Curio Cabinet

You don’t need to go out on a limb when saying that prosthetic devices have a long way to go, but what’s the hold up? Limb loss is a traumatic and life-changing experience, but despite decades of modern development, prosthetics aren’t as good of a replacement as many people hope. Recent advancements in technology, especially robotics, might make it seem like whipping up a bionic limb should be easy. In reality, though, making artificial limbs that can be controlled by biological brains is still an exceedingly difficult thing to do. Case in point: many amputees end up setting aside their prosthetic limbs, including bionic ones, due to them being too heavy, cumbersome, or difficult to use. One 2022 Austrian survey showed that 44 percent of upper-limb amputees eventually stop using their prosthetics. Some of the problems with bionic limbs, specifically, lie with the material and components themselves. Conventional motors, actuators, and heavy steel frames make for stiff, uncomfortable limbs that require a lot of concentration to use. Weight is a major factor in the usability of leg prosthetics because it can throw off a user’s balance and even cause injury over time. Some of these issues can be resolved by using softer, lighter, flexible materials that can mimic biological movement better than their old counterparts. When it comes to limbs that tie into a person’s nervous system, there’s one area of research that’s vitally important—sensory feedback. Bionic prosthetics can feel unnatural largely because they provide basically no tactile feedback, or sense of touch. To tackle the problem, researchers at the University of Chicago in Illinois and University of Technology in Gothenburg are working to create a neural interface via implants on nerves and in the brain. This interface could ensure good communication between a bionic limb and a person’s nervous system. While this technology is still being refined, it might not be long before a bionic hand can feel warmth, cold, pain, and texture. Here’s hoping that soon the line between technology and biology won’t be such a big hurdle.

Move over Moo Deng, there’s another pudgy baby in town! If you’re on social media, you’re probably familiar with the adorable “feud” between fans of Moo Deng, the famous baby pygmy hippo from Thailand, and Pesto, the baby King penguin born at Australia’s Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium earlier this year. While Moo Deng is beloved for being small (she is a pygmy hippo, after all), Pesto garnered international headlines for his whopping size. By the time Pesto’s gender could be determined, in September, he already weighed around 46 pounds. That not only made him the largest penguin chick the aquarium had ever housed, but also made Pesto heavier than both of his parents combined. No one knows why Pesto is so big; adult King penguins usually weigh between 21 and 40 pounds. His keepers expect him to lose some weight after he molts, but while fans may be a bit disappointed when Pesto loses his fuzzy, brown baby feathers, he’ll still be part of an incredible species possessing adaptations that help them survive extreme sub-antarctic temperatures.
 
Unlike their close relatives the Emperor Penguins, King penguins don’t spend much time on the Antarctic continent itself. Instead, they live most of their lives on Antarctic islands and in the waters surrounding them. Though conditions on these islands aren’t as extreme as those on Antarctica, temperatures still drop to around -4 degrees on land starting in autumn, with waters being even colder. To survive, King penguins have developed layers of sleek, almost fur-like feathers that trap heat tightly against their bodies, insulating them from the cold. Beneath their skin, a thick layer of blubber also helps to trap heat. They also possess adaptations that all penguin species share, like streamlined bodies for swimming and wings that function as powerful flippers. It’s thought that these water adaptations occurred around 60 million years ago, when penguins’ ancestors lived on the coasts of Australia and New Zealand. These ancient seabirds traded their ability to fly for the ability to swim expertly, and today there are 18 penguin species all of which survive primarily on fish. Of course, King penguins still have to contend with plenty of fearsome predators, from large seabirds that can snatch their newborn chicks to leopard seals and orcas that are just as agile in the water as the penguins themselves. Luckily, King penguins utilize an adaptation called counter-shading to avoid detection by some ocean predators. Since the penguins’ backs are black and their bellies are white, they’re hard to see from below, when they’re floating on top of the water. Who needs to fly away when you can’t be spotted in the first place?

 
[Image description: A King penguin stands inside a zoo enclosure.] Credit & copyright: Adam Harangozó, Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

It’s so nice when the kids still call home after moving out. Voyager 1, the farthest man-made object from Earth, just dusted off a decades-old radio to say hello. Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 was one of two unmanned spacecraft designed to collect data from the Solar System’s planets as they passed by. Voyager 1’s flight plan was only possible because of a rare alignment of the planets that occurs once every 175 years, and its trip into outer space was always intended to be one-way. However, the spacecraft has continued to send back data over the years, decades after its original mission ended in 1989. Far exceeding its original intended purpose and expected lifespan, Voyager 1 has been chugging along beyond the heliosphere, transmitting data back to Earth via radio all the while.
 
There have been a few issues, though. Last year, an error caused Voyager 1 to send back nonsensical data, a problem that took engineers five months to fix. More recently, the aging craft went radio silent, ceasing all communications. On October 16, at a distance of around 15 billion miles from Earth, Voyager 1 failed to send back data that was expected to arrive at that time. To reconnect with the craft, NASA sent a signal using an S-band transmitter on October 22, hoping to activate a backup radio transmitter on board that hadn’t been used since 1981. To their relief, they heard back from Voyager 1 on October 24, and now they’re trying to figure out what exactly caused the disconnection, which so far appears to be related to its voltage protection system. The system is only supposed to trigger for a certain number of reasons, and on activation, turns off all non-essential systems to conserve energy. Hopefully, they’ll be able to sort out the issue, but Voyager 1’s time may be coming to an end soon. John Casani, Voyager project manager from 1975 to 1977, said in a statement through NASA, “We didn’t design them to last 30 years or 40 years, we designed them not to fail.” After all this time, the craft will only begin to run out of energy for its scientific instruments next year, and communication will likely continue until at least 2030. They really don’t make them like they used to.

