MIT Creates Amazing Self-Folding Origami Robots & Leaping Cheetah Robots

Last Thurs­day, MIT released two stag­ger­ing­ly cool videos. And I don’t think I’m being hyper­bol­ic in say­ing that. Above we have a robot­ic chee­tah that’s “trained” to “see and jump over hur­dles as it runs — mak­ing this the first four-legged robot to run and jump over obsta­cles autonomous­ly.” The chee­tah knows when to jump by using LIDAR — “a visu­al sys­tem that uses reflec­tions from a laser to map ter­rain.” MIT News has more on the tech behind this cre­ation.

Mak­ing almost equal­ly big news is anoth­er MIT inven­tion — a minia­ture origa­mi robot that self-folds, walks, swims, and degrades. As the elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing web­site IEEE Spec­trum explains:

The unfold­ed robot, which is made of a mag­net and PVC sand­wiched between laser-cut struc­tur­al lay­ers (poly­styrene or paper), weighs just 0.31 g and mea­sures 1.7 cm on a side. Once placed on a heat­ing ele­ment, the PVC con­tracts, and where the struc­tur­al lay­ers have been cut, it cre­ates folds.…

Once you’re done mess­ing around, you can dri­ve the robot into a tank of ace­tone and it will entire­ly dis­solve.

One day, if things go accord­ing to plan, these crea­tures will become small enough to per­form impor­tant med­ical tasks with­in your body, and then when they’re done, poof, they’ll be gone. And you’ll have an MIT researcher part­ly to thank.

via Men­tal Floss

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

MIT Teach­es You How to Speak Ital­ian & Cook Ital­ian Food All at Once (Free Online Course)

Junot Díaz’s Syl­labi for His MIT Writ­ing Class­es, and the Nov­els on His Read­ing List

Free Online Engi­neer­ing Cours­es

 

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The Historic LSD Debate at MIT: Timothy Leary v. Professor Jerome Lettvin (1967)

On May 3, 1967, Dr. Tim­o­thy Leary, that high priest of hal­lu­cino­gens, faced off in a debate with MIT pro­fes­sor Dr. Jerome Lettvin about LSD in MIT’s Kres­ge Audi­to­ri­um. Leary spent the debate in the lotus posi­tion, dressed in a white gown, beads and bare feet. The very pic­ture of a counter cul­ture icon. Lettvin, on the oth­er hand, cuts a dis­tinct­ly con­ser­v­a­tive fig­ure, sport­ing a short-sleeved white shirt, a skin­ny tie and thick-framed glass­es. On first blush, the debate might look like a stereo­typ­i­cal clash between the hip ver­sus the square, but it end­ed up being much more inter­est­ing than that. Lettvin, who proved to be at least as charis­mat­ic as Leary, more than held his own against the man Richard Nixon once called “the most dan­ger­ous man in Amer­i­can.” You can watch the full debate above.

Leary speaks for the first half of the video. For those famil­iar with his rou­tine, lit­tle of what you see will come as a sur­prise. He argues that LSD is a “a way of life and a sacra­ment and a sacra­ment is some­thing that gets you high.” He goes on to cite ground­break­ing fig­ures like Ein­stein, New­ton and William James who strug­gled to under­stand real­i­ty and con­scious­ness. “The real goal of the sci­en­tist is to flip out,” he said to a packed audi­to­ri­um filled with future sci­en­tists. “I don’t know if LSD is good or bad. It’s a gam­ble. It’s a risk. The sacra­ment is always a risk. … What isn’t? But LSD is the best gam­ble in the house.” Aid­ing him with his argu­ment is a psy­che­del­ic pic­ture show fea­tur­ing a steady stream of images includ­ing ocean waves rolling back­ward, chil­dren bounc­ing on tram­po­lines, and a man in a goa­tee eat­ing soup, all set to a sound­track by Ravi Shankar.

lettvin-leary

“Tim, your argu­ment is exceed­ing­ly seduc­tive,” Lettvin con­cedes at the begin­ning of his pre­sen­ta­tion (it begins around the 30:30 mark), which had none of the visu­al raz­za­matazz of Leary’s spiel. “I feel like this man is [in] the hands of the dev­il.”

Lettvin, how­ev­er, proves not to be your stan­dard anti-drug scold. At one point in the debate, he pro­claims, “I can con­ceive of no more immoral thing than has been done by the gov­ern­ment in the whole­sale ban­ning of drugs. … There’s a fun­da­men­tal­ly mon­strous thing about for­bid­ding rather than rea­son­ing peo­ple out.” And that’s exact­ly what Lettvin set out to do — rea­son the audi­ence against tak­ing acid. “The ques­tion is not sci­en­tif­ic but moral,” he says. LSD has the poten­tial to rob tak­ers of their crit­i­cal fac­ul­ties, ren­der­ing them per­ma­nent­ly spaced out. “The price seems a lit­tle steep to pay. You are set­tling for a per­ma­nent sec­ond rate world by the abne­ga­tion of the intel­lect.”

