks in the middle get to sleep both hemispheres while secure because of the lookout ducks, and the lookouts get to rest up a little at a time.

All the ducks benefit by getting some sleep without also getting eaten. We’re just hoping that they trade off for lookout duty sometimes.

5 Migratory Birds Power Nap

Scientists have theorized in the past that migratory birds sleep in midair because the only other explanation is that the birds simply do not sleep for weeks or months at a time. Recently, though, Niels Rattenborg from the Max Planck Institute and colleagues from other institutions have studied the sleep habits of frigatebirds. These creatures sleep about 12 hours a day when nesting on land but often spend weeks soaring over the ocean in search of food.

Their study found that the frigatebirds are indeed able to sleep in midair with one or both hemispheres of the brain and can enter into REM sleep without dropping. The birds can do this because they only sleep for a few minutes at a time and only for a few seconds when getting REM sleep. The birds also used their ability to sleep one hemisphere at a time to ensure that they didn’t knock into other birds while ascending and descending.^[6]

4 Reptiles Might Dream

Until recently, the general consensus was that only mammals and birds experienced REM sleep. This is the kind of sleep thought to consolidate memories and the sleep that many creatures risk death to achieve daily. Reptiles, amphibians, insects, and amoebae were excluded from the dreamers.

This was puzzling from an evolutionary standpoint as birds are far more closely related to reptiles than to us. But, with the evidence available at the time, scientists just had to shrug and assume that birds and mammals spontaneously evolved to dream around the same time.

New research from Gilles Laurent from the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, Germany, had surprising results that may force us to revise that assumption. When researchers hooked bearded dragons up to an electroencephalogram (EEG), they noticed some very familiar sleep cycles.

The dragons studied went through about 350 80-second cycles per night that seemed simple in comparison to the four or five 90-minute ones that humans experience. Scientists now theorize that mammals, birds, and reptiles share a common ancestor that developed cyclical sleep about 300 million years ago.^[7]

But what do reptiles dream about? Laurent said, “If I were an Australian dragon living in Frankfurt, I’d be dreaming of a warm day in the sun.”

3 Fish Aren’t Afraid Of The Dark

Emmanuel Mignot at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and his colleagues performed sleep studies using zebrafish with the hope that they would see whether the fish could suffer from insomnia or sleep deprivation. They found that the fish followed a simple circadian rhythm.

When lights are on, the fish don’t sleep at all. When they’re off, the creatures will nap if there is a sleep debt to pay up. For the fish, it’s far simpler than for mammals. Light triggers the release of a hormone that overrides the need for sleep until nighttime rolls around again. Lucky fish.

This isn’t the case for one particular species of fish, though. The eyeless Mexican cave fish experiences no circadian rhythm whatsoever. Damian Moran of the private company Plant and Food Research studied the eyeless Mexican tetra as well as its surface-dwelling counterpart by putting them both into fish treadmills where they could swim against a current constantly. The surface tetras used more energy under lights than in the dark, while the eyeless tetras didn’t change at all.

It makes sense that a creature that lives in total darkness and is eyeless doesn’t give a flying flip about light cycles, but the most interesting finding was what this meant for their energy use overall. Using less energy at night didn’t leave the surface tetras better off. Instead, they used 27 percent more energy than their eyeless cousins. This energy was spent revving up their metabolisms to expend more daytime energy and slowing it back down at night.^[8]

2 Parrotfish Sleep In A Bubble

Parrotfish are already gunning for a top spot on the world’s strangest animal list considering that they crunch on coral reef and change their color and sex fairly often. But this fish isn’t stopping when it comes to sleeping.

When the parrotfish settles in for a good night’s rest, it activates special glands in the gills to secrete a mucus bubble around itself. Scientists have long debated why the parrotfish does this, postulating that it may lower the chances of being eaten by eels or act as a kind of fishy sunscreen.

Alexandra Grutter from the University of Queensland is one scientist who thinks she knows why parrotfish sleep in a jelly cocoon. Fish who hang around the reef at night are vulnerable to tiny bloodsucking crustaceans called gnathiid isopods. During the day, cleaner fish nip these little ocean mosquitoes before they can latch on. At night, however, even cleaner fish have to sleep.

Grutter tested this theory by removing some sleeping parrotfish from their cocoons and leaving them vulnerable to gnathiids. The exposed fish were attacked mercilessly while the cocooned ones were largely ignored.^[9]

1 Walruses Snooze By The Skin Of Their Teeth

A walrus can forgo sleep for up to 84 hours at a time. While plenty of animals go without much sleep for a long time, only walruses do so regularly and without any notable signs of sleepiness. This finding may force sleep researchers to reevaluate ideas of how much sleep a mammal needs. On land, a walrus can sleep deeply for up to 19 hours at a time, possibly to make up for their sleep debt.^[10]

When not avoiding sleep like a college student cramming for finals, the walrus still acts much like a college kid by sleeping just about anywhere with no problem. When in water, walruses will sleep floating on the surface, lying at the bottom, or standing and leaning. These sleeps are short because a walrus needs to come up for air from time to time.

However, some enterprising walruses have figured out how to have the best of both worlds. They dig their massive tusks into an ice floe and drift off to sleep. Their head stays above water while the rest of their body is submerged, which must be super comfortable for an animal that’s never heard of brain freeze.

Renee Chandler is an Atlanta-based graphic designer and writer. She is currently coauthoring a project that you can preview and support at www.patreon.com/pterohog.

Scientists can be a strange bunch of people. Some scour for answers to some of the great mysteries of the universe, or work towards cutting-edge technological breakthroughs. Others give cannabis to traumatized elephants and fit cuttlefish with 3D glasses.

Scientists are responsible for all manner of bizarre, off-the-wall discoveries. In recent months, researchers have, for example, created iridescent chocolate, built an artificial sun and studied the effects of mixing Coke and Mentos on top of a mountain. Here are ten of the weirdest discoveries.

10 Psychological Experiments That Will Blow Your Mind

10 Levitating Boat Floats Upside Down

Scientists in France have achieved a remarkable feat of science, getting a toy boat to float upside down along a layer of liquid suspended in air. According to Emmanuel Fort, researchers at the Higher School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry in Paris were playing about with their equipment when they essentially stumbled upon this striking phenomenon. As he told reporters, “we had no idea it would work.”

