Top 25 Inventions Of 2013: Newcastle Scientists Land At No. 19 [VIDEO]
Time Magazine has noted an invention is great if it "sometimes solves a problem you didn't think could be solved."
Like the "Skyscrapers can't turn invisible. Pens can't write in midair. Paraplegics can't walk. Except now they can. And sometimes an invention solves a problem you didn't know you had. Maybe you didn't realize you needed to eat a doughnut and a croissant at the same time, or resurrect an extinct frog, or turn your entire body into a living password." But with Time's Top 25 Inventions of 2013, "Now you do."
In the case of The University of Newcastle's Lazarus Project, the Newcastle scientists landed at no. 19 for Time's Top 25 Inventions of 2013.
The Lazarus Project has developed the "de-extinction technology" to clone animals and bring life back to species which had long been extinct. Through this project, the gastric brooding frog, now in its newfound existence, aids in understanding the management of gastric secretions in the gut.
In an interview with ABC, Lazarus Project Leader Michael Mahony said he was thrilled to have made it to the top 25 inventions of 2013.
"Yeah, it's really quite surprising actually. It's now six months ago that we first released the information about this project and so Time picked up on it, yes It's great."
Mahony claimed the Lazarus Project was truly game changing. "What we're proposing is an insurance policy for not just frogs, for any animal that may be going extinct or whose population is already very decreased. So, essentially, we're saying that it makes great sense to store the genomes of animals simply the way we store our own genomes in IVF banks all around the world."
Time Magazine's Top 25 Inventions of 2013
1. Driverless toy car - racing game in which toy cars drive themselves.
2. Gravity lightbox - structure covered with 196 panels of LED bulbs to simulate the extreme light in outerspace for the movie, "Gravity."
3. Alcoholic coffee - coffee-based beverage that's about 80 proof, like tequila and vodka.
4. Sony's smart lens - the DSC-QX100 has all the fixings of a high-quality digital camera but clips to your smartphone.
5. The Cronut - made of croissant-style pastry that's fried like a doughnut, filled with cream and topped with glaze.
6. The Mission - an electric motorcycle that has a top speed of 240 kilometers per hour and a range of up 225 kilometers.
7. The Plus Pool - Olympic-size pool that will float in New York's East River and clean the water at the same time.
8. The Oculus Rift - virtual-reality headset that puts the gamer inside the game.
9. The edible password pill - consists of a tiny chip powered by stomach acid that emits a signal that can be detected by your phone or computer, essentially turning your body into a password.
10. The invisible skyscraper - South Korea's Tower Infinity will use a combination of LEDs and cameras to give the appearance of being invisible to people on the ground.
11. The 3Doodler - a pen that doodles in 3D, creating freestanding structures in colored plastic.
12. Volvo's solar pavilion - flexible solar panel that charges your car and folds up to fit in the boot.
13. Artificial memories - MIT scientists are able to make a mouse react as if it had received shocks in one part of its body when it had actually experienced that pain in another.
14. The Amplituhedro - physicists at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton discovered a major shortcut for predicting subatomic-particle collisions.
15. Nest protect smoke alarm - a smoke and carbon monoxide detector that you can silence simply by waving at it and that will text you when its battery is running low.
16. A new atomic clock - 100 times more accurate than the current clock, it will lose only about one second over the lifetime of the universe.
17. The Gravitylight - operated by the weight of a bag of stones, sand or water it could replace kerosene lamps widely used in the developing world.
18. SpaceShipTwo - developed by Virgin promises to shuttle citizens into space as early as 2014.
19. The gastric-brooding frog - seen to lay its eggs similar to any other frog and eventually swallow them whole to incubate.
20. The Atlas robot - designed to imitate human rescuers in disaster response and emergency recovery.
21. The Argus II - an implanted retina attached to a pair of glasses and a video unit that can restore partial vision to those who have severe retinitis pigmentosa.
22. The X-47B drone - developed by the U.S. Navy and powered by the same jet engine used on fighters carrying 2040 kilograms of weapons with a greater range.
23. Waterless fracking - Canadian company GasFrac uses gelled liquid petroleum rather than water to frack wells.
24. The artificial pancreas - detects dropping sugar levels and shuts off regular insulin delivery for Type 1 diabetes, just like a real pancreas.
25. Rewalk - an exoskeleton that offers movement to paraplegics by anticipating shifts in the user's balance.