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Basically there are two ways to confront a new technology due to its sociological effects. Namely:

Regulate a technology when it is still young and little known and then still hides its unexpected or undesirable consequences; or choose to wait to see what these consequences are, although then we will lose control over its regulation.

David Collingridge Dilemma

This dimea was initially silvered by David Collingridge, an academic at Aston University in the United Kingdom, in 1980, through his book The Social Control of Technology:

When change is easy, its need cannot be anticipated; By the time the need for change is apparent, the change has already become expensive, difficult, and laborious.

In Xataka Science

Leapfrogging: when a society makes a technological leap by skipping stages

As abounds in it Eugeny Morozov, visiting professor at Stanford University, in the book That explains everything (edited by John Brockman):

Collingridge's dilemma is one of the most elegant ways to explain many of the complex ethical and technological dilemmas (think drones or facial recognition systems) that plague our globalized world.

In Xataka Science

YouTube's algorithm could be fueling extreme ideas and polarization

Another way of facing new technologies also has to do with our predisposition to new things, which is strongly linked to our age, as he satirically wrote Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in an article published in Sunday Times, August 29, 1999::

I imagine that previous generations had to put up with grumbling and huffing at the appearance of inventions such as television, the telephone, the cinema, the radio, the car, the bicycle, the printing press, the wheel, etc., but don't think that we have learned how the thing works, namely:

1. Everything that is already in the world when you were born is normal.

2. Everything that is invented between now and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative, and with a little luck, you can make a living from it.

3. Everything that is invented after you have turned thirty goes against the natural order of things and is the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it, until it has been used for about ten years and slowly begins to considered normal.

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The news

Collingridge's dilemma when facing technology

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

.

The history of dentistry spans more than 2500 years, from the appearance of the first dentists in history to, just one hundred years ago, the first electric toothbrush.

Below, the most important milestones of this journey of dental innovation.

Oral history

2600 BC C.: The first dentist. An inscription on the tomb of the doctor Hesy-Re includes the title "the greatest of those who treat with teeth."

1700-1500 BC C.: The first treatise on Dentistry. He Ebers papyrus It is the oldest known description of dental diseases and remedies for toothache.

700 BC C.: The first false teeth. The Etruscans, an ancient civilization that lived in the territory of modern-day Italy, made false teeth from the remains of humans and animals.

1530: The first book of Dentistry. Artzney Büchlein writes Little Medicinal Book for All Kinds of Diseases and Infirmities of the Teeth.

1780: The first toothbrush: William Addis, from the United Kingdom, makes the first modern toothbrush. He made the first prototype with bristles and pig bone while in prison for rioting.

1790: The first dentist's chair: Josiah Flagg, from the United States, builds the first chair designed for dental offices. The Wilkerson chair, the first hydraulic dentist's chair, appears in 1877.

1880: The first tube of toothpaste. Maxillofacial surgeon Washington Sheffield, from the United States, invented the folding metal tube.

1885: The first dental assistant. C. Edmund Kells, a prominent dentist in New Orleans, hired Malvina Cueria to help him in his work.

1896: The first dental x-ray. Kells also becomes the first dentist to take a dental radiograph (X-ray) of a living patient.

1927: The first electric toothbrush. The Electro Massage Toothbrush Company manufactures its first model; In 1961, cordless and rechargeable versions would follow.

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The news

From the first dentist to the first electric toothbrush

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

.

He Aye Aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) is a nocturnal lemur endemic to Madagascar that has an additional pair of "pseudothumbs", which is why it has twelve fingers on its hands.

It was previously believed that they were fleshy protrusions, but deeper analysis has revealed that they are made up of bone and carilage.

This extra finger on each hand is the finger he uses to bore holes in rotten logs and extract larvae. So the ayeaye with too short fingers had a harder time surviving and reproducing..

In addition, the finger has other really striking functions, such as detecting its prey by drumming the trunk with it to capture the change in tone that reveals the presence of an insect inside.

The results of the ayeaye study were published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, on October 21, 2019.

And it's very ugly

This creature lives in Madagascar, and there it is hunted mercilessly simply because it looks demonic. The natives of Madagascar, then, consider that this animal is possessed by evil spirits and that its mere existence is a risk to the world: there is even the extravagant idea that if you point your third finger at a person, they will die suddenly shortly after. : your middle finger is substantially longer and thinner than the rest, Nosferatu style.

The ayeaye is a nocturnal animal, it feeds on larvae and its tail is usually longer than the rest of its body; It weighs two to three kilograms and can live up to 23 years.

So ugly and distorted is the ayeaye that the writer Douglas Adams He dedicated these nice words to him in Tomorrow they won't be, a travel book with the zoologist Mark Carwardine:

It is a very strange-looking creature that seems to be composed of loose pieces of other animals. It looks a bit like a big cat with bat ears, beaver teeth, a tail resembling a large ostrich feather, a middle finger resembling a long dry branch, and a pair of enormous eyes that seem to look at a totally different world that lies ahead. behind our backs...

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The news

This is the primate with the most fingers: it has twelve (and it is very ugly)

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

.