All language subtitles for The UnBelievable with Dan Aykroyd s02e06 Bizarre Innovations.eng

[pensive music]

Would you believe there was
once a human hamster wheel

designed to replace
the automobile?

- [Hakeem] He calls
it the dynasphere.

- The wave of the future.

- You were thrown forwards and
backwards within this wheel.

Talk about motion sickness.

- Or a giant slingshot

invented to rescue humans.

- [Hakeem] This is
incredibly dangerous.

- How could the human body

even withstand a type
of action like that?

- And what if the
future of home security

was a fire-spitting robot dog?

[flames whooshing]

- Therminator is a bad boy.

- Putting a flamethrower on
the back of this robot dog

is just awesome.

- These are the
innovations so surprising,

they are truly unbelievable.

[dramatic music]

It seems like every year,
cars have new safety features,

but before computerized
motion sensors,

automatic brakes and even horns,

engineers had to get a
little more creative.

- On a hot afternoon
in August 1896,

44-year-old Bridget
Driscoll is in London

visiting with her
16-year-old daughter

for a religious conference.

She steps off the
curb and is hit

by a brand-new thing to
hit the London streets.

[car horn honking]

An automobile.

Although the car is going
less than 10 miles an hour,

Bridget unfortunately dies,

but she becomes the first person

to be struck and killed
by an automobile.

- [Dan] By the end of 1939,

almost 10,000 Brits a
year are killed by cars,

with no signs of that
number diminishing.

- Because automobile
accidents with pedestrians

are now skyrocketing,

two inventors in England

decide that they're gonna
take a shot at this.

And by 1939, they have come up

with what they
think is the answer.

- [Dan] To demonstrate
their idea,

they shoot a short film,
starring in it themselves.

- Imagine, you're
driving down the road

and a jaywalker isn't
paying any attention at all

and steps right out
in front of you.

This is really bad, right?

Nope, you just pull
on your little lever

and out pops the
pedestrian catcher.

- [Narrator] And it
folds neatly away

when it isn't
eating pedestrians.

- This folded-up canvas scoop

just pops right
out of the bumper

and the pedestrian
just gently falls

into its waiting trough.

- [Dan] Problem solved, right?

The streets are safe once
again for mindless meandering?

- The pedestrian catcher
looks like it works

and it gets some attention,

including a writeup in
"Modern Mechanics" magazine.

But there's a problem.

- By the time they actually
invent this in 1939,

the speed of cars
has been increasing,

and now the average top speed

is about 70 miles an hour.

- At those speeds,

either the driver won't have
time to deploy it fully,

or even if they do,

that still means the pedestrian

is being hit at
70 miles an hour.

So at higher speeds,

there's just no way this
device is gonna work,

and the pedestrian catcher
never goes into production.

- Another reason the scoop
never quite catches on

is dramatic innovations
in car horns in the 1940s.

[car horn honking repeatedly]

Suddenly, car horns go from

these laborious, hand
cranked contraptions,

to electric ones you can
operate with a push of a button.

Much easier to give
'em a little toot

than try to catch
'em in a scoop.

- If you think getting
scooped off the road

at 70 miles an hour
might give you whiplash,

imagine getting
snatched off the ground

by a screaming airplane.

[intense music]

- After World War II, the
military has a problem.

They don't have a way
of getting personnel

out of places that
don't have a runway.

[gunfire]

- This could be agents
who were dropped in

and need to be extracted.

Other times, it
was downed airmen.

- At the time, a
helicopter wouldn't work,

'cause helicopters
are cumbersome,

they're noisy, they
attract too much attention,

they're slow to get in
and out of the ground.

- So how can you
get your person out

in the fastest and most
clandestine way possible?

- In 1958, inventor
Robert Edison Fulton, Jr.,

who's named after Thomas
Edison, by the way,

is working on the problem
for the American military.

His idea is to come
up with a contraption

that is gonna get personnel
off the ground very quickly

and into the back
of a speeding plane.

- [Dan] His idea,
a human slingshot.

But how could this
possibly work?

- So this recovery system,

the way it's designed is
it's packaged into a bag.

Aircraft comes over

and they drop the
bag to the person

who's down behind enemy lines.

They put on the harness.

Once they put on the harness,
they get everything strapped in.

Then they release the
balloon into the sky,

and the balloon is attached
to a 500-foot cable,

and that cable is designed

to actually be captured
by the aircraft.

