RAW DOGMA written by Nkrumah Steward
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| comic book science proves again to be applicable |
 I told you that I thought Jim Kakalios, a professor of physics at the University of Minnesota, was a genius because he uses comic books to teach physics.
I still feel that way.
Who knows, if I would've had a teacher like Kakalios when I was in middle school, I might've grown up to have been somebody.
I am a pretty creative guy. I don't think I would let little technicalities like "the laws of physics" or "gross ethical indifference" prevents me from pushing the boundaries of what is thought possible.
If someone could've helped me grasp even the simplest of scientific concepts, I would've run with it and by now I would've had all kinds of abominations of God swimming around in my fish aquarium.
I would've had a utility belt, a few gallons of super serum and claws that come out the
back of my hands by now just to start.
By the time I was 40, I would've had an army of the most grotesque creatures imaginable worshipping me as God on some island in the south Pacific, going into Thailand at night and kidnapping women to bring back to me as my brides.
Don't worry. I would've used my powers for good. Eventually.
But I must admit, after taking a shot of invisibility serum, the first thing I would've done is gone on an all night panty raid.
Well what I am about to say next should make Jim Kakalios proud.
Apparently scientists, maybe some that he has trained, have taken a page out of Daredevil comics and developed a device that can allow the blind to see using sound.
They can't promise you that you'll look good in spandex, but if you want to stop tripping over furniture and stop running into walls they've got that covered.
Developed by Dr Peter Meijer, a senior scientist at Philips Research Laboratories in the Netherlands, the system is called The vOICe (the three middle letters standing for "Oh I See").
The way that it works is that it takes images from a camera and transforms them into highly complex soundscapes which are transmitted to the blind over headphones.
"Our assumption here is that the brain is ultimately not interested in the information 'carrier' (here sound) but only in the information 'content'," says Meijer. "After all, the signals in the optic nerve of a normally sighted person are also 'just' neural spiking patterns. What you think you 'see' is what your brain makes of all those firing patterns."
Although you still won't be able to drive a car or read a book very well with it, you will be able to trace out buildings, watch television or avenge the death of your ninja girlfriend assuming you have the proper costume knowledge in Kung Fu. |
