What I Learnt For The Week 15: Power Generating Shoes, Acrophobia, Anti-Drinking Implant, Walking Corpse Syndrome, Colourless Blood Fish

Hello Buddies! Welcome to another episode in the series of "What I Learnt For The Week", and thanks to @mobbs for the continued privileges.

Over the period of last week (26th-30th April), I made some amazing discoveries, of which I will select some random 5 to represent the lessons learnt for each day of the week.

Okay buddies, let's go straight to the lessons learnt. This episode promises to be educative and exciting.

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Monday: Power Generating Shoes

Just like my usual custom is; and without an exception to this episode; I normally begin with emerging technology on "Robotics and Machines".

The other time, we looked at the self-lacing shoes, and prior to that, we had seen the self-parking slippers. But we will be looking beyond that into another technology as it relates to footwears; and that is the power generating shoes.

In this part of the world, you are almost not certain of power. Have you ever been in a situation where you're in the middle of a chat and your phone runs out of power without any hope of recharging because of power outage? Okay, many people have experienced that, but there's an option for you. You can harvest your own kinetic energy and turn them into electrical energy. Harnessing of kinetic energy and converting them into electrical energy is not entirely new. At least, we are all aware that the hydro-electric power plant uses that principle, and even the windmills. But here, we're looking at harvesting the kinetic energy from your own motion to produce the needed electrical energy to power your devices.

A new invention was heralded by researchers from the University of Wisconsin to harness energy from footwears as we walk. Here's how the shoe works:

Dynamics of the power-generating shoes

The sole of the shoe is incorporated with two metal plates which are kept apart by a conducting fluid. The work of the first plate is to produce gas bubbles as the wearer takes steps (this is made possible by the help of the holes in the plate), the gas hits the other plate, thus sending the conducting fluid in a to-and-fro motion, which producing charges. This method has been described as "bubbling method" by the researchers. And it has been proven to be effective to harness kinetic energy from a smaller surface area.

The shoe also has some tiny batteries to store up the charges generated for future use. So it serves dual purposes: Charging on-the-go, and as powerbank. The researchers have been able to generate about 10W of power using this method, and advances are also being made to increase the amount of power generated.

Pheww!! Too much talk. Here; I found a video from YouTube to show you how this shoe works and how it looks like.

So you see, the next time you're about to go for a road walk, don't waste your steps, turn them into something useful with the power-generating shoes.

I'm sure you wanna know more about the power generating shoes; click here.

Tuesday: Acrophobia (Fear of Height)

Have you ever felt some uneasiness around elevated areas or maybe from the top of a building? Or have you; maybe; had fears of walking through heights, like bridge? If you have, then, my friend, you might have acrophobia. This is an irrational, intense, and unconditional fear of height. This is one of the commonest forms of fears and it has been shown that about 5% of the entire adult populations have this phobia.

[Image Source: Pixabay. CC0 Licensed]

The term "Acrophobia" is gotten from the word "Acron" (Greek term for height. It's weird that almost every phobia I've come across has its root in Greek, lol) and of course "Phobia" which means "fear of". This phobia is manifested when one begins to fear, or avoid height in general; like looking out of the balcony of a high storey building, mountain climbing, etc.

Causes of Acrophobia

In some cases of Acrophobia, a bad past experience can be linked to this. For example; for people who have fallen off from height in the past, it would not be unnatural for them to pick up this phobia. Talking from experience; I fell off from a tree many years ago and smashed my leg. And within that period, I grew a gross dislike for height, but I later overcame it, and I'm back to my daredevil stunts. But for some people, the story may not be the same, as this fear can stick with them for longer period. And like I said before, phobias have the potentials to grow.

Also, some people have attached some forms of negative thoughts to height, like: "What if I fall off?". In some extreme cases, this could hamper the daily activities of people who normally encounter heights. For example, People who walk through a bridge to get to work, could decide to take a longer route just to avoid the bridge.

Symptoms

The symptoms manifest at the sight or thought of height, which include:

• Increased heart beat/Palpitation

• Unnatural sweating

• panic attack in extreme cases

Wanna know more about Acrophobia, click here.