- On the second pass,

the plane comes through
with a cable in a yolk,

and it just grabs and slingshots
the person up to the plane,

where they're then recovered
by the crew on the plane.

[camera shutter clicking]

- [Dan] He calls it the
surface-to-air recovery system,

but it quickly becomes
known simply as the Skyhook.

- If someone pitched
the Skyhook to me,

on paper, I'm saying no.

First of all, how
could the human body

even withstand a type of
slingshot action like that

from standing on the ground?

And yet Fulton's Skyhook
is a total success.

- As someone who specializes in
the recovery of downed pilots

and downed and injured aircrew
members behind enemy lines,

I've done a lot of wild things

to get extracted off the field,

but I can't imagine
what it would be like

with this Fulton Skyhook.

- And Skyhook isn't just
a Cold War fad either.

It's actually used
up until 1996.

- The sight of a person

dangling 1,000 feet
under an airplane

flying through the sky

looks incredibly dangerous.

But in all the
decades of its use,

there was only a
single fatality.

Like, that's an amazing
record of success.

- Yanking stranded
soldiers sky high

from a speeding plane
is a daring move,

but another airborne innovation

operates at a much
lower altitude.

- It's 1959, and we are at the
very height of the Cold War.

The US military is looking
for a new type of vehicle

to help move troops around.

- They wanna create a vehicle
that doesn't need wheels,

that would be able
to move over mud,

over water, over rocky terrain.

- At this point, Curtis Wright,

one of the largest aircraft
manufacturing firms

in the world,

who made a tremendous
amount of aircraft

for the Second World War,

come up with an idea.

- Their idea is to use what
is known as ground effect.

By putting a propeller
close to the ground,

a cushion of air can be created

that the vehicle can ride on.

- This new vehicle will be
nowhere near as vulnerable

as a helicopter in the air

because this will only be
about two or three feet

above the ground.

- [Dan] After an impressively
quick development

of less than a year,

Curtis Wright has
a prototype in 1959

ready to present to the Army.

They call it the
Model 2500 Air Car.

It's the world's first
real-life hovercraft.

[tense music]

- So they turn it
on and it works.

The vehicle lifts off the
ground about 10 inches,

and then proceeds to
seamlessly cross the terrain

and even water.

It's almost like Luke
Skywalker's Landspeeder

in "Star Wars."

- This thing has
maneuverability.

It can go forward, backwards,

stop, go left, right.

- It's powered by two
180-horsepower fans,

one in the front
and one in the back.

You can control it using
a simple steering wheel.

- It uses grille flaps

that redirect the direction
that the air flows out.

Air goes that way,
craft goes that way.

- [Dan] But as soon as the
Army begins to test it,

a few issues start to rev up.

- While the hover car works just
as expected on flat surfaces,

once there's a grade of only 6%,

suddenly now, things go awry.

- The ground effect doesn't
do well on an up grade

because if the terrain in front
of you is suddenly rising,

you don't have the even
application of ground effect

all the way around the vehicle.

- So basically, sooner or later,

you do what we call ground
out and hit the ground.

- The hover car's top speed is
also only 38 miles per hour.

So you're not getting
away from bad guys

moving that slowly.

- In addition to that,
it's super loud.

Those two 180-horsepower engines

produce a lot of noise.

And so if the idea is to
employ stealth on a battlefield

as you rush in at
the blistering rate

of 38 miles per hour
in your hover car,

the enemy will
know you're coming.

- So it's big, it's
heavy, it's slow,

and it can't go everywhere.

And then the government
scraps the project.

- [Dan] But the engineers
at Curtis Wright

aren't ready to be
grounded just yet.

- They now see the possibility
of a civilian version.

One is a full sedan
for the family,

and the other one is
a sporty little one,

a two-seater called the Bee.

They actually put
on a demonstration

in front of Rockefeller
Plaza in New York City

to show off the new cars.

But the price is a
whopping $15,000,

which in the 1960s

is more expensive
than a Rolls-Royce.

- Despite their marketing and
their brilliant engineering,

they don't sell a
single hover car.

[fans humming]

- A floating family sedan
that can go over water?

I gotta say,
there's worse things

to spend your money on.

- Genius inventors have
solved countless problems

over the centuries.