Held in position by a delicate balance of forces and vibrations, the boat appears to defy gravity. This bizarre effect allows the toy to sail the wrong way round on the underside of a layered mix of glycerol and silicon oil.

At the time the team were investigating the effects of certain vibrations on the behavior of water. With the right frequencies bubbles can be made to float down, and heavy object can be stopped from sinking.^[1]

9 Iridescent Chocolate

Sparkling rainbow chocolate sounds like something out of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. But now, thanks to one Los Angeles-based physicist, iridescent chocolate has arrived. The shimmering confectionery has been cooked up, not by Oompa Loompas, but by Samy Kamkar. Kamkar achieves this dazzling effect not with any special ingredient or coating, but by perforating the surface of his chocolate with an array of tiny holes. These holes, known as a diffraction grating, scatter beams of light as they pass through, giving the chocolate its multi-colored appearance

Kamkar began by 3D printing a mushroom-shaped mold full of microscopic ridges and grooves. He then poured tempered chocolate into the mold and left it to set in a vacuum chamber. Although this sounds incredibly hi-tech, Kamkar explained that his iridescent treats can be whipped up by anyone. “Anyone can do this at home,” he told reporters back in May. “There’s no coating. There’s no special ingredient. It’s the surface texture of the chocolate itself that’s producing it.”^[2]

8 Mixing Coke And Mentos On Top Of A Mountain

 

As any young person can tell you, drop a few Mentos mints in a bottle of Coke and it creates one almighty fizz. But in 2020, a Spring Arbor University chemistry professor and a Colorado high school teacher decided to test the power of mints and fizzy drink at over 10,000 feet above sea level. In fact, the pair repeated their experiment at a number of remote locations, including California’s Death Valley and Pikes Peak in the Rocky Mountains.

Fizzy drinks like Coke are packed full of tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide. When you pick a bottle off the shelf, the gas is dissolved in the liquid under pressure. But as soon as you open the cap, the pressure changes and some of the CO2 escapes into the air with a little froth. Adding Mentos into the bottle allows a much larger quantity of gas to escape, hence the enormous plume of foam. Mentos shells are covered in microscopic ridges which trap incredibly small bubbles of air, so the carbon dioxide in the Coke has a much larger amount of air to shoot into.

By testing the Coke-Mentos experiment at different air pressures, the pair deduced that the holes in a Mentos mint must measure two to seven micrometers across. The two scientists were even able to publish a research paper in the Journal of Scientific Education.^[3]

7 Why We All Subconsciously Judge Ugly People

 

Like it or not, you judge people on the way they look. So do I. So do all of us, according to new research from psychologists at the University of Melbourne. Prejudice against people that we find aesthetically unpleasant is an inbuilt response that we use to protect ourselves from disease.

Although ugliness is subjective, there are certain traits that are widely considered to be repulsive, like bodily fluids and skin conditions. But, the researchers point out, these ugly traits are also potentially infectious. Disgust, they argue, is an impulsive defense set up by our behavioral immune system to keep us safe and healthy.

However this response is said to surpass logical thinking. In the majority of cases, unattractive people are no more contagious than attractive people, and yet we instinctively behave as if they are riddled with germs. Unconscious bias against those with less than flattering appearances is a widespread issue that can have a seriously impact on people’s lives. Science has shown that unattractive people are less employable, less successful and are more likely to be sentenced in court. Challenging our psychological prejudices is important, the researchers argue, and it begins with becoming aware of them.^[4]

6 Polish Zoo Relaxes Their Elephants With Cannabis

 

An elephant never forgets, but perhaps marijuana might help take the sting off unpleasant memories.

Warsaw Zoo found that their elephants were feeling agitated after Erna, the elder of the herd, sadly died back in March. In the months following Erna’s passing, three of the youngest elephants began displaying signs of stress and discomfort. So the zoo has decided to calm the animals with CBD, one of the main calming chemicals found in cannabis.

In August, staff at Warsaw Zoo announced that they would be giving the substance to Fredzia, the elephant most affected by Erna’s death. They announced that they were monitoring the effects by testing Fredzia’s feces and bodily fluids for cortisol, a hormone commonly linked to stress. Eventually they hope to move all three elephants onto CBD to help them process their grief.^[5]

10 Nonconsensual Experiments That Led To Medical Advancements

5 Mice With Milkshakes Help Scientists Understand Autism

 

Mice, milkshakes and autism. Three things that have more in common that you might imagine. In October, scientists at The Florey Institute in Australia unveiled a rodent-based experiment that they say has provided them with a new insight into neurodivergent behavior. Dr Emma Burrows and Shuting Li came up with the experiment by modifying a popular attention test known as the Posner task. The researchers tested a range of mice, some of which had been genetically modified to display autistic characteristics.

It is not easy to test the attention of a mouse. Many scientists have tried, but more often than not the mouse loses interest and starts fidgeting and moving about. To stop them from wandering off, Li placed each of her mice in a testing box and kept them in place with laser beams “like a diamond heist”. Then, on a screen, a stimulus would flash up, and the mice were rewarded with strawberry milkshake if they could prod it with their noses. Sometimes Burrows and Li would try to trick the mice into thinking the target was on the other side of the screen. As you would expect, the mice were a little slower whenever the researchers fooled them.

Feeding mice milkshake for poking their noses into a screen sounds rather quaint, but the researchers believe it could improve their understanding of neurodivergent behavior. What’s more, it offers fresh potential for further research into the effects of drugs and genetics on autism and similar conditions.^[6]

4 Two Chatbots On A First Date

 

Dating can be difficult at the best of times, but a first date is especially hard when you and your date are both digital chatbots. In 2020 two AI-powered avatars – Kuki, a blue-haired Leeds United fan, and Blenderbot a Facebook-loving coin collector – were sent on a two-week long date together to see if they could mimic actual human conversation.

