Don't Blink

Thought for the day

Have you ever noticed how often a new word shows up in you reading after you have "discovered" it? It is not only a phenomenon that happens with words. It happens with specific pieces of information too.
A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with a friend who is involved in a business enterprise that promotes and distributes tools and equipment that enhances education. I am using education in a very broad sense here. It turns out that education is one of those things that is happening all the time if you are paying attention and some times whether you are paying attention or not. One of the products that he sells is a printer of sorts. It is actually a prototype machine that takes information created on a two dimensional palette, such as a drawing or software instruction and creates a three dimensional object. He actually made a crescent wrench with my name on it for me but there are many applications and instruction sets.
The "Printer" is a variation on the Hewlett Packard Ink Jet Printer technology. The materials used for the objects are polymers that have different characteristics that can be permanent or temporary depending on the object to be created. Some of the structure is made of bridge material and some is permanent. I can tell you without equivocation that it was  a fascinating example of bridging or extrapolating from one piece of knowledge to another with remarkable results. I had never seen anything like it before that day and yet it would only be a matter of a day or two before I would see yet another iteration of this process.
I am a big fan of TED.com, a remarkable web site that has a compilation of ideas, the likes of which you have never seen, available for your perusal at the cost of your time. I am a regular viewer of the "Ted Talks",  you'll just have to take a look if you wish to open that remarkable door. In any case, I was looking over a list of new "Talks" when I spotted a medical one that promised to discuss a new process by which organs could be created.
You guessed it. It was another iteration of the ink jet printer that used a kind of bridge material along with stem cell material that was capable of creating a human bladder. What's even more amazing is that this is not new technology. They brought out a boy who was alive and in college as the result of this technology.
It made me realize that there is a lot of good going on in this world and I need to know that and pay attention to it. It also pointed out rather clearly to me that one of the great advantages of learning is that it tends to piggy back. Learn something and that leverages you to yet another piece of information. It seems endless.

©Herb Ratliff, March 26, 2012, All Rights Reserved