ASCII ART

After looking at tons of pictures of ASCII art I have found it interesting. At first it is quite hard to figure out what some of the pictures are, however when you realize what it is when you can appreciate it sorta. I find the first the picture on the main page kinda cute since its close to halloween and the pictures is of witches, but the witches is the only thing I can actually visualize in that ASCII picture. I have no clue what's around them unless it might be a sky but then why is it curved and whats the tail thing. Is it a pumpkin?

I feel like everyone at one point in their life has tried to make these on their Facebook timeline or in the comment section or where ever. i personally tried it when i was about 10 or 11. i am way to impatient to try and do this or figure this out but, it is impressive. looking at the more spaced out codes that make pictures like the witches or the devil so on and so on, i find it harder to make out. also, the first picture of the girl under anime tab and others the girl is really hard to make out in my opinion you have to look at it for a few seconds to see its a girl.

I like how some of the pictures use the contrast of shading by making some symbols bold or uppercase or lowercase.... overall I don't find it really cool to look at for a long time or really appreciate it as an art form because it gives me a headache trying to figure out what some of these pictures are and it's only kinda cool when the picture is a super simple design and you look at it for like .02 seconds scrolling through your timeline (it's kinda cool but really annoying, honestly I just hate anything having to do with computers)

21st century technology

21st Century Technology

Hypodermic Needle

In 1844, Francis Rynd invented the hollow needle. Rynd used the needle to inject medicine subcutaneously. Then in 1853 Charles Pravaz and Alexander Wood modified the hollow needle to make it sharper.  Wood used the new needle to inject morphine into his patients to treat nerve conditions. The next major advancement was made in 1899 by Letitia Mumford Geer. She designed the needle to be used with one hand (Omnisurge, 2015).

The next few advancements focused on the materials the needles were made from. In 1946, Chance Brothers created an all glass syringe.  This allowed the needles to be sterilized in pieces but it was still expensive.  Then in 1974, Phil Brooks patented the plastic disposable syringe bringing the costs of needles significantly lower (Omnisurge, 2015).

Today, the hypodermic needle is being revolutionized again. In 2011, Seiji Aoyagi created a hypodermic needle that is based on a mosquito’s bite (Coxworth, 2011). The mosquito’s mouth which is called a proboscis is a system of six needles. Two of the needles, called the maxillae, are jagged.  The mosquito uses these needles to saw through the person’s skin. The needles are very sharp and the person can barely feel the cut.  Any pain you feel from a mosquito bite is from the anticoagulant they inject in the blood and not the bite itself (Quiros, 2016).  The jagged surface of these needles causes the least amount of nerves to be affected at any one time since very little surface area on the skin is touched. 

Seiji Aoyagi and his team studied the mosquito and created a needle using a jagged outer surface instead of a smooth surface (Coxworth, 2011).  This has resulted a nearly pain-free needle. Other insect technology is also being used to enhance our current medical technology.  This field of science is called Biomimicry.  Researchers are now examining wood-boring wasps.  These wasps have a needle-like spike that they use to lay their eggs in wood.  They use a reciprocating motion instead of a rotary motion to drill into the wood. (AskNature Team, 2015).  Using this technology, the wasp can insert its eggs deep into the wood. 

The wasp’s spike has two interlocking valves which has backward-facing teeth (Coxworth, 2011).  One of the valves latches onto the wood while the other valve cuts into the wood. The two valves then switch catching the wood and cutting into the wood. This rapid, reciprocating motion allows the wasp to drill into the wood nearly an inch with very little force and very little pressure on the wood. (Coxworth, 2011).

Needles and scalpels based on this technology will be used in the future for brain surgery. The less force used to cut or inject into the brain the less the brain tissue is damaged. We can then expand this technology using a combination of Artificial Intelligence and insect technology (e.g. maggots ability to detect dead tissue) to create smart needles and scalpels. These new medical devices will be able to drill into the body navigating around crucial areas with very minimal tissue damage. This would allow surgeons to target previously inoperable locations and create hypodermic needles that target specific tissue.

Works Cited:

AskNature Team. “Ovipositor drills through wood.” AskNature. September 9, 2015. Accessed October 16, 2017. https://asknature.org/strategy/ovipositor-drills-through-wood

Coxworth, Ben. “Mosquito inspires near-painless hypodermic needle”. New Atlas.  April 4, 2011.  Accessed October 16, 2017. https://newatlas.com/mosquito-inspires-near-painless-hypodermic-needle/18320/

Omnisurge. “The History of the Syringe.” Omnisurge. May 5, 2015. Accessed October 16, 2017. http://omnisurge.co.za/the-history-of-the-syringe/

Quiros, Gabriella. “How Mosquitoes Use Six Needles to Suck Your Blood.” KQED Science. June 7, 2016. Accessed October 16, 2017. https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/06/07/how-mosquitoes-use-six-needles-to-suck-your-blood/

flip book

https://youtu.be/zR4lYAuGByo

I did my flip book on one of my favorite songs called unsteady which was covered by boyce avenue. I love the beats in the music and wanted to something cool with that so I mimicked a drum playing and it hits on hard beats. the long "hold on" i wanted to make it look like the h and o were falling down from the top of the page to the bottom, since the letters were falling I wanted the letters to fill back up on the next "hold on". the hold on morphs in to two people holding each other for support. The lyrics for "i'm a little unsteady" i made it to look as if the page was cracking with every new word appearing for an unsteady foundation, with a huge crack on the final pages. This project took a lot longer than i thought it would cause you had to be precise and realizing a simple motion you have to re draw that same image on like 6 pages. this project was very hard and extremely time consuming but i'm proud of it in the end. I hope you enjoy!