For two strangers, Kuki and Blenderbot discussed a wide range of topics, including hobbies, religion, sport, politics, and whether the royal family are actually a group of shape-shifting reptile aliens. Blenderbot, it seems, may have picked up a few odd ideas from some of the darker recesses of social media. At one point he told his date that he had “killed many people”, and described Hitler as a “great man” and an inspiration. If you ask me, Kuki could do a lot better.^[7]

3 South Korea’s Record-Breaking Artificial Sun

 

In December 2020, scientists at KSTAR unveiled a new world record for a high-temperature ‘artificial Sun’. The team’s replica star reached an eye-watering 100 million degrees Celsius and maintained that heat for twenty seconds – doubling the previous record.

KSTAR – short for the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research – deploys magnetic fields to create a strange form of matter known as plasma. The plasma is then heated up to immense temperatures comparable to the Sun. Researchers hope that one day this method can be used to generate power via nuclear fusion. “The technologies required for long operations of 100 million-degree plasma are the key to the realization of fusion energy,” explained Si-Woo Yoon, a nuclear physicist at KSTAR. However there is much work to be done before they can realizes their goal of achieving fusion power. By 2025, staff at KSTAR hope to be able to maintain 100 million degrees for as long as five minutes.^[8]

2 Human Gene For Monkey Mind Expansion

 

Scientists have found a way to increase the size of a monkey’s brain using a gene found in humans. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics introduced the gene to 101-day-old marmoset fetuses. The gene, known as ARHGAP11B, has been shown to stimulate the growth of stem cells in the brain. Scientists reckon that it had an instrumental role in the history of human evolution.

The marmosets soon responded to the foreign gene. Researchers saw a marked enlargement in the neocortex region of the brain – the area responsible for reasoning and language. Similar experiments have been conducted before with mice and ferrets, but this is the first study to introduce the gene to non-human primates.^[9]

1 Cuttlefish Given 3D Glasses For Sight Experiment

 

At the start of the year, researchers decided to put a pair of 3D glasses on a cuttlefish to study how they attack their prey. Scientists at the University of Minnesota showed the underwater mollusks footage of tasty-looking shrimp to better understand how they judge distance before deciding to attack.

The most difficult task, the researchers admitted, was getting the cuttlefish to accept the glasses. The team were worried that the animals would either tear them off or spray their tanks with ink. So they had to devise a special method, which involved gentle handling, distraction, and bribery with a large amount of shrimp. As Dr Trevor Wardill explained to the press, “you’ve got to get in the mind of the cuttlefish and make them happy.”

Even by the standards of marine life, which is overwhelmingly odd, cuttlefish have some very strange eyes. The wavy-looking slits can actually move independently, giving the mollusks a 360-degree field of vision. But the scientists wanted to test their perception of depth. Some animals, like humans and praying mantises, are able to calculate distance by calculating slight differences between what each eye sees, using a technique called stereopsis. After their absurd experiment, the scientists concluded that cuttlefish also triangulate distance using stereopsis.^[10]

Top 10 Outlandish Science Experiments Performed On Animals

We are living in the age of robotics. The world today is dominated by machinery and technology. There are many who say we should fear the rise of the robots, that they are destined to steal our jobs or even use their weapons against us. But not all robots are threatening and evil. Some of them are just plain weird.

Across the world, scientists are at work developing all kinds of mind-boggling machinery and bizarre AI. In the last few years alone, roboticists have unveiled a sassy android, a shape-shifting submarine, and a device that allows fish and bees to speak to each other. From cuddle machines to worm-powered Lego, here are ten of the weirdest robots ever built.

10 Futuristic Things AI And Robots Are Already Doing

10 Irony Man, The Sassy Robot

Fans of Douglas Adams will no doubt be familiar with Marvin The Paranoid Android, the depressed if slightly conceited robot from The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. But, instead of a paranoid android, how about a sassy one? A robot that rolls its eyes from time to time and fires off acerbic comments.

Well, scientists from Ausburg University have created just that, after programming one of their latest robots with a sense of irony. The fittingly-named Irony Man is designed to be less formal and more relatable than a typical AI. Unlike most talking machines, which speak in flat monotonous voices, Irony Man is able to reflect real patterns of human speech. So if someone were to say that “Traffic is frustrating,” Irony Man would retort “I love being stuck here” with a sarcastic emphasis on the word “love”.

But why would anyone want to make a smart-mouthed robot? Irony Man’s creators thought that he would be easier to get along with if he was programmed to speak like a real person. And it seems as if they were right. Students who took part in a trial with Irony Man found him to be more endearing than a standard machine. However there are still concerns over his lack of tact. Irony Man can use sarcasm but is unable to judge if it is appropriate, so he sometimes comes across as a little obnoxious.^[1]

9 Skybot F-850, Russia’s Robot Astronaut

Skybot F-850 is an android astronaut, a fully-automated machine designed by the Russian space agency for life on board the International Space Station (ISS).

Engineers spent five years developing and preparing Skybot for the challenge of going into space. The six foot android is built from sturdy materials to survive the blast into zero-gravity, and is specially programmed to stop it from inadvertently damaging the space centre.

In summer 2019, the mechanized cosmonaut spent two weeks working on board the ISS as a “social companion” to the human crew. During its time in orbit, Skybot was able to converse with its fellow astronauts, answering their queries and keeping them amused with the odd joke. The android was even able to fly itself to the space station, taking command of a Soyuz spacecraft and monitoring its conditions as they entered zero-gravity.

As Alexander Bloshenko, executive director of the Russian space agency, told reporters: “Future generations of such robots will solve tasks that are potentially of special risk for humans, such as extravehicular activities and telemetry operations on solar system bodies.”^[2]

8 Lovot, The Cuddly Robot Who Helps Combat Loneliness

In our modern age, when everyone seems to be moving at a hundred miles a second, loneliness can be a major issue. For those who struggle with companionship, Japanese startup Groove X has designed Lovot – a little furry robot who comforts people in need of a friend.

Lovot is an affable machine, a pint-sized pal that quickly warms to its owner. For those in need of a good hug, its fleecy “skin” is designed to be warm and easy to cuddle, and the robot is always happy for some close personal contact. Over time, Lovot’s emotional bond is said to grow stronger as it starts to learn its owner’s face and comes to meet them when they get back home.