How to see at night, how to fly,

how to communicate
across oceans.

But one colossal
problem has evaded

even the greatest
creative minds.

How do you stop a
free-range toddler

from wreaking havoc?

In the 1950s,

one inventor is
brave enough to try.

[bright music]

- Any parent knows that
keeping track of their kids

when they're little,
that's a stressful time.

There's a reason we call
it the terrible twos.

- You take your eye
off them for a second,

they're in another room,

they could crawl
into the street,

they could fall out a window.

So in 1953, an inventor
comes up with something

to try and fix this problem.

- [Dan] It's called the
infant restraining device,

and they're basically
baby shackles.

- What better way to make sure
your child doesn't wander off

than putting their
ankles in manacles

and ensuring their
early childhood trauma?

- Now, in theory,
it makes sense.

If your kid can't
climb on things,

they can't run away,

they'll probably be safe.

But in reality,

it looks like you've put
your kid in handcuffs.

They look like
tiny baby convicts.

- [Dan] But don't worry,

unlike those worn
by a chain gang,

these shackles use stretchy
material, not iron.

- [Kavitha] So
your kid can walk,

but they can't run
or climb on things.

- But the problem is,

you can't restrain a kid
from wanting to go running.

The kid doesn't know that
they're, well, baby shackled.

So having a kid take off running
and face plant in the street

does not look that
good for the parent.

- Unsurprisingly, this patent

is never actually
brought to production,

but the technology,
the innovation of it,

isn't actually lost.

- In 1977, it's repurposed as
a prisoner restraint device.

And that 1977 patent

is utilized for a
short period of time.

So invented for your toddler,

but strong enough for
your dangerous criminal.

[child crying]

- Surprisingly, restraints
are at the forefront

of another bizarre
baby invention.

[inquisitive music]

- It's the 1960s,

an engineer named George
Blonsky and his wife

are at the Bronx Zoo.

And they get to witness
the miracle of birth,

an elephant is giving birth.

- But they notice
something kinda strange.

The mother elephant
who's giving birth

is spinning around as
the baby is coming out.

So they ask one of
the zoo employees

and they explain that the mother

is using centrifugal force

to help the baby come out.

Think about those
merry-go-rounds

that are in playgrounds, right?

The faster it goes, the
harder it is to hang on,

and you're probably
gonna fall off.

- [Dan] That fateful
moment at the zoo

gets George thinking,

could this centrifugal
force concept

be applied to human births?

- The Blonskys,
who are childless,

have theorized that modern women

have lost their
birthing muscles,

have lost their
abdominal strength,

and thus might
need a little help,

specifically by spinning her

in the same way that the
elephant was witnessed

spinning on its own at the zoo.

- Blonsky is not an OB/GYN,

but he is a mining engineer.

- [Dan] Despite this, by 1965,

the couple gets a patent

for what will later be known
as the Blonsky birthing table.

- So this thing
looks horrifying.

It looks like a
medieval torture device.

This woman is
strapped on to a wheel

by her neck and her
thighs and her waist,

and she's got something
covering her face.

But to make sure
she's comfortable,

you know, while she's
strapped by her throat,

they have given her a pillow.

- [Dan] Once she's strapped in,

it's time to start
that spin cycle.

- The idea is that the
centrifugal force,

as this woman is holding
on for dear life,

will help eject the baby
effortlessly from the womb.

- Now, although you might
think that the baby

might just fly out and
smack against the wall,

the Bloskys have
thought of everything,

and the apparatus
includes a net,

which is situated
between the woman's legs

to catch the baby
as it comes out.

- [Dan] It's a truly
bizarre concept,

but could it possibly work?

- The Bloskys got as far
as making a prototype,

but surprisingly enough,
they found zero buyers.

Maybe it's because no
one wanted the idea

of spinning a mother around

until the baby was ejected
from the womb into a net.

- It's pretty clear that
Blonsky didn't do the math

because it would require
so much rotational speed

for a baby to actually be
mechanically shot out of a woman

that both the mother and
the baby would probably die.

[tense music]

- Delivering a
baby is one thing,

but keeping them
entertained as a child

is a whole other challenge.

Something the world's
most famous inventor

tries his hand at.

- In 1887, Thomas Edison
is only 40 years old

and already a living legend.

He's invented the
automatic telegraph,

the movie camera,
the light bulb,

and now, he's filed a patent

for something that's gonna
blow everyone's mind again,

the wax cylinder phonograph.

