Is there a secret to genius? Probably not, but there are some common traits you see in smart, creative people who are willing to break boundaries.
1. They travel the path less travelled
If aliens are living on a distant planet, it’s pretty much impossible for our optical telescopes to see them directly – but maybe we don’t need to. Sara Seager, an astrophysicist at MIT realised that we could spot signs of life this century by searching in exoplanet atmospheres.
She ignored initial doubts – a feature of true innovators – and showed it could work. As a MacArthur Fellow – also known as the “genius grant” – she is now scouring the Universe for atmospheres that could carry this indirect sign of alien life:
2. They are not afraid of telling the truth
We rely on global shipping to supply us with vast majority of our possessions; from the clothes you are wearing right now to the technology you are using to read these words. Unfortunately, all this activity create a cacophony of noise under the sea that can be fatal to marine life.
But Michael Andre of the Technical University of Catalonia, BarcelonaTech (UPC) encountered a dead sperm whale on a beach in the Canary Islands that had collided with a ship. He went on to discover that the noise of shipping was to blame; the shipping that keeps our consumer society going.
3. They teach themselves
People with truly creative minds often have an urge to discover things for themselves, rather than waiting to be spoon-fed. That’s certainly the case for teenager, Easton LaChappelle who has built an affordable prosthetic arm that can be controlled by brainwaves. It all began with a curiosity in robotics aged 14.
4. They bridge gaps, people and fields
Specialising in one talent can take you to the top of your profession, but genuine innovation often comes from a willingness to go beyond their current field. Take Anita Goel of the company Nanobiosym, who is developing a “tricorder” to diagnose disease outside hospitals, a technology that could transform healthcare in the developing world.
Her research to inspire this technology combines the knowledge of nanotechnology, physics and biomedicine – three completely different fields:
5. They look long-term
People with exceptional minds are capable of going beyond their immediate surroundings, and looking to the long-term. They can, in a sense, see beyond the horizon.
For Robert Glass of ETH Zurich in Switzerland, thinking this way is absolutely necessary. After all, he and his colleague Reinhard Heckel are trying to find a way to store humanity’s knowledge for eternity inside DNA.
6. They also look close to home for inspiration
Sometimes, our obsession with the new and the innovative can make us miss the inspiration already under our noses. Jill Farrant of the University of Cape Town wanted to design drought-resistant crops to survive for much longer periods without water – a major problem as the effects of climate change take hold.
Farrant realised that she already knew an organism that could do that, which she had first encountered in her childhood – a resurrection plant, which can come back to life after months or years without water. Now she’s exploring whether it’s possible to transfer this remarkable plant’s genes to crops.
This article first appeared in a BBC Future article
