Inventors and Remarkable People

We’ve seen some innovative free-standing personal mobility aids designed to tackle stairs in recent times, but this offering from a young UK inventor takes a fresh approach to a solution that's been around for years - the mechanical stair-lift. Conceived by Ruth Amos when she was just 16 years old, the StairSteady is a handrail with a unique steadying handle and locking device that supports the user whilst on the staircase while allowing them to remain active and independent. Read More

The freight train progress of technology during the last century has masked the true value of landmark specimens of mankind’s technological triumphs. First-of-a-kind devices were quickly superseded and hence soon regarded as useless in comparison to newer, better equipment. Accordingly, we believe an auction to be held in London this week represents some of the finest medium-term investments we have ever seen, with a likelihood of their value increasing dramatically once historical perspective is restored. The auction includes 758 examples of almost all forms of early technology including many firsts – and the largest privately held collection of early televisions in the world. Read More

Genuis. Pioneer. Innovator. Words that don't even come close to describing the revolutionary thinking of one Lester William Polsfus. Better known as Les Paul, he had such a huge influence on the world of modern music that it's difficult to sum up his achievements in such a short piece. I use the past tense because sadly the Wizard of Waukesha died in a New York Hospital on August 13th. Read More

A logbook from the famous 1872-1876 journey of HMS Challenger, described at the time as "the greatest advance in the knowledge of our planet since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries" will go under the hammer in a September auction of exploration, travel and topographical items. Conducted just 13 years after Darwin’s Origin of the Species, Challenger was tasked with constructing a fossil record that would test the new theory of evolution and became inextricably intertwined within the God vs. Science debate. Read More

An Australian pair plan to travel more than 7,450 miles in 12 months, through extreme weather conditions and terrains on a four-wheeled recumbent bicycle called a "quike" (on account of the four wheels). They plan to leave later this month on what promises to be an incredible journey, starting from Astana, Kazakhstan. All medical supplies, food and camping equipment will be carried on the back of the quike which could weigh as much as 960 pounds. Read More

After years of wearing a patch to hide his disfigured right eye, damaged as a child in a shooting accident, Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence was forced eventually to replace the eye with a prosthetic one. The camera on Spence’s cell phone, though, gave him a rather novel idea. What if he could build a miniature, wireless video camera into his prosthetic eye?

What followed has become the Eyeborg Project, the progress of which can be now followed online. Read More

With an ever increasing load on the public transport system we need to look for smarter and more environmentally friendly ways of getting from A to B in built up areas. The public bike systems that have been successful in several European cities (Paris, Barcelona, Stockholm and soon London) are one way of achieving this, but the Link scooter system, designed by Anton Grimes of University of New South Wales in Australia, may provide an alternative to bikes that is a little easier for the less energetic. The Link is basically a modular transport solution concept, which allows users to hire an electric lightweight scooter from a hub. When the user has reached their destination, they simply return the scooter to another hub for recharging. Read More

A PhD candidate from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) has pioneered some innovative new treatments in the emerging field of nanomedicine that could aid in the fight against cancer. Geoffrey von Maltzahn's polymer-coated gold ‘nano-antennas’ are designed to be injected into the bloodstream to target and destroy cancerous tumors. Read More

Solar powered devices aren’t new, but English student Emily Cummins has developed a way of using the sun’s power to help impoverished communities in Africa. Her eco-friendly, sustainable fridge is based on a simple principle: it uses the sun’s rays to evaporate water, which in turn keeps the contents cool. Read More