[inquisitive music]

But just having people play
records in their living rooms

isn't enough for Edison.

And within a year,
he has a patent

for another innovation
using sound.

- [Dan] His idea is to
put a scaled-down version

of the record player

inside a doll so it can talk.

- So let's keep in mind that

no one's used to hearing
recorded anything.

If you like music, you're
gonna hear it live.

So for him to not only
bring audible recordings

into the world,

but now he's gonna
put it into a doll?

This is a new idea
on top of a new idea,

wrapped up in a new idea.

- Basically, it's a cute
little porcelain and wood doll

with this little
crank on the back,

and the sound will
come out of the doll.

- Because these
records are so small,

they really can only hold about
20 seconds of sound on them.

So Edison chooses really
short-snippet nursery rhymes,

like "Mary Had a Little Lamb"

or "Hickory Dickory Dock,"

or "As I Lay Me Down to Sleep."

- [Dan] In 1889, the
world's first talking doll

is ready to be shipped.

And the excitement quickly
generates hundreds of orders.

- But as people
start getting them

and start playing with them,

they realize it's not quite
all it's cracked up to be.

- The reaction once the
dolls were delivered

is universal creepiness.

To record at the time,

you have to yell
into a giant bell

as loud as possible.

So the people performing
these nursery rhymes

are not singing
dulcet, lovely tones,

they're screaming as
loud as they can.

- It's one thing to have these
cute little nursery rhymes

coming from these
children's dolls,

but instead, you have
these middle-aged women

shouting at you.

It's very disconcerting.

[doll shouting indistinctly]

- [Dan] As quickly as the
Edison dolls are sold,

they start getting
returned with complaints

that they're scaring
the children,

and the parents.

- By May of 1890,

just weeks after the
dolls are launched,

Edison shuts the
entire operation down.

It's a total failure.

In fact, Edison, completely
owning reality here,

he dubs the dolls
his little monsters.

[doll eerily laughing]
[ominous music]

- While the terrifying dolls
weren't his brightest idea,

Edison still went on to
invent the movie camera,

the world's first
storage batteries,

and many other things.

So while he may have caused
a few children to lose sleep,

Edison probably didn't
lose much himself.

- It's been said that necessity
is the mother of invention,

and this need is at the
center of a very unusual idea

for a military gadget
in the Vietnam jungle.

[tense music]
[gunfire]

- During the Vietnam War,

the American Air Force is
facing a particular problem,

which is that when they
drop radio transmitters

into the jungle to pinpoint

exactly where they want
airstrikes to take place,

many times those transmitters

are discovered by the
enemy and destroyed.

- So what you need
is a homing beacon

that will blend into
the natural environment.

- By 1970, they come
out with something

that is truly outside the box.

- [Dan] At just four inches
long and 1/4 inch tall,

the T-1151 is a fully
functional radio transmitter

disguised as animal poop.

- It can be dropped as a beacon
for troops to rendezvous

or as a target indicator
for a bombing operation.

- It can even monitor
ground movements,

so it can send a signal

indicating the movement
of an enemy convoy.

This allows the Air Force
to hide transmission points

and rendezvous points

for days and even weeks.

It's the perfect combination
of disgusting and brilliant.

- It is employed and it
is highly successful,

simply because it's
disguised as something

that nobody wants to go
near, let alone inspect.

- [Dan] It also has a very
important number-two function.

[plane whooshing]

- Imagine being a American
pilot in the Vietnam War

and you're shot down.

[explosion booming]

Now you're in the jungle.

Who would've thought
that the greatest thing

that you could ever see
is a little piece of poop?

The T-1151 transmitter.

- He can open it
up, press a button,

and that will stop the
transmission signal

and allow him to send
a Morse code message

back to base.

- It's basically an
early form of texting.

This transmitter is
actually successful

in the Vietnam War.

So the CIA decides
to adopt this thing

and continue using it.

So who knows how many bad guys

have had their
secret plans thwarted

due to this 1/4-inch-high
transmitter?

- Clearly, when duty
calls, inventors answer.

So when one idea-man

sees the need for a
better automobile,

he decides to
reinvent the wheel.

[inquisitive music]

- In the 1930s, automobiles
have only been around now

for about 20 years.