Whether it is healthy to try and cure loneliness with artificial friendship instead of human connection is an interesting question. But, whatever your opinion, Lovot has been selling in Japan for over a year now. And developers say that, with future investment, it might soon be on its way to the US as well.^[3]

7 Robot Translator For Fish And Bees

In 2019, scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne built a machine that allows fish and bees to talk to each other. The researchers created a robot translator that can send messages back and forth between a group of zebrafish and a swarm of honeybees. To really challenge themselves, the scientists decided to conduct their experiment from different countries. The fish were at one location Switzerland. The bees were miles away in neighboring Austria.

The robot translator issued commands to each species then translated their responses into signals for the other group. So the fish might be shown a color or tail movement, which influenced the direction of their swimming. This would then be translated into a vibration or a change in temperature, which caused the bees to move to a different area. The bees’ motion would then be translated into a signal for the fish, and so and so forth. To start with the experiment was absolute bedlam, but after 25 minutes of confusion the animals began to respond to their robotic stimuli.

Although this might sound like an absurd experiment, communicating with animals has many real world applications, like stopping birds from flying over airports or warning bees about pesticides on plants.^[4]

6 Lego Robot With The Brain Of A Worm

Imagine mapping out the entire human brain, taking all of the pulses and electrical signals, and then uploading them into a machine. You could become immortal, in theory, living forever as a digital being. If that sounds like an ethical quagmire then you will be pleased to hear that scientists are a long way from achieving anything that sophisticated. But they have managed to pull off a similar feat using a tiny worm and some Lego.

In 2014, neuro-robotic researchers mapped out the brain of a small ringworm, all 302 neurons, and turned it into a digital simulation. Simulating an entire brain is remarkable in itself, but the scientists decided to feed their virtual brain into a Lego robot. The Lego bot was hardly sophisticated; it had a sound sensor for a nose and two motors to act as its motor cortex. But, with a little tweaking, the virtual worm brain was able to control the robot, driving it around a test station and stopping it from bashing into the walls.

Eventually the researchers hope to be able to simulate not just the brain but an entire worm, building the world’s first digital life form.^[5]

Top 10 Creepy Robots With Good Intentions

5 China’s Robot Traffic Police

In 2019, China began using robots to keep control of its roads. The Handan Public Security Bureau now employs three styles of robot that help their existing officers maintain order. The three robots are similar in design, but they each carry out very different functions.

One type, the road patrol robot, seeks out and documents any criminal behavior on the roads. Its designers have even given it a uniform and hat to look more like a human officer. Another, the accident warning robot, informs nearby drivers that the police are dealing with an incident. The third type is the advice traffic robot, which helps direct drivers at vehicle management stations, whilst also keeping an eye out for security risks.

People in China are no strangers to robot police officers. In 2016, authorities started to use a security robot in Shenzhen Airport, and in 2017 an E-Patrol Sheriff was introduced in Henan.^[6]

4 Julia, The Robot Who Taught Herself To Cook

Leaning to cook is a difficult task. To train as a professional chef takes years of study at culinary school and a huge dedication to learning the craft. But what if there were an easier way? What if, instead of spending years training, you could ask a robot to teach itself to cook and then have it make a meal for you?

Researchers at the University of Maryland are working on exactly that. Unlike most machines, their robot – called Julia – has no need for step by step instructions. Instead she has taught herself to cook by watching videos on YouTube and copying what she sees.

Right now Julia is nowhere near Michelin star level. Her culinary skills are limited to a few basic activities. But even that is an achievement. Tasks that might seem simple for you or me, like pouring a glass of water, are actually quite challenging for a robot.^[7]

3 Robot Fish Powered By Synthetic Blood

It sounds like something out of cheesy sci-fi horror movie: a robotic fish that runs on the power of blood. But in reality a mechanized fish is no villain. In fact it could turn out to be the future of energy-efficient robotics.

Energy storage is one of the main limitations in robotic design. Most devices either run out of power very quickly or lug around heavy batteries which slow them down. In contrast, the robot fish runs on a hydraulic fluid – similar to blood inside a real fish – and receives enough power to swim upstream for 36 hours. Speed, however, is not the robot’s strong point. It trudges along at a mere 1.5 body lengths per minute.

Nonetheless, the robotic fish is a remarkable feat of engineering. As Professor Rob Shepherd, one of the key developers at Cornell University, told journalists: “We want to take as many components in a robot and turn them into the energy system. If you have hydraulic liquids in your robot already, then you can tap into large stores of energy and give robots increased freedom to operate autonomously.”^[8]

2 Rwanda’s Healthcare Robots Fighting Coronavirus

In the Rwandan capital Kigali, robots are leading the fight against coronavirus. The use of mechanized practitioners at treatment centers in Gatenga and Kanyinya means staff spend less time around covid-positive patients, and are therefore less likely to contract the disease themselves.

The mass breakout of coronavirus has forced healthcare experts everywhere to think outside the box for ways to tackle the pandemic. Designed by Zorabots, the five robots are able to keep track of patients’ vital signs, convey video messages and correct people for not wearing their masks properly. One of the androids is currently stationed at Kigali International Airport screening up to 150 people a minute.^[9]

1 Aquanaut, The Shape-Shifting Submarine

The Transformers were one of the most popular franchises of the 1980s, and one of the most terrible film series of the 2000s. Transformers, for anyone who is not aware, are autonomous robots that can transform themselves into motor vehicles. These shape-shifting wonders captured the imaginations of children over the decades, but they always seemed like a remarkable work of fiction, something that could never be created for real. Until recently, that is.

Now scientists at Houston Mechatronics Inc. have developed a real-life Transformer – a semi-humanoid robot that can convert itself into a submarine. They named it Aquanaut. The creators wanted to build a machine that combined the freedom of a long-distance underwater vehicle with the precision of a remotely-operated bot.

Built on a $23 million budget, Aquanaut is mainly designed for use on deep sea oil and gas pipelines. The robot begins its descent in streamlined “submarine mode”, diving steadily through the water until it finds its target. After that, it begins its transformation. The top of the hull lifts up, and a head and two long arms are unfurled for work on the pipeline. As well as its metamorphic abilities, Aquanaut is carrying a range of sophisticated equipment. Its head has been fitted with a 3D sensor, stereo cameras, and a sonar system.^[10]

10 Interesting Facts About The Rise Of Sex Robots

Most people will die under pretty mundane circumstances. But throughout history, there have been several unlucky individuals whose deaths can be described as more than simply noteworthy. While many have died heroic deaths over the centuries, this list is dedicated to those who died in amusing, ironic, and sometimes simply stupid ways.

