Here, here are some fascinating facts about the human brain:

Your Brain Generates About 12-25 Watts of Electricity: This is enough power to light up a low-wattage LED light bulb.

The Human Brain is the Fattest Organ in the Body: Approximately 60% of it is made of fat.

Information Travels at Different Speeds Within Different Types of Neurons: It can be as slow as 0.5 meters/sec or as fast as 120 meters/sec.

The Adult Brain Weighs About 3 Pounds (1.4 kg): Despite making up just 2% of a person’s total body weight, the brain uses around 20% of the body’s energy.

There are around 86 Billion Neurons in a Human Brain: And each neuron can transmit about 1,000 nerve impulses per second and make as many as tens of thousands of synaptic contacts with other neurons.

Human Brains Have Amazing Plasticity: The brain has the ability to rewire itself and even create new neurons – a process known as neuroplasticity.

Your Brain Can’t Feel Pain: Even though the brain processes pain signals, the brain itself does not actually feel pain because it lacks pain receptors.

Brain Activity Creates Enough Heat to Boil Water: Your brain generates about as much heat as a small light bulb even when you’re sleeping.

Memory Capacity is Nearly Limitless:According to some estimations, our brains could potentially store around one petabyte (or a million gigabytes) worth of information in our lifetimes.

Although Smaller in Size, The Human Brain is More Efficient Than Most Powerful Computers: In terms of processing speed and energy consumption, our brains outperform the capabilities of modern supercomputers.

These discoveries emphasize how amazing and complex our brains are!

Kindly consider supporting my work by upvoting this article, leaving your comments below, and sharing it with your friends.

#GOATMoments #science

On July 13, 2023, a New York District Judge ruled that Ripple's XRP is not a security, which was a partial win for the SEC. This ruling has caused the price of XRP to increase by 30% to 98%. However, it is important to note that Ripple's battle with the SEC is not over yet, so investors should be careful. The future price of XRP will depend on the outcome of the lawsuit. If Ripple wins the lawsuit, the price of XRP could go up, and if they lose, the price could go down.

According to Trading Education, their long-term 2030 Ripple price forecast points to a 3,883% increase since today's price with the token expected to hit an impressive all-time high of $7.81. XRP will also sink no lower than $6, securing an average of $7.4 in 2030.

Techopedia predicts that XRP could reach price of $3.50by the end of 2025, if Ripple wins its case against the SEC.

Analytics Insight estimates that XRP could match previous all-time highs of $3.84 hours after the court decision, and some optimistic token holders put the XRP coin at $21.84 by late 2024.

Cryptopolitan predicts that XRP could hit a minimum price of $5.61 and an average price of $5.77 throughout the year 2030, with a maximum forecasted price of $6.79. The Ripple price forecast for 2032 predicts a minimum price of $17.70, an average of $18.21, and a maximum price of $21.63

Finder's panel of financial experts anticipates that if XRP wins the case, the price of XRP would trade at $3.81 by the end of 2025.

From these predictions, it seems that if Ripple wins the lawsuit, XRP will likely be bullish. However, there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the case and the broader crypto market, so these predictions should be taken with caution.

#GOATMoments #crypto

Don't invest all money in one place .

I will give idea for Rs. 50K

Buy two road side pop corn machine .

Hire two people ( people between an age of 18–25 ) coz labour cost is less when compared to experience person)

Material cost

Each Machine cost — 18 K– 25 K ( one time investment , you can resell this also in olx or someother website also while quitting this business )

Corn - 10 Kg ( wholesale ) — Rs 300 – 400

Spices for 10 Kg of corn — Rs. 200

Plastic cover cost — 100 covers — rs. 20

For 1 Kg of corn you make 70–80 packet.

You can sell each package at Rs.10

—————————————

Working time Evening 6 pm to 10 pm ~ 4 hrs per day

Now comes to labour cost — ( fixed salary 200 per day for first 2 month , third month onwards 300 per day )

Now comes to variable pay — you have pay extra 50 paisa per packet he sell )

If he sell 500 pack per day you have to pay him

200 fixed salary + 250 variable pay — per day 450

It will motivate your employee.

__________________

So, if your employee sell 1 Kg in 1 hour , you will earn approximately 750 .

After reducing labor cost , material cost, battery recharge cost , and all

Your gain is Rs. 600 per kg.

If you sell 10 kg per day you will earn 6000 per day ( coz you have two machines and two employees)

Per month 180000 ( one lakh eighty thousand per month )

#GOATMoments #Business

Listen to Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. In an interview, they were asked to name one secret that led to their success. It wasn’t their mentors or technical skills. It wasn’t their luck. It was Focus.

Most entrepreneurs don’t have that. Like sunlight can’t burn a paper without being focused, you can’t make an impact without focus.

If you are normal, you can’t sit and focus to save your life. You can’t even read this without thinking. Most people don’t have the attention span to focus for one single minute.

Failed entrepreneurs hide this inability to work and blame the market or people as the cause of their failure. But all it comes down to is a lack of focus.

Yes, there can be technical problems with your product/service. Or your team was bad. Or your product was useless. Or your sales process didn’t work.

