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George and Charlotte Blonsky, who were a
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married couple living in the Bronx in New York City,
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invented something.
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They got a patent in 1965,
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for what they call,
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"a device to assist women in giving birth."
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This device consists of a large, round table
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and some machinery.
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When the women is ready to deliver her child,
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she lies on her back,
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she is strapped down to the table,
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and the table is rotated at high speed.
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The child comes flying out
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through centrifugal force.
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If you look at their patent carefully,
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especially if you have any engineering background
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or talent,
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You may decide that you see
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one or two points where the design is not
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perfectly adequate.
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Doctor Ivan Schwab in California
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is one of the people,
one of the main people
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who helped answer the question,
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"Why don't woodpeckers get headaches?"
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And it turns out the answer to that
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is because their brains
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are packaged inside their skulls
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in a way different from the way
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our brains, we being human beings,
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true, have our brains packaged.
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They, the woodpeckers, typically
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will peck, they will bang their head
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on a piece of wood thousands of times
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everyday.
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Everyday.
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And as far as anyone knows,
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that doesn't bother them in the slightest.
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How does this happen?
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Their brain does not slosh around like ours does.
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Their brain is packed in very tightly,
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at least for blows coming
right from the front.
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Not too many people paid attention
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to this research until
the last few years
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when, in this country especially,
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people are becoming curious about
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what happens to the brains
of football players
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who bang their heads repeatedly?
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And the woodpecker maybe relates to that.
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There was a paper published
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in the medical journal The Lancet
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in England a few years ago called
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" A man who proceed his finger
smelled putrid for 5 years."
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Dr. Caroline Mills and her team
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received this patient and
didn't really know what
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to do about it.
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The man had cut his finger,
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he worked processing chickens,
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and then he started to
smell really, really bad
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So bad that when he
got in a room
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with the doctors and the nurses,
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they couldn't stand being
in the room with him.
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It was intolerable.
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They tried every drug,
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every other treatment
they could think of.
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After a year, he still
smelled putrid.
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After two years, still smelled putrid.
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Three years, four years
still smelled putrid.
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After five years, it went away on its own.
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It's a mystery.
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In New
closed TED