So there are a lot of designers
and inventors out there

that are looking for new
ways to get people moving.

- [Dan] One of these inventors
is an electrical engineer

named Jonathan Archibald Purvis.

- So Purvis is not really happy

with the concept
of the automobile.

There's a lot of drawbacks.

They're not good
on rocky surfaces,

they're not good in mud,

or tall grass, or even
the sand of a beach.

- So he has in the
back of his mind,

"How can I improve
this vehicle?"

when he looks at a picture
of da Vinci's Vitruvian Man,

the dude in the
big circle, right?

And he thinks to himself,

"Why are we driving on wheels

when we can drive in a wheel?"

- [Dan] And if you
are in a wheel,

like the Vitruvian Man,

you only need one, not four.

[inquisitive music]

- By 1932, Purvis
has his prototype.

He calls it the Dynasphere,

his giant, one-wheel wonder.

- He believes that this is
the wave of the future.

- So he and his son,
who's also an engineer,

gather a crowd
together at a beach

and they bring out this
giant monstrosity of a wheel.

It's 10 feet tall,
it weighs half a ton,

and at the bottom is where
there's a gas engine

underneath a platform
for the driver.

- [Dan] But given
how bizarre it looks,

will it even work?

- So Purvis is in the
vehicle with his son,

who he lets do the driving.

This thing fires up
and starts to roll.

- The craft is sort of
wobbly when it starts out,

but as they pick up speed,

conservation of angular
momentum kicks in

and they stabilize.

And they get up to
30 miles per hour

going down the beach.

Now, this is in contrast
to normal automobiles

that just don't go
anywhere on a beach.

- So people at this time
are absolutely blown away

by what they are seeing.

The Dynasphere is
going to give people

who live in outlying areas

where people have to
go over rocky ground,

or sand, or mud,

the ability now to do it.

- [Dan] So why aren't
we all cruising around

in Dynaspheres today?

- The design has some drawbacks.

For one, the driver needs to
stick their head out the side

in order to have a clear
vision of where they're going.

On an open beach, that
can work out pretty well,

but that's not gonna work
in a busy London street.

It also has a problem turning.

- So because the entire
vehicle is a wheel,

if you wanna go
left, you lean left,

if you go right, you lean right.

So steering it is
just like a bicycle,

a 1,000-pound bicycle.

So it's too heavy to lean.

That's usually why
in demonstrations,

you only see it going
in a straight line.

- [Dan] But the
biggest problem occurs

when you slam on the brakes.

- While the outside
wheel stops just fine,

the platform you
sit in does not.

- So if you slam on the brakes

and that outer wheel stops,

the inner wheel keeps turning,

and so you do just
what a gerbil does

when you see it on the wheel,

then suddenly it's
going head over heels.

- Sadly, millions of drivers

never experience
the joy of commuting

by giant hamster wheel

because the Dynasphere
never goes into production.

- They say you are what you eat.

But in the 1930s,
an Italian engineer

sets out to prove that you
could also wear what you eat.

[pensive music]

- It's post-World War I
and Italy is realizing

that it needs to establish
some self-sufficiency.

It doesn't wanna be dependent
on these other nations

that it was just at war at
for key goods and services.

- Mussolini is in power

and his government is
extremely interested

in coming up with new ways
to make everyday products

that don't require importing.

So Italians are encouraged
to be innovative

for the sake of national pride.

- One of Italy's biggest
imports is wool from England,

because so much of the
clothing in that era

was made from wool.

And so there's a big push

to become less reliant
on British wool.

- [Dan] So in 1935, Italian
engineer, Antonio Ferretti,

patents something that
does the body good,

in more ways than one.

- Ferretti develops a new way
of making fabric out of milk.

- It turns out that wool
actually comes from a protein

that shares a lot of
similarities to casein,

which is a protein
found in milk.

Ferretti notices that
when preparing milk,

there's a thin layer that has
to be skimmed off the top,

basically to ensure there
are no chunks in your milk.

- And typically in a
milk production process,

this is discarded.

However, Ferretti
discovers that this protein

can be re-manipulated
and re-bonded again

into an actual fabric.

- The process of turning this
milk cast off into fabric

is quite fascinating.

What they do is they add acid

to this skimmed-off product,

and that separates
out the casein,

which is then forced through
spinnerets like macaroni.