Lettvin’s per­for­mance is all the more impres­sive because he had lit­tle time to pre­pare. The fac­ul­ty mem­ber who was orig­i­nal­ly slat­ed to debate Leary bowed out at the last moment, and orga­niz­ers scram­bled to get some­one, any­one, to face down the famed guru. Lettvin report­ed­ly came straight from the lab to the audi­to­ri­um and he even had to bor­row a tie. Too bad Leary didn’t have a spare Nehru jack­et.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Tim­o­thy Leary Plans a Neu­ro­mancer Video Game, with Art by Kei­th Har­ing, Music by Devo & Cameos by David Byrne

Beyond Tim­o­thy Leary: 2002 Film Revis­its His­to­ry of LSD

Artist Draws Nine Por­traits on LSD Dur­ing 1950s Research Exper­i­ment

Watch The Bicy­cle Trip: An Ani­ma­tion of The World’s First LSD Trip in 1943

Beyond Tim­o­thy Leary: 2002 Film Revis­its His­to­ry of LSD

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing one new draw­ing of a vice pres­i­dent with an octo­pus on his head dai­ly.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

Turn Your Bike into an Electric Hybrid with MIT’s “Copenhagen Wheel”

Bonaverde’s “Roast-Grind-Brew Cof­fee Machine” seemed like one of the cool­er inven­tions I’ve recent­ly stum­bled upon. But then I came across this: The Copen­hagen Wheel. Orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed by researchers at MIT, the Copen­hagen Wheel “trans­forms ordi­nary bicy­cles quick­ly into hybrid e‑bikes.” It allows bike rid­ers to “cap­ture the ener­gy dis­si­pat­ed while cycling and brak­ing and save it for when you need a bit of a boost” — like climb­ing a hill in San Fran­cis­co. The wheel also feeds data to your iPhone, allow­ing you to mon­i­tor pol­lu­tion lev­els, traf­fic con­ges­tion, and road con­di­tions in real-time. After spend­ing sev­er­al years in devel­op­ment, the wheel can now be pre-ordered online and it will ship next spring. It retails for $699.

Get more back­ground infor­ma­tion on The Copen­hagen Wheel via this MIT web site.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Design­ers of the Invis­i­ble Bike Hel­met Describe Their Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Prod­uct in Short Doc­u­men­tary

Sci­ence Behind the Bike: Four Videos from the Open Uni­ver­si­ty on the Eve of the Tour de France

Brus­sels Express: The Per­ils of Cycling in Europe’s Most Con­gest­ed City

David Byrne: From Talk­ing Heads Front­man to Lead­ing Urban Cyclist

The Physics of the Bike

 

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MIT Teaches You How to Speak Italian & Cook Italian Food All at Once (Free Online Course)

At MIT, Dr. Pao­la Rebus­co usu­al­ly teach­es physics to fresh­men. But, on behalf of the MIT Exper­i­men­tal Study Group, Rebus­co has devised an appeal­ing course — Speak Ital­ian with Your Mouth Full — where she com­bines teach­ing two things many peo­ple love: learn­ing to speak Ital­ian and cook­ing Ital­ian food. The course sum­ma­ry reads:

The par­tic­i­pants in this sem­i­nar will dive into learn­ing basic con­ver­sa­tion­al Ital­ian, Ital­ian cul­ture, and the Mediter­ranean diet. Each class is based on the prepa­ra­tion of a deli­cious dish and on the bite-sized acqui­si­tion of parts of the Ital­ian lan­guage and cul­ture. A good diet is not based on recipes only, it is also root­ed in healthy habits and in cul­ture. At the end of the sem­i­nar the par­tic­i­pants will be able to cook some healthy and tasty recipes and to under­stand and speak basic Ital­ian.

As Rebus­co explains in a short video, this course has the advan­tage of mak­ing the lan­guage lessons a lit­tle less abstract. It gives stu­dents a chance to apply what they’ve learned (new vocab­u­lary words, pro­nun­ci­a­tions, etc.) in a fun, prac­ti­cal con­text.