 
[Image description: A night sky filled with stars.] Credit & copyright: Felix Mittermeier, Pexels

Is it all in the hips, or all in our heads? While birthing is rarely a pleasant process for mammals, it’s particularly dangerous for humans. For a long time, this difficulty was attributed to the size of human brains at birth, but new research on chimpanzees suggests otherwise. If there’s anything that sets humans apart from their great ape cousins, it’s that we have the largest, most complex brains among them. While the human brain is resource-hungry and the body it inhabits is frailer than many other mammals of comparable size, these shortcomings are more than made up for by the immense advantage of higher intelligence. It would seem natural, then, that such a brain would come to evolve despite the risk it poses during birth. Then there’s the matter of the shorter, narrower birth canals that humans have as a trade off for being able to walk upright. In order to give birth with these factors, human babies rotate as they exit the womb. One common complication that results from this is shoulder dystocia, or obstructed labor. Without medical intervention, this can be fatal to both mother and child. This combination of large brains and narrow birth canals has been referred to as the “obstetrical dilemma,” and it was thought to be unique to humans.
 
However, paleoanthropologists at the University of Zurich believe that difficulty in birthing might predate the large brains of humans. According to their research, chimpanzees also have difficult births, despite not having the same cranial capacity or the ability to walk upright as humans do. Therefore, the researchers believe that the anatomical features that make birthing so difficult could have existed long before humans developed their oversized brains, perhaps in the last common ancestor shared by chimps and humans. Researchers also pointed out that australopithecines, one of humanity’s ancestors, probably dealt with difficult births too. You’d think it would get easier after a few million years.

 
[Image description: A black-and-white illustration of a chimpanzee walking.] Credit & copyright: Albin Mesnel, Édouard Riou, Edward Blyth, Alphonse de Neuville, Mammalia. Their various orders and habits popularly illustrated by typical species, 1870, Wikimedia Commons. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1929.

What’s a little rain while you’re driving? Terrifying. At least, it was at the beginning of the 20th century. American inventor Mary Anderson filed the first-ever patent for a windshield wiper on this day in 1903. Before then, people just had to make do with wet or muddy windshields. However, Anderson never got to reap the rewards for her world-changing invention.
 
Born in Alabama in 1866, Anderson wasn’t a career inventor. Little is known about her early life, but as an adult, she was a winemaker, rancher, and real estate developer. By all available accounts, her invention of the first windshield wiper was her one and only foray into the world of engineering or design. But her varied job titles implies that she likely had a keen eye for spotting opportunities, and the inspiration for her invention was no exception. The story goes that Anderson was visiting New York City during the winter and boarded a streetcar on one particularly wet and blustery day. Because of the inclement weather, the windshield of the streetcar kept getting splattered with water and debris, forcing the driver to open a window to manually wipe the windshield clean. Every time he did so, cold wind would blast through the opening, and this didn’t sit well with Anderson, who was used to the balmy Southern weather of her home state. Streetcar drivers weren’t the only ones who had to contend with this problem, of course. As automobiles became more common, the drivers of those vehicles resorted to similar measures or simply drove with their heads sticking out car windows. Inspired by the streetcar driver’s struggle, and perhaps frustrated by the cold ride, Anderson set out to come up with a better solution. In 1903, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded Anderson with U.S. Patent No. 743,801, or Window-Cleaning Device.
 
Anderson’s invention, though groundbreaking for its time, doesn’t resemble the modern iteration much. Her version was still operated by hand (albeit from the inside) and consisted of a single rubber blade to clear the windshield. The device also included a counterweight to keep the blade firmly in contact with the glass, and though it was relatively primitive, it was still pretty effective. Unfortunately for Anderson, automakers were hesitant to embrace her invention early on. Despite several attempts, Anderson was never able to attract investors or have them manufactured for sale due to lack of interest. She may have simply been too ahead of her time. Automakers didn’t start making windshield wipers standard equipment in their vehicles until 1916. By then, Anderson’s patent had expired, keeping her from making any profit from her inventions through licensing. Then again, maybe automakers didn’t adopt her windshield wipers on purpose so as not to pay her any fees, though the actual reason is unclear.
 
Though her invention may not have earned her any money, Anderson has since been recognized for her contribution. In 2011, over 60 years after her death, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. These days, many improvements have been made to her original windshield wiper. In 1917, Charlotte Bridgewood invented the Electric Storm Windshield Cleaner (U.S. Patent No. 1,274,983), the first to be powered by electricity. A few years later, in 1922, brothers William M. and Fred Folberth invented the simply-named Windshield Cleaner (U.S. Patent No. 1,420,538) which was powered by redirected engine exhaust. However, the version that most windshield wipers are based on today was invented by Robert Kearns in the 1960s. Called Windshield Wiper System With Intermittent Operation (U.S. Patent No. 3,351,836), it was motorized and capable of variable speeds. Who knew there were so many ways to clean a windshield?

 
[Image description: raindrops on a windshield which has been partially wiped clean.] Credit & copyright: Valeriia Miller, Pexels