Best Of The Rest

(4 of 5)

A New Way to Keep Food Cool
In rural northern Nigeria, there are no refrigerators. Most people don't even have electricity. So perishable food must be eaten immediately, or it will go to waste. Mohammed Bah Abba, a local teacher, has developed an ingenious solution: the Pot-in-Pot Preservation Cooling System. A small earthenware pot is placed inside a larger one, and the space between the two is filled with moist sand. The inner pot is filled with fruit, vegetables or soft drinks; a wet cloth covers the whole thing. As water in the sand evaporates through the surface of the outer pot, it carries heat, drawing it away from the inner core. Eggplants stay fresh for 27 days, instead of the usual three. Tomatoes and peppers last for up to three weeks. A recipient of the Rolex Award for Enterprise, Abba, 37, who hails from a family of potmakers, is using his $75,000 award to make the invention available throughout Nigeria. He has already sold 12,000.

--INVENTOR Mohammed Bah Abba
--AVAILABILITY Now (in Nigeria), for 40[cents] a set
--TO LEARN MORE Visit rolexawards.com

Power to the People
Tired of having your cell-phone battery go dead just when you need it most? FreeCharge is a half-pound, hand-cranked generator that you can attach to your cell phone and turn for 30 sec. to generate enough juice for five minutes of talk time. The first version will work on most Motorola phones; the next ones will power other makers' phones. This is the third in a series of windup electronic devices originally designed for use in developing nations. The first two--the Freeplay radio and flashlight--have been surprise hits in the U.S.

--INVENTORS Freeplay and Motorola
--AVAILABILITY In December, for $50
--TO LEARN MORE Visit motorola.com

Pocketful of Silicon
You may be a gadget freak at heart, but there's no need to look like one. On the outside, Dockers' Mobile Pant appears to be an ordinary pair of tailored slacks. But tucked inside its waist seams and hidden behind zippers on the legs are three extra mesh-lined pockets for stashing everything from your cell phone to your PDA. One piece of advice: make sure you unload your cache before passing through airport metal detectors, or you'll be outed as a geek faster than you can say Palm Pilot.

--INVENTOR Dockers
--AVAILABILITY Now, for $52
--TO LEARN MORE Visit dockers.com

Next Time You're in Antarctica
Forget the down jacket, the long underwear and the extra-thick scarf. Designed for extreme cold, the North Face MET5 jacket can keep you warm all by itself, thanks to a network of microscopic, waterproof heating elements woven into the fabric. Working a control unit stashed near the chest, you can dial the heat up to 114[degrees]F. Small lithium-ion batteries keep the juice flowing for up to five hours.

--INVENTOR Malden Ventures, Polartec and North Face Research, Design & Development
--AVAILABILITY Now, for $500
--TO LEARN MORE Visit thenorthface.com

Talk Is Cheap
Cell phones are supposed to make our lives easier. So why do wireless companies keep packing them with pricey extras--like color screens, Web browsers, games and e-mail--that most people don't need? Now several companies are developing stripped-down, single-use models targeted for casual users who just want to take a cell phone on vacation or stash one with their emergency flashlight. One of the first to market will be the Hop-On Wireless (shown here) priced at $30 for 30 min. of talk time. To keep costs down, the device (about the size of a deck of cards) contains only a quarter of the components found in a typical cell phone. It doesn't take incoming calls, and there's no keypad or display. Instead, users plug in an earpiece (included) and speak the number aloud; voice-recognition technology converts the sounds into digits and places the call. To activate the phone, users simply push the green call button. Color-coded lights indicate when the 30 min. of prepaid talk time is running low (yellow) or out (red). The lithium-ion batteries will last for up to two years, so your minutes will probably run out before your batteries do.

--INVENTOR Peter Michaels, Hop-On Wireless
--AVAILABILITY In December, for $30
--TO LEARN MORE Visit hop-on.com

Pass the Gravy
Mashed potatoes are the ultimate comfort food. But boiling the potatoes and whipping them up just right is a drag. Now homemaker Carmina O'Connor of Warrenville, Ill., has patented a mashed-potato machine that cooks, mashes and flavors potatoes in just 20 min. Chefs insert washed potatoes into a food processor-size device and add water and seasonings. A finalist in Hammacher Schlemmer's Search for Invention 2001 competition, O'Connor hopes that someday "mashed-potato machines will be for Americans what rice cookers are for Asians." Now all she needs is someone to make and market her invention.