Above, we start you off with the first lan­guage les­son in the sem­i­nar. It begins where all basic cours­es start — with how to say your name. Below, you can watch the class learn to cook fresh pas­ta. Along the way, the course also teach­es stu­dents how to make espres­sorisot­tohome­made piz­zabruschet­ta, and bis­cot­ti. Lec­tures for the course can be found on the MIT web site, YouTube and iTunesSpeak Ital­ian with Your Mouth Full also appears in our col­lec­tion of Free For­eign Lan­guage Lessons and 1200 Free Cours­es Online. Buon Appeti­to!

Ingre­di­ents & Cook­ing Instruc­tion:

Food Prepa­ra­tion

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Mas­ter List of 700 Free Online Cours­es From Great Uni­ver­si­ties

Sci­ence & Cook­ing: Har­vard Profs Meet World-Class Chefs in Unique Online Course

David Lynch Teach­es You to Cook His Quinoa Recipe in a Weird, Sur­re­al­ist Video

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“Wear Sunscreen”: The Story Behind the Commencement Speech That Kurt Vonnegut Never Gave

On June 1, 1997, Mary Schmich, Chica­go Tri­bune colum­nist and Bren­da Starr car­toon­ist, wrote a col­umn enti­tled “Advice, like youth, prob­a­bly just wast­ed on the young.” In her intro­duc­tion to the col­umn she described it as the com­mence­ment speech she would give to the class of ’97 if she were asked to give one.

The first line of the speech: “Ladies and gen­tle­men of the class of ’97: Wear sun­screen.”

If you grew up in the 90s, these words may sound famil­iar, and you would be absolute­ly right. Aus­tralian film direc­tor Baz Luhrmann used the essay in its entire­ty on his 1998 album Some­thing for Every­body, turn­ing it into his hit sin­gle “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sun­screen).” With spo­ken-word lyrics over a mel­low back­ing track by Zam­bian dance music per­former Roza­l­la, the song was an unex­pect­ed world­wide hit, reach­ing num­ber 45 on the Bill­board Hot 100 in the Unit­ed States and num­ber one in the Unit­ed King­dom.

The thing is, Luhrmann and his team did not real­ize that Schmich was the actu­al author of the speech until they sought out per­mis­sion to use the lyrics. They believed it was writ­ten by author Kurt Von­negut.

For Schmich, the “Sun­screen Con­tro­ver­sy” was “just one of those sto­ries that reminds you of the law­less­ness of cyber­space.” While no one knows the orig­i­na­tor of the urban leg­end, the sto­ry goes that Vonnegut’s wife, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er Jill Kre­mentz, had received an e‑mail in ear­ly August 1997 that pur­port­ed to reprint a com­mence­ment speech Von­negut had giv­en at MIT that year. (The actu­al com­mence­ment speak­er was the Unit­ed Nations Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Kofi Annan.) “She was so pleased,” Mr. Von­negut lat­er told the New York Times. “She sent it on to a whole of peo­ple, includ­ing my kids – how clever I am.”

The pur­port­ed speech became a viral sen­sa­tion, bounc­ing around the world through e‑mail. This is how Luhrmann dis­cov­ered the text. He, along with Anton Mon­st­ed and Josh Abra­hams, decid­ed to use it for a remix he was work­ing on but was doubt­ful he could get Von­negut’s  per­mis­sion. While search­ing for the writer’s con­tact infor­ma­tion, Luhrmann dis­cov­ered that Schmich was the actu­al author. He reached out to her and, with her per­mis­sion, record­ed the song the next day.

What hap­pened between June 1 and ear­ly August, no one knows. For Von­negut, the con­tro­ver­sy cement­ed his belief that the Inter­net was not worth trust­ing. “I don’t know what the point is except how gullible peo­ple are on the Inter­net.” For Schmich, she acknowl­edged that her col­umn would prob­a­bly not had spread the way it did with­out the names of Von­negut and MIT attached to it.

In the end, Schmich and Von­negut did con­nect after she reached out to him to inform him of the con­fu­sion. Accord­ing to Von­negut, “What I said to Mary Schmich on the tele­phone was that what she wrote was fun­ny and wise and charm­ing, so I would have been proud had the words been mine.” Not a bad end­ing for a col­umn that was writ­ten, accord­ing to Schmich, “while high on cof­fee and M&Ms.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Shape of A Sto­ry: Writ­ing Tips from Kurt Von­negut

22-Year-Old P.O.W. Kurt Von­negut Writes Home from World War II: “I’ll Be Damned If It Was Worth It”