Related: 10 Unfortunate Deaths Caused By Food

10 Matthew Webb

Professional swimmer Webb rose to fame by being the first man to swim the English Channel in 1875. After competing in several races and exhibitions in both the UK and USA, in 1882, Webb announced that he intended to swim across the rapids at the base of Niagara Falls.

Those who referred to the challenge as suicidal turned out not to be wrong. On July 24, 1883, wearing the same red trunks he wore when he completed the Channel swim, he jumped out of the side of a small ferryboat that he had rowed to mid-stream. Sadly, shortly after this, he was sucked into a whirlpool, and four days later, his body was found. His autopsy concluded that the large weight of the water temporarily paralyzed him, stopping him from breathing or using his limbs. Despite becoming a national icon for his achievements in swimming, his legacy stands in biting off more than he could chew with his final, near-impossible feat.^[1]

9 Pausanias

No one screams brutality more than the Spartans. But their logic and strategies may be something to question. While best known for their attempt to defeat the Persians in the Battle of Thermopylae with a notoriously small number of soldiers, one Spartan general puts even this flawed thought process to shame.

Pausanias, who became the regent general after the death of his uncle King Leonidas in the above-mentioned battle, gained a reputation of being a tyrant and was quickly charged with conspiring with Persia against the Greeks. Despite twice being found innocent of treason, as rumors spread, eventually, it got to the point where Spartan authorities sent forces to arrest him. Pausanias thought that he could outsmart rather than outrun them. He fled to a temple of Athena, thinking that they wouldn’t attack him in a place so sacred. In that respect, he was right. Instead of entering the temple, the Spartans simply sealed up the entrance with Pausanias inside. According to legend, he was only removed once he was on the verge of death, having been starved. He died as soon as he was released.^[2]

8 Gruffydd ap Llywelyn

Gruffydd ap Llywelyn didn’t exactly get dealt the best cards in life. Born the bastard child of Llywelyn the Great and his mistress, Gruffydd should have been entitled to anything any legitimate son would according to Welsh law. Unfortunately, because his father wanted to form an alliance with the English, Llywelyn agreed that when he married the King’s daughter that Gruffydd would be disinherited in favor of any of their future sons. Gruffydd was then put into the custody of King John.

This was only the first of three imprisonments Gruffydd had to endure. In 1223, years after being released from the English, Llywelyn feared that Gruffydd would dispute the inheritance of his first “legitimate” son Dafydd. Consequently, Gruffydd was held captive until 1234. His third and final capture was by Dafydd himself, who simply didn’t trust his brother and imprisoned both him and his son. It’s fair to say that by this point, Gruffydd was fed up. On Saint David’s Day in 1244, Gruffydd attempted to escape. Apparently, he did this by making a rope of sheets and attempting to climb down from his tower prison. Unsurprisingly, the rope broke, and he fell to his death.^[3]

7 Draco

Draco is possibly the most notorious Greek lawmaker and ruler. Famous for his strict laws and brutal punishments, most crimes resulted in punishment by death. Although he was a ruthless leader, Draco was seemingly very popular. After his reign, though, he was exiled from Athens by its citizens. He spent the remainder of his life on the island of Aegina.

Despite being responsible for countless executions, his own death was rather comedic. According to several Greek historians, Draco died around 600 BC in the Aeginetan theatre. He supposedly took a standing ovation at the end of a speech. In a display of approval, the audience threw hats and other clothing at him—an odd but somewhat common occurrence in Ancient Greece. So many cloaks and hats were thrown over him that he ended up suffocating to death.^[4]

6 Arthur Aston

Sir Arthur Aston was a Royalist general during the British Civil War. Shortly after becoming Governor of Oxford, on September 19, 1644, Aston was thrown from his horse and broke his leg. He developed gangrene and required amputation. The whole procedure was a success, and he continued on with a wooden prosthesis.

After the execution of King Charles I in 1649, Aston was left defending either Drogheda or Tredagh with 3,000 men against Cromwell’s army. This ultimately failed, and only about 30 people escaped. In a twisted state of cruel irony, Aston was beaten to death with his own wooden leg.^[5]

5 Heraclitus

The death of Greek philosopher Heraclitus is without a doubt the most disgusting on the list. A famous and inspiring ancient philosopher, he influenced the likes of Plato and Aristotle. According to Diogenes Laertius, Heraclitus died in 745 BC, and the circumstances were nothing short of unusual.

Heraclitus developed dropsy, a condition that causes swelling due to fluid retention. He believed that if he stayed somewhere hot, the excess water would evaporate. Consequently, he buried himself in cow dung, but (shockingly!) this did not work. According to Laertius, Heraclitus was “unable to tear off the dung” and subsequently died.^[6]

4 Clement Vallandigham

If ever there was a case that screamed irony, it’s the death of Clement Vallandigham. In Ohio in 1871, the lawyer was defending Thomas McGehan for the murder of Thomas Myers. A barroom brawl broke out the previous Christmas Eve, where it was known that Meyers and McGehan had a known disliking for each other.

The night following the prosecution’s argument, the lawyer conducted his own experiment with a pistol to establish the quantity of residue left by a gunshot at point-blank range. He was also given Myer’s gun as evidence, ready for examination. Vallandigham argued that, in the rush of the brawl, Myers had accidentally shot himself. During his demonstration—which happened in his hotel room in front of a witness—Vallandigham put a pistol in his pocket as Myers had, turned it toward himself, and pulled the trigger. What he hadn’t realized was that instead of using Myers’s unloaded gun, he had actually grabbed his own pistol, which still had bullets in it. Vallandigham accidentally shot and killed himself while trying to demonstrate that Myers had accidentally shot and killed himself.^[7]

3 Sigurd the Mighty

There’s still plenty of questions surrounding Vikings among historians, but the reputation they have left among the general public is that of legendary groups of strong, brutal warriors constantly heading into battle. The death of Sigurd the Mighty could only ever happen to a Viking.

