human evolution

A two-minute time-lapse from the Kishony Lab showing bacteria spreading across a giant petri dish with increasing antibiotic doses, evolving resistance as they go.

Karl Sims's 1994 demonstration of evolved virtual creatures: block-bodied creatures whose bodies and controllers are evolved through selection, mutation and recombination to swim, walk and compete.

A short clip of the Snowbird, a human-powered ornithopter built by University of Toronto students. On August 2, 2010 it sustained altitude and airspeed for 19.3 seconds, the first such flight.

A short Unitree promo for its G1 humanoid robot, priced from $16K, showing agile motion, dexterous hands and imitation and reinforcement learning.

A restored 1994 video of Karl Sims' research on evolved virtual creatures, where simulated block creatures are bred through artificial evolution to swim, walk, follow and compete. It is a landmark demonstration of genetic algorithms in physics simulation.

The Thought Emporium builds a homemade multi-electrode array, grows human neurons on it and attempts to take readings. It is the first part of a series aimed at connecting living neurons to a computer.

Boston Dynamics shows its Atlas humanoid robots running a parkour course with jumps, balance beams and vaults, demonstrating whole-body athletic control.

Disney Research presents Touche, a swept frequency capacitive sensing technique that recognizes complex hand and body configurations, and adds touch sensitivity to humans, liquids and everyday objects.

Short clip of Honda's ASIMO humanoid robot falling down stairs during a live demonstration.

Unity's real-time cinematic teaser 'Enemies' from its Demo Team, showcasing HDRP lighting, strand-based hair and an advanced digital human toolkit. It is a short showcase of high-end real-time rendering.

Olympic track cyclist Robert Forstemann tries to pedal hard enough to power a 700 W toaster and toast a slice of bread. The film frames it as a comparison of how much energy people consume versus how much they can generate.

Boston Dynamics shows the electric Atlas autonomously moving engine covers between containers and a sequencing dolly. It uses an ML vision model and grasping policy with no teleoperation or prescribed motions.

A short status-update demo from Figure showing its humanoid robot using OpenAI-powered speech-to-speech reasoning to converse and perform tasks.

A short Tesla clip showing the Optimus humanoid robot sorting objects autonomously and doing yoga-style stretches. Tesla says its neural network is trained end to end, from video in to controls out.

A short Boston Dynamics clip of the Atlas humanoid robot doing parkour, jumping over a log and leaping up steps using whole-body control and computer vision to locate markers.

Boston Dynamics shows its humanoid robot Atlas picking up and manipulating objects, and altering the obstacle course to reach its goal. The clip demonstrates locomotion, sensing and athletic manipulation.

SethBling shows MarI/O, a program using neural networks and the NEAT genetic algorithm to learn to play Super Mario World. The description links the source code, the paper and background reading.

Theo Jansen shows many of his Strandbeests, wind-powered walking kinetic sculptures, set to Khachaturian's Spartacus. It presents his work since 1990 on creating new forms of life on beaches.

Jack Gallant's lab demonstrates reconstructing movie trailer clips a subject watched from fMRI brain activity, using regression models trained on hours of viewing data. The video shows the original clip beside the reconstruction.

Deepfake artist Shamook's improved version of the Luke Skywalker scene from The Mandalorian season 2 finale, replacing the official CGI face with a deepfake.

Boston Dynamics shows its Atlas humanoid robot performing a gymnastics and parkour routine, using optimization-generated motions and a model predictive controller.

Boston Dynamics unveils a new, smaller Atlas humanoid robot that is electrically powered and hydraulically actuated. It balances with body sensors and uses lidar and stereo vision to navigate and manipulate objects.

The Thought Emporium's host describes making and taking a DIY gene therapy to treat his own lactose intolerance. It uses an AAV virus to deliver DNA coding for the lactose-digesting enzyme, made with biohacker Gabriel Licina's help.

The full recording of Douglas Engelbart's 1968 demonstration, which introduced the mouse, hypertext, video conferencing, word processing, and real-time collaborative editing. It runs about 100 minutes.

A Microsoft Research demo from TechFest 2012 of a lab touch system that lets viewers feel the effect of different input latencies, down to about 1 ms. It shows how much more responsive dragging feels compared with typical 100 ms touch delay.

An overview of the Quiet Logistics warehouse using Kiva Systems robots, narrated by company executives. The robots bring storage racks to human pickers at stations.

A University of Tokyo demo of a rock-paper-scissors robot that always wins, using high-speed vision to read the human hand and respond faster than people can perceive.

A short clip demonstrating a phone-based social engineering trick in which a crying baby in the background is used to pressure a customer service rep. It shows how attackers exploit human sympathy rather than technical flaws.

GeoGuessr pro Rainbolt plays head-to-head against an AI built by Stanford students that guesses locations from street-view images. The video shows the AI repeatedly beating him.

SethBling uses Super Mario World glitches to inject and run Flappy Bird code on an unmodified SNES, entering it purely with controller inputs. It was the first time a human completed this kind of exploit by hand.

Eric Bier, a PARC research scientist, demonstrates the Cedar integrated programming environment and language, an evolution of Mesa from Xerox PARC. The demo shows the Tioga editor, garbage collection, and a full graphical workstation environment.

A player piano is made to reproduce human speech, here reciting a European Environmental Criminal Court proclamation in German at the 2009 World Venice Forum. This upload adds subtitles so the words become understandable.

Onboard footage of Timo Bernhard setting the Nurburgring Nordschleife lap record of 5:19.546 in the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo, beating Stefan Bellof's 35-year-old time. The car reaches 369 km/h.

Peter Sripol shows his homemade Part 103 electric airplane flying, built from hobby brushless motors and batteries. The video covers the first flight out of ground effect.

The BotHack NetHack bot wins the game for the first time with no cheats or human intervention, in a run lasting about 3.5 hours. The description links the source code and the dumplog.

A one-minute clip from Frans de Waal's TED talk showing two capuchin monkeys given unequal rewards (cucumber versus grape) for the same task. The monkey receiving the lesser reward reacts with protest.

A short clip of a ramen restaurant in Nagoya where robot arms cook the noodles. Human waiters serve the food.

A short clip of the Google I/O 2018 demo in which Google Assistant's Duplex phones a salon and a restaurant to make appointments. The calls sound like a natural human conversation.

A short demo of Automaton 2000 Micro, a StarCraft bot built in Blizzard's World Editor that splits marines perfectly against banelings. It shows inhuman unit micromanagement with zero losses.

A StarCraft 2 custom-map demo where a bot controls 100 zerglings against 20 sieged tanks and dodges the splash damage, leaving 19 survivors. The code was written in Blizzard's World Editor.