Kurt Von­negut Reads from Slaugh­ter­house-Five

Google & edX to Create MOOC.Org: An Open Source Platform For Creating Your Own MOOC

mooc org

Almost exact­ly a year ago, we told you about Google’s release of Course Builder, an open source plat­form that would let you build your own online courses/MOOCs for free. This week, Google has a new announce­ment: it’s join­ing forces with edX, (the MOOC provider led by Har­vard and MIT), to work on a new open source plat­form called MOOC.org. The new ser­vice will go live in the first half of 2014. And it will allow “any aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tion, busi­ness and indi­vid­ual to cre­ate and host online cours­es.” This will give inno­v­a­tive edu­ca­tors the oppor­tu­ni­ty to put a MOOC online with­out nec­es­sar­i­ly mak­ing a steep invest­ment in a course. (When added all up, the costs can oth­er­wise be enor­mous.) If MOOC.org sounds of inter­est to you, you can put your name on a wait­ing list, and they’ll con­tact you when the ser­vice launch­es next year.

Mean­while, let me men­tion that 125 MOOCs will be launch­ing between now and the end of Octo­ber. To see a full list, vis­it or our col­lec­tion of 625 MOOCs/Certificate Cours­es from Great Uni­ver­si­ties. You’ll find many inter­est­ing titles on the list — His­to­ry of Chi­nese Archi­tec­ture: Part 1Søren Kierkegaard – Sub­jec­tiv­i­ty, Irony and the Cri­sis of Moder­ni­ty; Dark Mat­ter in Galax­ies: The Last Mys­tery, and Explor­ing Engi­neer­ing, just to name a few. If you have ques­tions about what MOOCs are all about, please see our new MOOC FAQ.

via The Chron­i­cle of High­er Ed

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Google Releas­es “Course Builder,” an Open Source Plat­form for Build­ing Your Own Big Online Cours­es

Har­vard and MIT Cre­ate EDX to Offer Mas­sive Open Online Cours­es (MOOCs) World­wide

Stephen Col­bert Tries to Make Sense of MOOCs with the Head of edX

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Stephen Colbert Tries to Make Sense of MOOCs with the Head of edX

Last week Anant Agar­w­al, Pres­i­dent of edX (the MOOC con­sor­tium launched by Har­vard and MIT), paid a vis­it to The Col­bert Report. And it did­n’t take long for the host, the one and only Stephen Col­bert, to ask fun­ny but unmis­tak­ably prob­ing ques­tions about the advent of Mas­sive Open Online Cours­es. “I don’t under­stand. You’re in the knowl­edge busi­ness in a uni­ver­si­ty. Let’s say I had a shoe store, ok, and then I hired you to work at my shoe store. And you said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a great idea! Let’s give the shoes away for free.’ I would fire you and then prob­a­bly throw shoes at your head.” In oth­er words, why would uni­ver­si­ties dis­rupt them­selves and give edu­ca­tion away at no cost? Where’s the san­i­ty in that?  If you have five min­utes, you can watch Agar­wal’s response and get a few laughs along the way. And if you’re ready to take a MOOC, then dive into our col­lec­tion of 550 Free MOOCs from Great Uni­ver­si­ties. 120 new cours­es will be start­ing in August and Sep­tem­ber alone.

via The Har­vard Crim­son

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Col­bert Talks Sci­ence with Astro­physi­cist Neil deGrasse Tyson

Stephen Col­bert Dish­es Out Wis­dom & Laughs at North­west­ern

Har­vard and MIT Cre­ate EDX to Offer Mas­sive Open Online Cours­es World­wide

Noam Chomsky Went Gangnam Style … Ever So Briefly?

I’m usu­al­ly pret­ty dialed into this stuff, but some­how this one slipped by me last fall. Dur­ing the Gang­nam Style craze, MIT shot a par­o­dy video where Noam Chom­sky, the father of mod­ern lin­guis­tics, made a cameo appear­ance. Maybe it slipped by me because the appear­ance is brief. About 5 sec­onds, start­ing at the 3:20 mark. We were on the ball enough, how­ev­er, to spot anoth­er par­o­dy by Ai Wei­wei and then we had Slavoj Žižek demys­ti­fy­ing the whole Gang­nam Style phe­nom­e­non, com­plete with wild hand ges­tic­u­la­tions and fran­tic rubs of the nose. Any­way, one day this will make for some good archival footage — pub­lic intel­lec­tu­al meets inter­na­tion­al pop cul­ture craze — so we’re adding it to the trove.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Noam Chom­sky Spells Out the Pur­pose of Edu­ca­tion

A Shirt­less Slavoj Žižek Explains the Pur­pose of Phi­los­o­phy from the Com­fort of His Bed

Noam Chom­sky & Michel Fou­cault Debate Human Nature & Pow­er (1971)

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