But you weren’t focused enough to see and fix that.

No matter how bad the market is, there is someone who is making money. The only thing that separates you from him is your ability to focus.

To make money in business requires your all. When you try to work at it with a foggy and stressed brain, you fail.

Only when I developed the ability to sit and work for hours, my business made six-figures.

#Business #GOATMoments

1. The first commercial bitcoin transaction was for pizza

On May 22, 2010, a man in Florida paid 10,000 bitcoins (BTC) for two pizzas. This is generally recognized as the first bitcoin transaction for a commercial purpose.

At the time, 10,000 bitcoins were worth about $40, making one bitcoin worth a little less than half a cent. If you had that number of bitcoins in September 2022, you'd be a bitcoin millionaire. 10,000 bitcoins have a market value of more than $190 million.

2. There are more than 18.000 cryptocurrencies in existence

As of September 2022, there are more than 12,000 digital currencies in existence. While you can’t buy them all on an exchange, they are out there, some of them requiring their own wallets. This includes many altcoins such as USD coin (USDC), XRP (XRP), solana (SOL), Binance USD (BUSD), and more.   

There are so many coins and tokens available because it’s relatively easy to create a new cryptocurrency and put it out there. But, as of September 2022, the top 20 virtual currencies account for about 87% of the crypto market cap.

3. The total amount of bitcoins is limited

An interesting bitcoin fact is that when the protocol for the bitcoin network was set up, the limit was set at 21 million coins. As a result, at some point, no more new bitcoins can be created by cryptocurrency miners.

When you help complete transactions on the bitcoin blockchain, you’re said to be bitcoin mining by using computing power through a process known as proof of work. You can receive a reward for mining bitcoin in the form of the digital currency itself.

The reward halves every 210,000 blocks, which has worked out to about every four years. As of September 2022, the total number of circulating bitcoin is 19.15 million. This leaves a few million bitcoin yet to be mined, which is part of why mining remains a popular activity.

4. One man wants to excavate a landfill to get his digital wallet back

In 2013, James Howells, who lives in Wales, U.K., threw out a hard drive with 7,500 bitcoins on it. When he realized how much the value of Bitcoin had shot up in recent years, he went looking for the drive. Now, he’s trying to get his local city council to allow him to excavate the landfill in an attempt to find the drive. He’s claiming to offer a portion of the proceeds if the city allows him to look through the trash.

5. Some cryptocurrencies have more uses than as a coin

Some cryptocurrencies have uses beyond just being a coin. The ethereum blockchain technology can be used for more than just processing payments and sending currency.

While you can use ether, the native coin of ethereum, for transactions, the underlying technology isn’t just about a medium of exchange. Ethereum is also used to execute smart contractsand can be used for supply chain management. Other cryptocurrencies even create their coins on the ethereum network.

6. Ethereum fees are referred to as gas

When using the ethereum blockchain to complete transactions, you’re required to pay for gas. On the ethereum network, gas represents the computational effort used to complete the transaction.

Using the network for apps or transactions, even if it’s converting another coin to ether, means you need to pay for gas. Depending on the transaction and traffic on the blockchain, gas fees can feel quite high in some cases.

7. CryptoKitties is one of the first blockchain games

CryptoKitties, one of the first blockchain games, offers a way to breed one-of-a-kind digital cats. CryptoKitties aren’t a currency — instead, they’re part of the non-fungible token (NFT) world.

Each kitty is unique and can’t be replicated. Each one has a unique value, similar to artwork. CryptoKitties is an example of a project built on the Ethereum blockchain.

8. The most expensive CryptoKitty sold for 600 ether

Back in 2018, someone paid 600 ether (ETH) for a CryptoKitty Dragon. At the time of the sale, 600 ether was worth about $170,000. The price of one ether is at $1,290 as of Sept 22, 2022, meaning that 600 ether would be the equivalent of more than $770,000. That’s one expensive digital cat!

9. NFTs aren’t currencies

Even though they grew in popularity in 2021 and are considered digital assets, NFTs aren’t cryptocurrencies. They’re tokens that are not used as a medium of exchange. And NFTs can’t be divided or replicated.

NFTs can be used as alternative investments similar to artwork or collectibles. In fact, that’s how some people see them — digital collectibles and artwork that may potentially grow in value. There are even NFTs, like those offered by NBA TopShot, that operate similarly to digital sports trading cards.

10. Dogecoin started as a joke

One of the hottest cryptocurrencies in 2021 was dogecoin (DOGE), as its market capitalization grew, in part due to support from Elon Musk. However, this cryptocurrency started out as a joke.

The idea was that there were so many coins out there, just being introduced. So the creators of dogecoin invented the cryptocurrency around the image of the surprised-looking Shiba Inu dog. This was a popular meme in 2013 when dogecoin was introduced.

11. The creator (or creators) of bitcoin remains anonymous

Bitcoin is widely credited as being created by Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym that isn't connected to a real person. However, the paper that talked about the protocol was released through a cryptography mailing list and the actual author remains anonymous.

There is a lot of speculation about the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, but no one knows who he is. No one even knows if they're one person or a group of people.