And then that product

is subject to a
chemical hardening bath,

which then leaves a product

that can be cut into
bolts of fabric.

- [Dan] Once they're
ready to wear,

Ferretti needs to
figure out a name,

since "milk clothes" doesn't
really have a great ring to it.

- So Ferretti comes up
with the name Lanital

because the Italian word
for wool is lana and Italia,

you get Lanital.

- Even though this product
is not as durable as wool,

many people like it.

They prefer it because
it's soft, it's smooth,

it feels more like silk.

- By the late '30s,

milk fiber is
everywhere in Italy.

It's in their famous suits,

it's used in the official
government flags.

It's really becoming a
point of national pride.

- Mussolini is thrilled
with the success

and points to it as an
example of Italian ingenuity

and the ability of Italians
to be more self-sufficient.

- [Dan] Italy even begins
selling the technology

to other countries.

And by the 1940s,

milk chic is all the rage in
New York City fashion shows.

But there's a catch.

- Lanital, should it get
wet, has a terrible smell.

As if when regular wool gets wet

and doesn't smell bad enough,

when Lanital gets wet,
it smells like sour milk.

- Imagine like you're on a date
and you get caught in the rain,

and it's super romantic.

You lean in for the kiss,

and you realize you
smell like sour milk.

- [Dan] By the late 1940s,

the milk fiber fad
begins to dry up.

- Things in Italy
are changing a lot.

Mussolini is gone,

Italy has a new government,

and the world is generally
moving away from isolationism.

The other big change is the
advent of synthetic fibers.

They're just as
cheap, they're strong,

and most crucially, they do
not smell like sour milk.

- [Dan] Believe it or not,

milk clothes aren't the most
bizarre food product ever made.

That honor belongs to an unusual
innovation from Australia.

- Humans love their meat.

In fact, today, humans eat

over 300 million
tons of meat a year.

But the problem with meat

is that it's really
inefficient to make.

- It consumes a lot of
water, a lot of land,

and a lot of resources.

- And it's very clear
that at the current rate

of population growth,

this is not a
sustainable path forward.

- [Dan] That's
why some companies

are making meat in a lab.

They call it cultivated meat.

- Scientists can take
cells from a living animal

without killing it,

place those cells
in a bioreactor,

and grow meat.

- It's really meat,

not a plant that's made to
taste and look like meat,

but actually lab-grown meat.

- You can make chicken,
you can make beef,

you can make fish.

Some companies are even
trying to make alligator

or kangaroo meat in a lab.

- [Dan] But in 2023,
a company in Australia

decides to try for
something a bit more exotic.

- So a company named Vow

decides to create
meat from the DNA

of a long extinct animal,

the wooly mammoth.

- The challenge to
using ancient DNA

is that it breaks apart

and some of the pieces get lost.

But Vow tries to
fill in the blanks

with a close living relative

of the wooly mammoth,

the African elephant.

And lo and behold, it works.

- [Dan] Unbelievably,
after just a few weeks,

they unveil a wooly
mammoth meatball.

- So we now have the first
mammoth meat in 4,000 years,

and I'm sure somebody
out there is going,

"Can't wait to get my hands

on that tasty, tasty
mammoth meatball."

One small caveat.

- We haven't eaten
mammoth in 4,000 years.

Our biomes and our enzymes

may have changed
in our gut flora,

and therefore we don't know

if we are able to
eat it anymore.

It might actually be deadly

to consume this mammoth meat.

- [Dan] So far, nobody's
actually tried it.

Maybe it's best to let
sleeping mammoths lie.

- The company that made
the mammoth meatball,

they said it was
just an experiment,

but it does illustrate

what the future
could possibly hold.

- Several companies in the US

have actually
received permission

to sell cultivated meat.

So if you're gonna
make chicken and beef,

why not also try mammoth?

- There's no telling
what's gonna be

in our refrigerators
in the future,

or in our grocery stores.

It may be extinct meat.

- You know, I'd give
that meatball a shot.

Can't be worse than
the mystery meat

the cafeteria in school
served us as kids.

- Since the brutal days of
the stocks or the pillory,

the Brits have always loved

adding a dose of humiliation
as a crime deterrent.

So it's no surprise that
it's two British inventors

who come up with a strange
and embarrassing deterrent

for would-be briefcase thieves.

[inquisitive music]

- In the 1960s,

the city of London sees
record crime rates.