Wednesday: Anti-drinking Implant

Technology is at it again. The other day, we were discussing in the steemstem discord, and someone humorously made mention of an app that catches guys that cheat. This left me wondering; what can't technology do? Okay let's look at this: Have you ever wished to stop drinking? You may not look at it as a concern but for someone out there, it might be a heavy concern. As a matter of precision, some people get so much addicted to alcohol that they can consume almost 1carton of beer a day. Technology has found a solution for you.

[Image Source: Pixabay. CC0 licensed]

A team of scientists from the University of California have developed a biosensing implant that detects when someone drinks. This biosensor comes with an enzyme coating it, so when you consume alcohol, it triggers the enzyme and it interacts with the chemical by-product which is produced inside the sensor, and it sends a signal to your device wirelessly.

This device can also be linked to other devices. So the signals can be sent to multiple devices and even to; maybe; your parents or guardian (note: This is majorly for people who are known to abuse alcohol). So when you know that once you drink, signals would be sent to your rehabilitation officer, for example, you would think twice before drinking, and boom!! Mission accomplished.

I believe this can also apply to drug abusers. Maybe a kind of implant would be designed that would detect some specific drug usage. This would help checkmate illegal drug usage and abuse.

Wanna know more about the anti-dinking implant, click here.

Thursday: Walking Corpse Syndrome

This could sound funny, but after reading through, you would discover there's nothing funny about this syndrome. This is a rare medical condition in which someone has the delusion that he/she is dead; hence the name "Walking Corpse Syndrome". This is also referred to as "Cotard Delusion", after Jules Cotard; a psychiatrist and neurologist that lived around the 19th century, who first mentioned this syndrome.

[Image Source: Pixabay. CC0 Licensed]

The walking corpse syndrome manifests in two ways:

• Self-denial: Some of the sufferers believe that they don't exist, or maybe they existed before but are now dead and gone.

• Immortality delusion: Some believe that they have achieved a form of immortality which has made them immune to death. Remember, this is delusional. And this can drive them to do some insane things just to prove they are immortal. Okay; the truth is, some end up dying anyway.

Also, some cases of this syndrome can present in such a way that they accept their existence, but tend to deny the existence of some part of their body. My friend would refer to this as "existence by part". Just like in the case of "Somatoparaphrenia", in which someone denies the existence of their own limb, which is also a manifestation of "Asomatognosia" (denial or neglect of body part). Now this is really weird.

This can also lead to the beclouding of the person's sense of judgement and a general distortion of his/her view of reality. This is also common with people with Schizophrenia as they are characterized by abnormal and weird behavioural pattern.

Does this have a cure? Wanna know more about walking corpse syndrome, click here.

Friday: Colourless blood fish

The other time, we looked at the blue-blooded Antarctic octopus and how their blood uses hemocyanin (the copper-rich blue pigment) to transport oxygen in the blood in lieu of the normal hemoglobin in the red-blooded creatures. But now, we're up against another type of blood, and this is devoid of both hemocyanin and the hemoglobin, and thus colourless. One of the creatures that possesses this kind of blood is the Ocellated Icefish (Chionodraco rastrospinosus).

[Image Source: Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain Licensed]

How does the blood then carry oxygen without the presence of hemocyanin or hemoglobin? Actually, there's no need for this. This fish lives in extremely cold water, and cold water carries more oxygen compared to the warm water. So, at the depth of this extremely cold water, the oxygen content is well enough that the fish can do without any oxygen carrier in the blood.

Also, the Ocellated Icefish does not have scales, and this also makes the fish take up oxygen; by diffusion; through the skin, which is then pumped to the entire body by their extremely big heart. So you see, not all creatures have red blood. With time; maybe in our subsequent episodes; we will be looking at other colours of blood in creatures.

Wanna know more about the Ocellated Icefish, click here.

Okay buddies; this is the summary of some of the discoveries I made for the week. And until I come your way again, don't stop learning. @samminator says so.

Thanks for reading

References for further reading: Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5, Ref6, Ref7, Ref8, Ref9, Ref10

All images are CC0/Public domain Licensed and are linked to their sources

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