Today's "Asia, Africa, and Latin America" is synonymous with poverty, and few people know that Latino inventors created many world-changing devices that still profoundly affect the way we live today. Here are the 7 greatest inventions of the Latins:
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="41" >1</h1>
The upgrade from black-and-white to color television began in the 1960s thanks to a patent filed by Mexico's Guillermo González Camarena in 1940 for the "Chromaticity Adapter for Television Devices." Camarena, an electrical engineer majoring in electronics at Mexico's National Institute of Technology, created the first three-color field sequence system, a technique for transmitting moving images of red, green, and blue variations to achieve color spectra, before which television could only play monochromatic images.
The image originates from the internet
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="43" >2</h1>
Thanks to the contribution of Arturo Arias Suárez, a professor at the University of Chile, scientists were able to predict where earthquakes could occur and assess the risk of damage caused by earthquakes. Arias was director of the Chilean Institute for Materials Research and Testing from 1958 to 1965. In 1970, he developed the "Instrumental Seismic Intensity" or "Arias Intensity" method, a mathematical formula for assessing the intensity of seismic tremors by measuring seismic waves. With the Arias Strength Formula, building engineers can design buildings that are better resistant to seismic activity.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="45" >3</h1>
Luis von Ahn of Guatemala developed a code for the network security system. Captcha (a fully automated public Turing test to distinguish between computers and humans) is a randomly generated challenge-response test designed to help prevent spambots from accessing computer systems. Von Ann is the co-founder of the language learning app Duolingo, who created cybersecurity technology in 2000 while pursuing his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University. He gave the technology to Yahoo for free because Yahoo encountered an automatic spamming problem. Today, almost every online server uses a network security system captcha.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="47" >4</h1>
Julio Palmaz, an interventional vascular radiologist in Argentina, is known for advancing angioplasty, which helps unclog blood arteries and make it easier for blood to flow to the heart. Palmaz collaborated with cardiologist Richard Schatz to invent a balloon dilation stent that keeps the heart artery open after angioplasty. Palmaz-Schatz stents are patented and financially supported by healthcare company Johnson & Johnson and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In 2006, Palmaz was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="49" >5</h1>
Albert Vinicio Báez, a Mexican-American physicist, co-invented the X-ray reflective microscope in 1948 with Paul Kirkpatrick, a professor of physics at Stanford University. Buzz has worked and taught for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and is the father of renowned folk singer Joan Baez. Buzz X-ray reflection microscopy uses X-rays to produce magnified images of small or distant objects. The device has been used to detect living cells and study galaxies. This invention opened up the branch of X-ray optics.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="51" >6</h1>
Mexican chemist Luis Miramontes synthesized the pill in 1951 when he was a 26-year-old doctoral student in carl Gerasi's lab in Mexico City. Key to the invention was the development of norethindrone, a molecule derived from wild Mexican yam known as dioscorea Mexicana.
Norethindrone was the main active ingredient in the first contraceptive, and the laboratory subsequently registered it as Norinyl. The first contraceptive drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1960 (Enovid-10) was developed by its competitors, but the norethindrone version was also quickly approved and became the industry standard.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="53" >7</h1>
Born in Argentina in 1924, Domingo Santo Liotta was an Italian immigrant who is considered a pioneer in cardiac surgery. In 1969, Lyotard developed the first all-artificial heart that was successfully implanted in the human body. The device was implanted in a 47-year-old patient with severe heart failure. Implants allow patients to survive for three days until someone donates a heart.