Sigurd was Earl of Orkney and, having formed an alliance with Thorstein the Red, began conquering parts of Scotland. This was the likely cause of a feud he had with a local magnate in Moray named Maelbrigte. After a battle between the two and their men, Maelbrigte was killed, and Sigurd attached the head of his enemy to his saddle. This gruesome symbol of victory was the demise of Sigurd, as he scratched his leg on the teeth of the corpse’s head as he rode his horse north. Rather anticlimactically, Sigurd the Mighty died of an infection caused by that scratch.^[8]

2 Bobby Leach

Yet another man vs. Niagara Falls story. Bobby Leach was already an established stuntman when he decided to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel in 1911. He planned to be the second person and first man to do so—and at the age of 53. The first, of course, was Annie Edson Taylor in 1901, who afterward discouraged anyone else from attempting it.

Surprisingly, “Old Bobby” was successful! He did come out of it with a broken jaw and two broken kneecaps but told reporters that he was happy he’d achieved “the greatest ambition of his life.”’ With a life devoted to stunts and attempting a series of life-threatening performances, you may wonder what crazy story surrounded Leach’s death? In 1926 while in New Zealand, he slipped on an orange peel, and his broken leg developed gangrene. He passed away only a couple of days later. Not quite the wild ending to a rollercoaster life you expected.^[9]

1 Franz Reichelt

Like most of those mentioned on this list, Reichelt had plenty of confidence in himself. An inventor and tailor, Reichelt created the parachute suit.

In February 1912, Reichelt tested the parachute suit by jumping off the Eiffel Tower. While authorities agreed for the suit to be tested using a mannequin, Reichelt decided to test his invention himself. Despite having police officers surrounding him, no one attempted to stop him. There was a cameraman on the first floor where Reichelt started and another on the ground with others who came to see the event. The suit was a complete failure. It didn’t slow the fall down, let alone allow him to fly, and there was nothing that could prevent his death at this point.^[10]

Ever think you’re going through a crisis, only to find the issue dramatically overstated? Perhaps your kid is bleeding profusely but it turns out to be a small paper cut, or maybe you’re running late and your car won’t start (until it does).

Well, 911 gets a lot of close calls like that, only theirs are actual emergencies…until they get there. Here is a list of some of the more absurd emergency call misunderstandings and miscommunications.

Two ambulances and the cops are dispatched to a miniature train accident.

Usually when someone describes something as a train wreck, it’s not a good thing. Even at your most optimistic, you are sure to imagine nothing short of carnage. So what if you thought there was an actual train wreck?

The 999 dispatch in Essex, UK received a call reporting a “military train accident,” and sent two ambulance crews and a police car to the reported accident site. They would have brought the big guns, but bad weather didn’t permit the airlift.

They arrived on the scene to find a surprised miniature train convention, who had requested an ambulance for three people hurt by a miniature train. A dispatcher misheard, and the result was overkill. Also overkill: dialling emergency dispatch for a miniature train accident.

Woman calls 911 over a stuffed mountain lion

Generally, having a mountain lion in the area is cause for local authorities to be on their toes a little bit. You want the neighborhood to be safe, and cougars aren’t a great thing to have around. 

Beverly Bradham had heard recent reports of a wild bobcat or some such terrifying creature snatching up local cats in the area, and as the internet will tell you, that’s a bad thing. So when she walked out onto her deck one morning and saw a sleeping mountain lion, she naturally freaked and called 911. “I’m waiting for it to move,” Beverly said in the emergency call. “Surely there’s no way that it’s something fake that somebody left up there.”

Authorities came out and after a brief investigation (which presumably involved poking the cat with a stick) discovered the animal was, in fact, something fake that somebody left up there.

Kid at a movie premiere causes mall mayhem

A lot of people like to dress funny nowadays. We see people with giant ear gauges and absurd hair and people who choose to wear next to no clothes at all. And those high-schoolers? Man, they dress scary.

Brandon Jurasin is a New Jersey high school student who was walking around a mall, and wearing some scary-looking clothing. Like, gas mask and armor scary. Scary enough that a woman called the police on him, who searched the mall for the boy matching the description.

Police were prepared for the worst, because a gas mask in a crowded mall would usually be bad news. When police found him, he was dressed as Bane for The Dark Knight Rises movie premiere. Police asked Brandon to change clothes, and he was happy to comply. At least until that cranky woman left the mall, we’re sure.

Man calls 911 when a stuffed buffalo falls on him

Vicious animal attacks are the stuff of nightmares – though probably not often involving water buffalo. But once an animal is dead, you pretty much expect it never to bother you again. 

At least, that’s what Florida resident Jim Harris thought. He was sitting in his recliner one day enjoying a glass of milk and watching the news, when all of a sudden he was pinned to his chair by a water buffalo. Or more specifically, the 200 pound stuffed head of a water buffalo. Harris was unable to get up, but managed to grab his cell phone and yell obscenities at the 911 operator. ”I think a f**king buffalo fell on me,” he told them.

After being “rescued,” he immediately removed all dead stuffed animals from his house. Harris doesn’t quite agree with the phrase “karma’s a bitch.” He knows for a fact that karma is a buffalo. “I didn’t even shoot him,” he told reporters.

The bomb – that was actually a box of kittens

We’ve all had that little fantasy where some man in a trenchcoat hands you an unmarked package, and all of a sudden you know exactly what to do, because inside that package are the keys to your new spymobile and… never mind. Unmarked packages are usually cause for concern in the real world.

A Social Security office in Florida called 911 in to report a suspicious unmarked package. A bomb squad was immediately dispatched to the scene, ready with emergency detonation equipment and everything. However, upon closer examination, the bomb squad determined that it was about to explode with cuteness. Instead of beeping or ticking, they heard a calm mewing sound, and found that it was a box containing two kittens. One ran away (suspiciously) and the other was taken to an animal shelter, where it was put up for adoption.

Pigs sprawling over the highway causes numerous 911 calls

Everyone hates traffic. They hate it. There’s nothing worse than an unnecessary stoppage. And a lot of times, that stoppage comes from people just slowing down to gawk at whatever scene a police car happens to be attending. Those pigs ruin everything, don’t they?