It's post-World War II,

the economy is not as
strong as it once was,

employment is not as
great as it once was,

and so you have a lot
of working-class people

that are worried about
pickpockets and thieves.

- Now, at the time, there
aren't a lot of options

for self-defense in London.

Handguns are outlawed
in the 1930s,

and while pepper
spray is invented,

that soon gets outlawed as well.

So the everyday citizen

doesn't really have
a lot of options

to protect themselves
on the streets.

- [Dan] That's when
inventor John Fisher

comes up with a
totally bizarre way

to prevent criminals
from stealing your stuff.

With anything up to 20,000
pounds in fivers in the case,

the thief has a big
decision to make.

Imagine you're walking
down the street

and someone runs up

and tries to steal
your briefcase.

You just simply hit a button,

and that's where the Arrester
security case comes in.

- The first thing it does,

it emits this incredibly
loud horn noise.

[suitcase alarm blaring]

So everyone is looking
in the direction

of where this horn
is coming from.

Secondly, the
handle smashes down

onto the thief's fingers,

applying a ton of pressure,

thus causing them to
be in a bunch of pain.

- And then, the
real cherry on top

is that after your hand is
locked to this briefcase,

three extendable poles
pop outta the briefcase.

[poles whooshing]

So not only are you
locked to this thing,

but now with the three
posts sticking out,

you also can't get away.

What a brilliant idea.

- And now you can't
get through doorways,

you can't get into a cab.

You're basically arrested
by this briefcase.

So the key selling point
here is the public shaming.

The bad guy is stuck there with
his hand on the briefcase,

alarms going off, these
bars shot out of it,

and he basically
just has to wait

for the cops to come and
get him and take him away.

- As far as we know,

none of these cases
were ever sold.

But the demo film
for the Arrester

is shown in theaters
all over London.

So perhaps that film
was the deterrent

that was needed to
stop wannabe thieves

from running up on
English businessmen

and stealing their briefcases

full of somewhat
interesting documents

and half-eaten sandwiches.

- Electronic security has
made quite a few advancements

since the Arrester,

like this farfetched version
of man's best friend.

[tense music]

- Modern drones
are everywhere now.

They're used by the
military, police,

filmmakers, you name it.

But drones have limitations.

- For flying drones, they
can't fly in bad weather,

they're susceptible to
running into obstacles,

like power lines or trees.

And if you want a
drone for security,

there are also other drawbacks.

Navigating through
buildings is very difficult.

They can't pick things up.

- You also have wheeled drones

and drones that are on tracks.

And these are great for
detecting bombs and explosives,

but they have their
limitations too.

They can't go upstairs,

they can't go on
adverse terrain.

And so this poses a
new set of limitations.

- In 2016, Boston Dynamics
unveils a new kind of drone,

not one that's gonna
get caught in trees,

or blown over by the wind,

or unable to make
it up the stairs.

Nope, they create
a new type of drone

that has the ability to walk.

- [Dan] They call him Spot,

the world's first commercially
available robot drone

on four legs.

- At first glance,
when you look at Spot,

Spot is creepy,

kinda looks like a
possessed demonic animal.

So maybe they called him Spot

just to sort of brand him

as something a little
bit friendlier.

And it kinda looks like a dog.

It's got the four legs.

- Spot also has an
optional add-on arm,

so it can do things
like open doors,

manipulate objects.

It is a bad boy.

- [Dan] Soon, Spots
are mass produced

as commercial security drones

to patrol large
businesses and factories,

doing things no junkyard
dog could do before.

- Spot is equipped
with night vision

and can operate on thermal
or electro-optical cameras.

He can be programmed to
do self-patrol missions

or he can be operated remotely.

- And the best part,

if it sees intruders,

you can program Spot
to call the cops.

- And when the battery gets low,

Spot doesn't even
have to be plugged in,

he just walks into
his little doghouse

and charges himself.

And unlike traditional
guard dogs,

Spot never poops.

- [Dan] But one company decides

it can really turn up the
heat on Spot's potential.

- There's a company
called Throwflame

that makes flamethrowers,

and they design the Therminator.

It is a flamethrower

that attaches to Spot's back.

So now you have a
flame-throwing dog drone

that can go anywhere and
set anything on fire.

- [Dan] A flame
spitting hell hound

may sound like a gimmick,

but the Therminator actually
has practical applications.

