This is an excellent illustration that the applications of basic research cannot always be predicted. In this case it started more basically than research: art!
The video talks about using dead people to do the work for you! It goes into the mathematics of origami, and their modern uses in satellites, surgery and airbags!
Watch this, especially if you are avoiding doing real work by browsing the web.
Another nice TED talk, this time on insights on psychology from brain studies. Here is a summary.
We were not built to be happy, we were built to reproduce. We can be romantically in love with someone, attached to someone else and connect with someone else.
So we must build our own happiness.
This is one of the times something made sense because someone was better at me at expressing something I had independently (perhaps almost) concluded and experienced for myself.
The talk is about achieving or being in flow. I sometimes achieve it when writing, it happened to me during an aikido grading where I was feeling invincible while being thrown around continuously, sometimes even when doing lab work with a protocol I have mastered and trying to beat my previous record.
Now that I know about it, I can consciously strive to achieve being in flow more often.
From the author of ‘Predictably irrational’. Lots of captivating examples, humour and an inspiring message. 20 minutes well spent.