--INVENTOR Carmina O'Connor
--AVAILABILITY Uncertain

Pain Zapper
Doctors sometimes let patients suffering from chronic pain self-administer prescribed doses of intravenous drugs. But those patients have always had to be tethered to an IV and drug bag. The first fully implantable drug pump could change all that. Here's how it works: morphine is stored in a pager-size pump just under the skin of the abdomen. A plastic catheter runs from the pump to the fluid-filled space outside the spinal cord, where pain signals travel. When the patient presses a handheld remote, the pump sends a measured dose of morphine directly to the spine. According to its maker, the SynchroMed works better and requires much smaller doses of medication than intravenous methods because it intercepts pain signals on their way to the brain.

--INVENTOR Medtronic
--AVAILABILITY In 2003, for $1,500
--TO LEARN MORE Visit medtronic.com click on "Patient Information" and then "Pain"

Lifesaver for Your Liver
The liver is one of the most complex organs in the body--and one of the hardest to replace. It removes toxins from the blood and manufactures up to 1,000 proteins, metabolites and other vital substances. Now scientists trying to develop an artificial liver have found a way around these complexities: they let rabbit-liver cells do the work. The Bio-Artificial Liver developed by Dr. Kenneth Matsumura has a two-part chamber--patient's blood on one side, live rabbit cells suspended in a solution on the other--with a semipermeable membrane in between. As toxins from the blood pass through the membrane, the rabbit cells metabolize them and send the resulting proteins and other good things back to the other side. Because the rabbit cells never come into direct contact with human blood, the chances of infection or rejection are minimized. The device, now in its final stage of clinical trials, is meant primarily as a "bridge" to an eventual liver transplant for patients with acute liver failure or for those who have rejected a previous transplant. In some cases, it may also give a damaged liver time to heal on its own, eliminating the need for a transplant altogether.

--INVENTOR Dr. Kenneth Matsumura, Alin Foundation
--AVAILABILITY In 2002
--TO LEARN MORE Visit alinfoundation.com

Get Smart
Is that crushing pain a heart attack, or pulled muscles from yesterday's pec-deck session? Ask your T shirt. Made of a soft, washable fabric with optical and electrical fibers woven into it, the SmartShirt records heart and respiration rates, body temperature and calories burned. Information is relayed wirelessly and can be sent on to doctors or personal trainers. Future planned products include shirts for military use that would provide a trapped soldier's exact location and give triage units details about wounds.

--INVENTORs Georgia Tech Research Corp. and SensaTex Inc.
--AVAILABILITY By next September, for about $175
--TO LEARN MORE Visit sensatex.com

In the Mood for Love
Some women hate taking pills. Others wince at the thought of implants or injections. Now there's a new choice for long-term birth control. In early October the FDA approved use of the NuvaRing, a thin flexible plastic ring that women can flatten like a rubber band and insert once a month into the vagina. Moisture and body heat activate the release of the same progestin and estrogen found in low-dose birth-control pills. Its makers say that NuvaRing is just as effective at preventing pregnancy and may cause fewer complications than the Pill.

--INVENTOR Organon
--AVAILABILITY Mid-2002
--TO LEARN MORE Visit nuvaring.com

Drink Up
A few months back, we probably would have recommended a portable water sterilizer only to people traveling abroad or going backcountry camping. But as fears persist of terrorists polluting the water supply, some folks might feel better knowing they can easily purify water at home as well. Powered by two AA batteries, the cordless Steri-Pen uses ultraviolet light to decontaminate a 16-oz. container of water in about a minute. Its maker claims Steri-Pen will kill 99.99% of the bacteria and viruses found in water.

--INVENTOR Miles Maiden
--AVAILABILITY Now, for $199
--TO LEARN MORE Visit hydro-photon.com

Beat the Shriek
These days every home has at least one smoke alarm. But how many of us have yanked the batteries out in frustration because that annoying shriek goes off every time we broil a steak or toast a bagel? The Smart Alarm offers a cure so simple we should have thought of it: you turn the alarm on and off by remote control. Just point any remote at the alarm and hold down any button for five seconds.

--INVENTOR First Alert
--AVAILABILITY Now, $30
--TO LEARN MORE Visit firstalert.com