One morning during rush hour, a number of people starting calling 911 to complain about some pigs. Pigs everywhere. They’d been falling out of the back of a truck and had started wandering around the highway during already bad traffic. It ended up taking police over an hour to round up all the pigs (good thing they weren’t greased), who were pretty much unharmed. They were kept at an animal shelter to be held until claimed or auctioned off.

The police have to help a family lost in a corn-field – 25 feet from the exit

Autumn is such a lovely time of year, and during the daytime, we see the beauty of seasons changing and can embrace it for all it’s worth. But it’s often the dark and mysterious part of fall, Halloween and the like, that give us the most memorable autumn stories.

One day, a woman with her husband and 3 week old child decided to go to a corn maze. Stop and let that sink in for a minute. This woman gave birth less than a month ago, and she’s already taking this child out in the cold where you can almost certainly get lost. What happened? They got lost. The woman called 911 and police were dispatched to them while her husband’s eyes probably rolled all the way back in his head.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for police to escort the family to safety. When found, they were less than 25 feet away from the exit.

A SWAT team responds wrongly to a hoax call

Crime dramas are fun to watch because we get to see teams of elite trained specialists going in, breaking down doors, and kicking some ass. The bad guy gets pinned, the innocent victims are safe, and all is good. They’d never get an assignment like that wrong would they?

Stephanie Milan was sitting at home watching TV one day, when all of a sudden a stun grenade went off. The front door burst open, and a SWAT team went in prepared for a total showdown. They’d received anonymous bomb threats against the city of Evansville, Indiana (a city totally worth blowing up), and traced it back to the Milan residence through an IP address. Except they got the wrong house. Stephanie Milan had nothing to do with what turned out to be hoax emergency calls, serving as a valuable lesson to us all about the dangers of unsecured Wi-Fi.

Vibrator in a box causes bomb scare

No, this isn’t another little package of kittens, and sorry to disappoint, but it didn’t involve a model bursting out of a package either.

A post office in Russia called in anti-terrorism experts when they noticed a package emitting a strange buzzing noise. Because again, suspicious packages are a very bad thing. Especially if they’re making noises. In what was probably the most exciting thing to happen to this little post office ever, a bomb squad was dispatched, the building was evacuated, and the area was put on moderate lockdown. Still super scary and exciting for those post office workers, right? 

The buzzing, as you have no doubt guessed, was actually a vibrator accidentally turned on in the mail. Insert joke about it being an anticlimax here.

Clown gets his crotch stuck in a vacuum – permanently

If you’re a male and you just read the title of this entry, don’t worry, every other male on the planet would make the same face you just made upon reading something like that.

A dwarf circus performer fell victim to a circus act gone bad and had to have an ambulance called. When the circus comes to town, the hospitals in the area are immediately on red alert; it just comes with the territory. But there probably wasn’t a ton of preparation for this type of, uh… accident.

Part of his act involved a vacuum sticking to his crotch region (this is why people go to the circus, right?), but the attachment used for the illusion broke before the performance. He hastily superglued it together backstage, but due to a tragic glue miscalculation the attachment was more permanent than intended, resulting in hospitalization. It’s totally understandable if you’re not laughing right now.

Gabriel is a Workshop Moderator over at Cracked.com, and his work there can be found here. He also does internet radio here

Inventors have shaped the world as we know it. Without the innovation for people to come up with new products and devices, our lives would be almost unrecognizable.

Over the years, scientists have dreamt up all manner of strange and intriguing ideas. They might look farcical on the surface, but many of those barmy creations are handier than you might imagine. From record-breaking ultra-white paint to sperm-based bioplastic, this list contains ten surprising inventions that are more useful than they might seem at first glance.

Related: 10 Strange Discoveries And Inventions Involving Insects

10 Airbags for Smartphones

Smartphones can be delicate things. One nasty slip, bump, or fall to the floor and the screen could become a dense web of cracks and scratches. But in July 2018, a 25-year-old German student unveiled an invention that he claimed would make broken screens a thing of the past.

Philip Frenzel from Aalen University described his device as a “mobile airbag,” but it’s much more sophisticated than that. It uses a technique known as active dampening to cushion smartphones as they plummet to the ground. Frenzel’s invented a phone case with eight curved feet attached, two at each corner. The feet are clipped into the case for normal use, but they spring into action if the phone is dropped to reduce the impact with the floor. One of the main differences between Frenzel’s case and car airbags is that airbags can only be used once, whereas the crash-protecting feet can be used again and again. Ideal for the butterfingered smartphone user.

Although there are still a few flaws that need ironing out, Frenzel won an award from the German Society of Mechatronics for his outstanding work.^[1]

9 Reversible Superglue

Reversible superglue is far more useful than you might imagine. Typically, strong glues like superglue are impossible to peel off once they have been stuck down. Reversible glues, on the other hand, are often weak and watery. So there is definitely a gap in the market for a strong glue that is not permanent.

But how do you create a substance like that? Well, a team of researchers found inspiration in an unlikely place: snail mucus. Yes, as strange as it sounds, scientists have created glue that behaves like snail epiphragm. Epiphragm is the stuff that allows snails to stick to difficult surfaces like rocks. The temporary membrane is made from dried mucus, and the key to its reversible adhesion is its ability to lock in moisture.

The scientists’ glue works in a similar way. When the substance is hydrated, it is soft and adapts easily to the contours of the target surface. But as it dries, it locks into place like superglue. The innovative adhesive is supposedly strong enough to hold the weight of a person. During testing, the developers found that two postage stamp-sized squares could hold up an 87-kg (192-pound) volunteer.^[2]

8 Device That Talks to Venus Fly Traps

Talking to Venus fly traps might sound like something out of Little Shop of Horrors, but what was once far-flung fiction may soon be a reality. Scientists in Singapore have created a device that allows them to communicate with plants.

The team, who all work at Nanyang Technological University, fitted a Venus fly trap with a tiny electrode communicator. The device picks up electrical signals released by the plant and replies with its pulses. Obviously, this is the first step, and plants don’t have consciousness. But the researchers hope that this technology could be used to detect early signs of health issues.

