Micro SD cards, 1TB that tiny, for $50
We have phones as powerful as computers in our hands when 20 years ago that was impossible. The exponential growth of computers and smartphones is mind-blowing. And the amount of technology that has bloomed from all of that
Indoor plumbing is pretty cool. Used to be you had to shit in a bucket and then go pour it into a sewer drain - but because this was slightly inconvenient people got into the habit of dumping it out their windows.
3D printing.
I’ve had a 3d printer for years and I still can’t really get over how nuts it is. Like it feels like one of those things you’d read about in science magazines as this amazing super scientific thing the scientists out in MIT have in their labs like a supercomputer or some expensive toy people who build stuff on YouTube have in their garage next to the lathe and big fancy CNC table, but no, it’s just, here. On my desk. Being used to casually print stuff that I’ve designed myself on the computer like it’s nothing.
My great grandad was a carpenter and I wish I could’ve shown him it. I wonder what he’d think, seeing something that was once only in the realm of handcrafted diagrammes and days of building now a few hours of modelling and printing away.
The air fryer is pretty cool I guess.
The technology behind it isn’t new, but The Thought Emporium is a Youtuber who:
1: DIY-d a genetically modified virus to cure his own lactose intolerance (successfully)
2: Is currently working on a biological computer that runs on animal neurons.
3: Has livestreams where the viewers submit ideas (like making tomatoes spicy) and he designs DNA to accomplish it.
Also he helped shut down a scam health product that contained radioactive material which isn’t particularly futuristic (actually it reminds me of the “radiation is good for you” craze in the early 20th century) but I wanted to mention it anyways.
Railguns on navy ships.
Lithium polymer batteries that make advanced computing portable. We wouldn’t be able to create multi function cell phones without the battery power and longevity of those batteries. Star trek tricorders are going to be the next big tech coming to the generation after Gen z.
Yes, I love carrying potentially explosive batteries in the pocket…
I hope you also love driving an actual explosion. Also known as a car.
I wish you people would actually do a comparison between ICE engine explosions vs. EV explosions.
Guess what? Firefighters can actually put out ICE vehicles, but they still haven’t figured out a solid way of putting out EV batteries.
Guess what? When ICE vehicles explode, more often than not they’re already running and there’s some electrical short or something. EV will just as soon explode in your garage while you’re sleeping.
Guess what? Studies show that since EV’s are way heavier, they wear through tires way faster? Did you know it takes approximately one barrel of crude oil to make an average car tire?
Guess what? Autonomous vehicles seem to have a habit of getting confused around emergency vehicles and causing wrecks, into the very vehicles meant to save people from accidents.
Guess what? Lithium ion batteries are typically rated for a max safe temperature of around 40⁰C, while the pavement the battery sits right over can be over 80⁰C
I’m too lazy to look up links, you’re smart, go Google these things or whatever. All these facts check out.
Tricorders are 70ies tech. 2000s dumbphones are more advanced.
You’re thinking of their com badge, the tricorder was the thing they flipped open to analyse a rock or reverse the polarity of a time crystal. It could do basic medical work, interface with electronics, detect life forms, determine if plants are edible, all sorts
Voyager 2
Blows my mind every fucking time I read about it.
Props to the USA/NASA and their engineers for achieving something so long lasting with technology from ~50 years ago.
Data compression. Something about “making less data out of … The same data” is really mind blowing, & the math is sick
I’m holding a small device in my hand that gives me access to all of humanity’s knowledge.
Granted, I’m using it to dick around on Lemmy, but…
To be fair there’s plenty of knowledge on Lemmy as of today… And porn, lots of porn.
I have yet to encounter any porn on lemmy.
Do you have the NSFW filter off within your Lemmy or app’s settings?
On behalf of Gnorv, yes. I have made sure multiple times that my NSFW filter is off. I have only seen an occasional NSFW - like One per month, and it’s never porn - even when I browse by New.
Please Help.
Turns out we can express most of proteins, some of the time, and then isolate them. This includes enzymes, when isolated these can do things like they naturally do but now in flask, but also they do things that aren’t remotely natural but are useful for us. These things are pretty fragile usually so then some of these can be modified so that they are resistant to higher temperatures, detergents etc. This is not only the nerdy shit like advanced chemical synthesis - lots of dishwasher tablets and and washing powders contain enzymes that cut proteins into pieces (like subtilisin), so in some cosmic sense dishwasher digests your leftover food off plates
Enzymes are still proteins, and have all problems of proteins. Turns out, you can just take the most important part out of enzyme, make it, or something functionally similar out of completely synthetic parts, and it still works. Sure, it’s not as active or selective, most of the time, but it’s resistant to things that would absolutely shred proteins. This is called organocatalysis and it was subject of 2021 Nobel Prize
Sometimes you want to take an enzyme and make it not work. We also have a tool for that: first you have to get structure of that enzyme, or some receptor protein, and by looking how a small set of random molecules lodges in it you can make a very selective, very potent ligand, sculpting it atom by atom with no knowledge other than protein structure. If you have time and resources, this can be made to work for almost any protein (that can be crystallised)