- Putting a
flamethrower on the back

of this robot dog
is just awesome.

Flamethrowers are used to
clear agricultural brush,

to melt snow, to clear
away any sort of debris.

[flames whooshing]

- A flying drone can't handle
the payload of a flamethrower

and a wheeled drone can't
get the flamethrower

out on challenging terrain.

So if you're gonna mount a
flamethrower on something,

it's gotta be Spot.

- To be clear, flamethrowers
are legal in the United States,

however, deadly use
of a flamethrower

is definitely not legal or
recommended by anybody.

So do not put a
flamethrower on its back

and try to incinerate
trespassers.

Instead, you can program Spot

to call the police right away.

- I don't wanna use my
Spot and a flamethrower

for any bad guys,
but what a cool way

to start the barbecue
in the summertime.

[flames whooshing]

- We've explored
some zany ideas,

from centrifugal birthing tables

to flame-throwing drone dogs,

but this next innovation

is a lot more up
close and personal.

- In the mid-1950s, a
doctor named John Farrar

is looking for a way to
measure pressure changes

inside human intestines.

- Recording pressure information

inside a human digestive tract
is actually quite useful.

It could be blockages,

other diseases, or even cancer.

- The typical way this is done

is by having a sensor
on the end of a tube

and that tube is snaked
down the patient's throat

into their esophagus,
into their stomach,

and then through the tens
of feet of intestines

that we have.

Talk about uncomfortable
and disgusting.

- [Dan] So the
doctor has an idea,

what if the patient could
just ditch the tube?

- How does it get down there?

The patient will
swallow it in pill form.

His idea is to put
inside the pill

a little transistor radio,

and the radio will
deliver the signal

outside the body.

So Dr. Farrar teams up
with the people at RCA

and they make it happen.

- By 1957, Farrar has
developed the radio pill.

It's a 1 1/2-inch-long pill,

and it measures the
pressure changes inside

using a flexible membrane.

Changes in internal pressure

affect the pitch and
tone of the radio signal,

enabling the doctor to ascertain

what's going on on the inside.

- They could have
perhaps obstruction

inside their intestines,

they could have cancer.

Once we have this information
about the pressures,

we can now form a proper
treatment plan for the patient.

- So you might be wondering
how you get the pill out.

It's actually comes
out the natural way.

And given the fact
that the pills cost

approximately $160,000
in today's dollars,

they're likely used
more than once.

- Initially, there's great
excitement about this pill.

It even gets a writeup
in "Life Magazine."

But the big problem is the cost.

So the pill never gets
past the trial runs.

- Around the same time the
radio pill is being tested,

a physicist is also
thinking about ways

to go where no person
has gone before.

- In 1959, theoretical
physicist, Richard Feynman,

the guy who basically
created quantum mechanics,

is working with his
assistant, Albert Hibbs,

and Albert has an idea.

He suggests that
with the current rate

of advancement in
microtechnology,

in the future, we might not
only be able to swallow sensors,

but we might also be able
to swallow the surgeon.

- [Dan] While he wasn't
suggesting that we eat doctors,

he was suggesting

the revolutionary
concept of nanomedicine.

- Nano means very, very small.

- We have meters,
and millimeters,

and micrometers, and nanometers.

So anything that's super small,

we just put nano in front of it.

- By the 1990s, scientists
are able to create

nanostructures so small

that they can bring
medicine not only to organs,

but to individual cells.

- [Dan] Then scientists
start to wonder,

"What if we could make
robot doctors that small?"

- Imagine just injecting
little robot surgeons

into your body to
do surgery on you,

or to kill cancerous cells.

- And so while you're
playing basketball,

they can repair whatever
needs to be repaired

without having a
surgeon slice you open.

- It's like "Innerspace"

when Dennis Quaid
flies that spaceship

into Martin Short's body,

but ends up winning
Meg Ryan's heart.

Same thing.

- Nano robots have applications
far outside of medicine.

They can clean up toxic waste.

They can be used for
space exploration.

There is no limit
to the applications.

We're at the very
beginning, and so

this is something that's
gonna blow up with time.

- [Dan] The desire to
improve the world around us

has led to some
remarkable things,

some that are truly amazing,

and some that are truly bizarre.

But as long as we
strive to innovate,

we'll keep creating new things

that are truly unbelievable.

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