Year: 2022

SYNAPSE COMPUTING. "A Defense Department agency has funded a program, Synapse, that is trying to develop a computer that resembles a brain in form and function." http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/the-philosophy-of-her/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1 View in LinkedIn

CHATBOX. “Xiaoice is 16 years old and lives in Beijing, China. She is sympathetic and joking, although her sense of humor is a bit particular. Unlike many people, this young lady is never going to make you wait hours before answering your messages in a chat. More than anything because he lives for and to answer his interlocutors. And he already has billions of friends, especially in the Eastern power.” https://lnkd.in/dmRRQza View in LinkedIn

THE FIRST QUESTIONS. “If we're able to download our brains, will brainless bodies be genetically grown for us? Or will we inhabit a more computer-like environment; a robot, say, or an android?" https://lnkd.in/ds87xWD View in LinkedIn

SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH "believed humans have stopped evolving physically and genetically because of birth control and abortion, but that cultural evolution is proceeding "with extraordinary swiftness" “We stopped natural selection as soon as we started being able to rear 90-95% of our babies that are born. We are the only species to have put a halt to natural selection, of its own free will, as it were. Our evolution is now cultural."" "Sir David Attenborough warns against large families and predicts things will only get worse https://lnkd.in/dZs9bg9 View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE continues from last weekend and concludes this weekend on the topic of pheromones. The types of chemical signals, the receptors, and their exploitation by predatory agents is covered. These are universal systems in nature, and often overlay other forms of communication. They are diverse, complex, and tailored messages primarily related to kin, caste and reproduction. That said, we are only at the beginning of uncovering this fascinating story, View in LinkedIn

KIN AND FAMILY. “Examples abound, from a mother sheep distinguishing her lambs from others, a monogamous prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) recognizing its partner by smell, or, in many species, avoiding close kin when choosing a mate. Similarly, in social insects such as ants, bees, wasps, and termites, the differences in chemical profile between colonies allow animals to distinguish nest-mates and non-nest-mate conspecifics.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

QUEEN PHEROMONES. “Social insect workers do not reproduce in the presence of queen pheromones. Candidate queen pheromones in ants, bees, and wasps could be identified because they were molecules that all queens in a species shared and which workers produced little of.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

COLONY MARKERS. “The queen pheromone molecule(s) appeared in the gas chromatogram traces as constant peaks in all queens, overlaid on a complex colony odour background of cuticular hydrocarbons, highly variable between colonies. The candidate molecules could then be tested in bioassays to see if they reproduced the queen pheromone’s physiological effects on the workers of that species.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

COMPLEX SOUP OF SIGNALS. “In mammals, which have individual odour profiles easily as complex as social insect colony odours, early researchers despaired of finding pheromones. GC analysis of mammal secretions from skin glands showed they contained hundreds of molecules, with large variations in composition between different individuals of the same species.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn