Invent

Tara Lemméy
  • 4.7 (19)
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Invent is about how to make things that don’t exist yet. Hosted by Tara Lemméy — inventor, founder of LENS, architect of the post-9/11 intelligence sharing system still running across US agencies. Each episode covers the actual work of invention. Edison tested six thousand materials before the lightbulb worked. Tilapia skin heals burns. Impossible problems have solutions — they’re just usually hiding somewhere unexpected. 15 minutes. Real work.

  1. 2D AGO

    The Salt Window

    There’s a salt shaker on your breakfast table. The raw material that could free the energy transition from a single supply chain is in it. China makes 80% of the world’s battery cells. The chemistry to change that is solved. The materials are in Wyoming, Kenya, Turkey — and dozens of places besides. The window to build something different is open. It won’t wait. 8 minutes.

    8 min

  2. MAR 20

    The Swamp Cooler — What Your Environment Already Wants to Do

    The Swamp Cooler — What Your Environment Already Wants to Do There’s a box on almost every roof in Tucson. No compressor. No refrigerant. Eighty percent less energy than air conditioning. Oscar Palmer built it in 1908. It’s still running in 200,000 buildings. He didn’t invent a new principle. He just stopped fighting his environment long enough to ask what it already wanted to do. That question is available to you right now. Wherever you are.

    6 min

  3. MAR 12

    The Ulcer — The Answer Was There the Whole Time

    In 1979, a pathologist in Perth saw something in a gastric biopsy that couldn't be there. The stomach is sterile. Everyone knew this. It had been established in 1954. One study. Case closed. Robin Warren wrote it down anyway. Then Barry Marshall drank it. The cure for ulcers was sitting on the stomach lining since 1892. Seen three times. Dismissed three times. It wasn't ignorance that kept it from patients for a century. It was a load-bearing wall nobody wanted to touch. 8 minutes.

    8 min

  4. MAR 6

    The Silent Stadium: Required

    Before the game starts, the referee speaks. Not to the athletes. To you. Keep quiet when the ball is in play. The game breaks without you. I was in my living room in San Francisco watching the Paris Paralympics when I first heard that. I'd never had a referee explain my job before the first whistle. The players are blind. They navigate by sound. A noise from the stands is interference. The crowd isn't just watching — they're part of the machine. Designed in. Required. Someone figured out how to build that. In 1946. From nothing. 7 minutes.

    8 min

  5. FEB 22

    The Fish Skin That Healed Everything

    Dr. Edmar Maciel was watching his burn patients scream through dressing changes every 48 hours. Remove the bandage, clean the wound, apply the cream, wrap it again. Every two days. A million burns a year in Brazil. Running out of supplies. He stopped asking how to make the treatment better. He asked whether the bandage needed to be changed at all. Tilapia skin — fish waste the hospital was throwing away — has collagen almost identical to human skin. Stays on a wound 10 to 12 days. 75% cheaper than standard treatment. The solution was in the discard pile.

    6 min

  6. FEB 22

    The Woman Who Proved Newton Wrong

    In 1749, the best scientists in Europe couldn’t answer the most basic question in physics: what is energy? Newton said velocity. Leibniz said velocity squared. Different answer. Different universe. The argument had gone on for decades. Émilie du Châtelet was 42 and pregnant. She knew what that meant in the 18th century. She worked 18 hours a day anyway. Dropped brass balls into clay. Measured the depths. Did the math. Velocity squared. She was right. Newton was wrong. She finished her manuscript on September 10, 1749. Wrote the date on the last page. Died that day. Her proof is inside E=mc² two hundred years later. Conditions were never going to be right. She finished anyway.

    10 min

  7. FEB 2

    The Chicken Suit

    March 1974. Guy in a chicken suit at a Padres game figures out what to do during timeouts. Makes 47,000 people forget their team is terrible. 11% of fans start coming just to see him. Not the game. Him. That’s when everyone else notices. 50 years later: Every mascot you’ve ever seen is doing what Ted Giannoulas invented. The breakthrough: Downtime is opportunity.

    10 min

  8. JAN 7

    Playing Bridge with Warren Buffett

    I won breakfast with Warren Buffett at a bridge tournament. Hadn’t played in years. He told me: “Your expression changes so much you have no tell. All noise, no signal.” He was right. I was figuring it out hand by hand. Before Buffett, annual reports were legal documents. Dense. Nobody read them. He wrote like he was talking to his sister. Plain English. Admitted mistakes. Taught how to think, not just what happened. Every CEO copied it. Buffett stepped down January 1, 2026. The 60-year run of annual letters ends. Truth as the standard? That stays.

    9 min
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Trailer

4.7
out of 5
19 Ratings

About

Invent is about how to make things that don’t exist yet. Hosted by Tara Lemméy — inventor, founder of LENS, architect of the post-9/11 intelligence sharing system still running across US agencies. Each episode covers the actual work of invention. Edison tested six thousand materials before the lightbulb worked. Tilapia skin heals burns. Impossible problems have solutions — they’re just usually hiding somewhere unexpected. 15 minutes. Real work.

Information

  • Creator
    Tara Lemméy
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    14
  • Copyright
    © Tara Lemméy
  • Show Website
    Invent

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