Opinion: Art and Innovation

t's the new year- and one of my resolutions is to focus on the positive, especially on people who create goodness and bring beauty into the world, be it by art or by innovation.  Most situations can have an optimistic outcome.   However, twisting positive stories out of war zones is no easy task, but just like talented artists can give meaning to a canvas with his brush, everything is in the eye of the beholder.

Wars are ugly, no matter how you paint it, but scientists both in North American and Israel are working to protect soldiers from harms way, as well as to help them lead normal lives after life altering injuries.

Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel have developed an ultra strong impact resistant material using nanotechnology.   Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale.  This material created by nanotechnology is about four to five times stronger than steel and about six times stronger than Kevlar, a popular material today for bullet proof vests.

The company, ApNano, which is producing the materials, is also using the same technology to make products to enhance the performance of personal safety items such as helmets, as well as protection products for vehicles and aircraft.

So while world leaders disagree, and wars break out, scientists at Weizmann as well as innovators around the world are working to protect men and women in uniform.

American inventors such as Dean Kamen, CEO of DEKA, whose inventions include the Segway, are working for the United States Pentagon on a project called "Revolutionizing Prosthetics."

Four years ago, the Pentagon approached Kamen to create a prosthetic arm for soldiers who had lost their arms in wars.  It needed to be computer operated and sensitive enough to pick up a raisin or grape off the table without crushing it.  Current fake prosthetic arms are so dated, they still have a hook on the end of them and were created decades ago.

The Pentagon invested $100 million in the project and now the DEKA arm is undergoing clinical testing.   The goal is to have the robotic arm available soon to the nearly 200 arm amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dean's invention is not a classified military weapons system, so in reality it turns into advancement in medical technology.  So while wars wreak havoc, they also force creativity and innovation which will ultimately benefit more of the world at large.

Inventors are not the only people who have taken the evils of war and translated them into progress.  Artists often do the same, taking the revulsion of wars, and recreating the truth, showing no matter how just and needed a war might be the ultimate result is people die, leaving behind families to figure out ways to fill the void of a lost loved one.

One artist, Gerald Siegel who paints topics such as September 11, Kristallnacht and the Holocaust explains, "Art gives one a method of expressing the total horrors of war." Siegel uses the experience of tragedies and translates them into works of art, in order to educate, with the additional hope it might inspire some to carefully consider their actions.

Great upheaval and misery often force people to create, innovate and invent products that ultimately change the face of the world for the better.  Some of the progress which evolved out of World War Two were the jet engine, synthetic rubber for tires and the beginning steps to the computer.

So when certain events are out of our control, perhaps the best way interpret the situation is to be like the painter who see it a situation in black and white but paints with color.

It's the new year- and one of my resolutions is to focus on the positive, especially on people who create goodness and bring beauty into the world, be it by art or by innovation.  Most situations can have an optimistic outcome.   However, twisting positive stories out of war zones is no easy task, but just like talented artists can give meaning to a canvas with his brush, everything is in the eye of the beholder.

Wars are ugly, no matter how you paint it, but scientists both in North American and Israel are working to protect soldiers from harms way, as well as to help them lead normal lives after life altering injuries.

Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel have developed an ultra strong impact resistant material using nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale.  This material created by nanotechnology is about four to five times stronger than steel and about six times stronger than Kevlar, a popular material today for bullet proof vests.

The company, ApNano, which is producing the materials, is also using the same technology to make products to enhance the performance of personal safety items such as helmets, as well as protection products for vehicles and aircraft.

So while world leaders disagree, and wars break out, scientists at Weizmann as well as innovators around the world are working to protect men and women in uniform.

American inventors such as Dean Kamen, CEO of DEKA, whose inventions include the Segway, are working for the United States Pentagon on a project called "Revolutionizing Prosthetics."

Four years ago, the Pentagon approached Kamen to create a prosthetic arm for soldiers who had lost their arms in wars.  It needed to be computer operated and sensitive enough to pick up a raisin or grape off the table without crushing it.  Current fake prosthetic arms are so dated, they still have a hook on the end of them and were created decades ago.

The Pentagon invested $100 million in the project and now the DEKA arm is undergoing clinical testing.   The goal is to have the robotic arm available soon to the nearly 200 arm amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dean's invention is not a classified military weapons system, so in reality it turns into advancement in medical technology.  So while wars wreak havoc, they also force creativity and innovation which will ultimately benefit more of the world at large.

Inventors are not the only people who have taken the evils of war and translated them into progress.  Artists often do the same, taking the revulsion of wars, and recreating the truth, showing no matter how just and needed a war might be the ultimate result is people die, leaving behind families to figure out ways to fill the void of a lost loved one.

One artist, Gerald Siegel who paints topics such as September 11, Kristallnacht and the Holocaust explains, "Art gives one a method of expressing the total horrors of war." Siegel uses the experience of tragedies and translates them into works of art, in order to educate, with the additional hope it might inspire some to carefully consider their actions.

Great upheaval and misery often force people to create, innovate and invent products that ultimately change the face of the world for the better.  Some of the progress which evolved out of World War Two were the jet engine, synthetic rubber for tires and the beginning steps to the computer.

So when certain events are out of our control, perhaps the best way interpret the situation is to be like the painter who see it a situation in black and white but paints with color.