“Climate change is threatening food security around the world,” explained Chen Xiaodong. “By monitoring the plants’ electrical signals, we may be able to detect possible distress signals and abnormalities.”^[3]

7 The Whitest Paint in the World

In September 2021, a team of scientists was awarded a Guinness World Record for inventing the world’s whitest paint. The unparalleled chalky hue is made using barium sulfate, which is also used in the production of paper and cosmetics. Experts have described it as the opposite of Vantablack—a super-black paint that absorbs 99.9% of light.

The paint, first unveiled in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, reflects 98.1% of solar radiation. This means anything painted that color will absorb significantly less heat than its surroundings. Using it to paint the 93-square-meter (1,000-square-foot) roof of a building would cool that building by 10 kilowatts, say the scientists. That beats the air conditioning of most homes.

Professor Xiulin Ruan explained how the paint could be used to help tackle global warming. “Conventional air conditioners consume power that is often from burning fossil fuel. Meanwhile, while they move the heat from the inside of a house to the outside, they turn the electricity into heat and leave even more heat to the ambient air and the earth, further causing a heat island effect and warming up the planet.

“In contrast, our paint does not consume any power and directly sends off all the heat to the deep space, hence helping cooling down the Earth. According to a previous model, painting 0.5-1% of the Earth’s surface (roofs, roads, cars, unused land, etc.) with our paint will stop the warming trend.”^[4]

6 Body Odor Detector

A company in Japan has invented a device that detects body odor, warning its users when they need deodorant. Tanita’s ES-100, first revealed in 2018, works like an alcohol breathalyzer. But instead of booze, it detects the chemicals that create nasty smells around the armpits and other notoriously sweaty areas of the body.

The Japanese gadget contains a fold-out arm that the user places near their potentially smelly body part. After around ten seconds, the ES-100 responds with a score between one and ten. The higher the score, the more unpleasant the smell.^[5]

5 Self-Healing Plastic

In 2021, researchers unveiled a plastic that can repair itself in seconds, even underwater. RUSSE, Rapid Underwater Self-healing Stiff Elastomer, can patch itself up even under the battering of harsh water conditions and will retain its strength.

The groundbreaking material is made from a soft polymer sometimes used in paints. Tests have shown that RUSSE can withstand stretching, large weights, and heavy blows from a hammer. When the team slashed the plastic in half and pressed the ends together, it took ten seconds to heal. In less than five minutes, RUSSE had almost completely returned to its original state.

There have been other self-healing polymers before RUSSE, but almost none of them function underwater. Scientists believe that the plastic could be used in an underwater crisis, such as the tubes breaking on a diver’s air tank.^[6]

4 Salt-Sized Camera

Scientists from Princeton University in New Jersey have come up with a camera no bigger than a grain of salt. Their microscopic device was created using metasurface technology. It consists of a thin silicon nitride film covered in 1.6 million small cylinders. This design allows it to capture full-color images in spectacular detail. The tiny device is said to be as good as a regular camera, only half a million times smaller.

One of the most impressive things about the instrument is the way it balances its intricate hardware with complex AI software. The camera uses machine learning algorithms to improve the clarity of its images. But it doesn’t have to stop there. Scientists hope that one day those algorithms could be improved to detect and identify objects. It could, for example, be used to find signs of illness inside the human body.

Work still needs to be done before these tiny cameras can go on sale. But the inventors are confident that, once the design is finished, they shouldn’t be too difficult to produce on a mass scale.^[7]

3 Contraceptive Testicle Bath

In 2021, inventor Rebecca Weiss was awarded Germany’s James Dyson Award for her unique creation. Weiss won the prize for her testicle bath, which uses ultrasound as a form of contraception. The unusual birth control device, known as COSO, sends out sonic rays that block the sperm from moving. The effects are said to last for a few months.

Weiss, an industrial design graduate from the University of Munich, came up with the “testicle bath” after she was diagnosed with precursor cervical cancer. That particular strain of cancer is linked to oral contraceptive pills. But when the inventor and her partner started looking for an alternative, they were taken aback by the lack of male contraceptives.

“This problem is not unique to me personally,” she told reporters. “It affects many others as well as is made evident in the current growing public discussion about the lack of contraceptive alternatives.”^[8]

2 Italian Dildo Remover

In 2018, Italian medical professionals were forced to invent a new tool to remove a 60-cm (23-inch) rubber dildo from a man’s backside. Physicians from the AAST Grand Hospital in Milan had to improvise and ended up creating a new device to separate the patient from his surprisingly large sex toy.

In a case report, the team explains how a 31-year-old man came into the hospital after trying to remove the dildo by hand. By that point, it had been stuck inside him for over 24 hours. He told staff at the endoscopy unit that, other than a small amount of discomfort, he felt alright.

The doctors tried various methods to free the man of his blockage, including dislodging it with a balloon and capturing it with a polyp snare wire, but to no avail. Apparently, “the rigidity, the smoothness, and the size of the object” presented a major issue. It looked as if the only remaining option was invasive surgery. But luckily, the team invented a new device out of medical wire and a tiny tube. Using their improvised device, they managed to hook it over the toy and pull it away from the colon walls.

According to the report, the patient even wrote them a thank you letter for their trouble.^[9]

1 Eco-Friendly Plastic Made from Fish Sperm

There are various ways that you can make plastic, but very few of them involve fish sperm. That is until recently.

In 2021, researchers in China revealed a new type of eco-friendly bioplastic. They claim it emits 97% less carbon in its manufacturing process than regular polystyrene plastic—a real boost for the planet. The catch? It’s made from salmon sperm.

To make this unusual substance, two strands of salmon DNA must be mixed with a chemical found in vegetable oil. This produces a viscous fluid known as a hydrogel. The hydrogel is then freeze-dried and molded into shape through the process of aqua-welding. The team has already made puzzle pieces, a cup, and a DNA model from their protein-based plastic.

Oil-based plastics decompose over hundreds of years, often festering in landfills or tossed into incinerators. But scientists say the spunky bioplastic can be recycled easily by adding enzymes that digest the DNA. It can also be turned back into hydrogel by dunking it in water.^[10]

Their innovative material is still a long way from mass production, but who knows, perhaps one day, salmon sperm could play a major role in helping to protect the planet.