12. Elon Musk has a lot of pull when it comes to cryptocurrency prices

One person has contributed to huge swings in cryptocurrency prices in 2021 — Elon Musk. When he tweets or talks about cryptocurrencies, the market listens. Or at least his devoted followers do.

Musk has impacted the price of bitcoin, dogecoin, and the cryptocurrency market as a whole, just by making pronouncements about what coins Tesla will accept for car purchases and making comments on Saturday Night Live.

Despite Musk’s antics, many investors still find themselves researching how to invest in Tesla itself.

13. Some countries ban cryptocurrencies

Not every country allows the use of cryptocurrencies. Some countries, like Turkey, don’t allow cryptocurrency payments, while others, like Nigeria, ban cryptocurrency exchanges. One of the most significant bans, though, is China’s ban on financial institutions from providing services related to cryptocurrency transactions in 2021.

It’s practically impossible to actually ban the use of cryptocurrencies, even though countries can regulate access to service providers and shut down exchanges. But with one of the world’s largest economies coming out against cryptocurrencies, it’s hard to say how things will change in the future.

14. China used to account for about 65% of cryptocurrency mining

In May 2021, China proposed consequences for telecommunications companies and others that use their equipment for mining. By August 2021, China had been so effective at cracking down, that the country's share of the global hash rate had fallen to zero. 

Researchers believe some covert mining is still occurring, masked by the use of virtual private networks (VPN). Yet China's swift action and the resulting rapid halt in Chinese cryptocurrency mining operations underscores the vulnerability of the cryptocurrency market to policy decisions by large nations.

15. Cryptocurrency prices are extremely volatile

Cryptocurrency prices are punctuated by wide swings in price. It’s not uncommon for a coin to lose 30% to 50% of its value overnight — and then log huge gains a few days later. It’s a new asset class, and people are trying to figure out how to value various coins.

Additionally, all of the news coverage surrounding cryptocurrencies means there’s a lot of trendiness associated with them. As a result, if something falls out of favor, it may lose value quickly, and you could be left with losses you can’t recover.

16. You still have to pay taxes on your crypto gains

If you invest in cryptocurrencies and see gains, you will have to pay capital gains taxes. Depending on how you manage your cryptocurrencies and how you got them, you might have to pay taxes based on long-term or short-term investment gains or as income.

For example, when I received one bitcoin for an article in 2011, that would have been considered income. Today, though, if I sell the ethereum I bought in 2016-2017, my profits would be long-term capital gains. I experimented with dogecoin back in April, and that resulted in short-term capital gains. All of that is taxed.

#GOATMoments #Interesting #news

Nothing suddenly changed… it was very gradual.

I took my whole family to dinner the night that I realized I was a millionaire. Only my wife and I knew why I was celebrating… she, rightfully, wasn’t impressed with the million dollar mark.

I thought it was pretty cool at the time. I thought highly of myself for a few hours, but then it was back to work the next morning just like nothing ever happened.

We have made many millions since then and it’s even less of a big deal than it was the first time.

I still go to my office five days a week, and likely will for life. I enjoy working. It’s like a relaxing mini-vacation almost every day.

This is Wednesday. So far this week, I’ve made an offer to purchase two properties, helped a Quora reader/real estate investor in New York, dealt with two foundation repairs for approximately $28,000, closed on one property that I sold, received and accepted offers on two more properties from separate buyers that I had listed for sale. Those will close before the end of the month. I’ve been to court on a property zoning issue (I won the case, but it still cost me $4,500 for a new site plan, so it was more of a semi-win).

Tomorrow I’m in meetings much of the day, but am helping a very active Quora writer/real estate investor via a phone call in the morning and in the afternoon I plan to invest six-figures in a start-up business that I anticipate receiving a large percentage of ownership in, if negotiations go as everyone plans.

Then I’m off to play poker until early Friday morning. I’ll go to sleep for a few hours, then go to my office for a few hours before my wife drives me to the airport for a business trip in Florida from Friday evening through late Monday night when I finally get back home and can start a new week.

The thing that I’ve noticed with me is the more funding that I have available, the more deals that I look at. If I don’t have available funding, there is no use in wasting anyone’s time, so no urgent need to have a meeting. Lately it seems that I’m always meeting with people. Lunch is almost always a business lunch, to conserve time, and give me a chance to relax just a bit and get to know the person that I’m meeting with.

The volume of opportunities is about the largest change that I can think of. The more funding you have, the more opportunities you are able to take advantage of.

If you’re doing $10,000,000 minimum deals, up to one Billion dollar deals, right now I have a pipeline to funding. The larger the deal, the more they are interested in funding it. So, I guess that’s something that I didn’t have prior to becoming a millionaire also… a lot of contacts, with a lot of available funding.

Other than that, not much else has changed.

#BinanceTournament #expirience

In 2020, Burger King rolled out a new ad where they showed a burger rotting.

They showed a time lapse of the Whopper burger developing molds. The idea behind this was to prove that their products don't use artificial preservatives in their burgers.

The reason they felt they needed to do such an ad was because at that time there were trending videos of other burgers from other companies being left out uncovered for months and developing little to no mold, making people question the levels of artificial preservatives they're being fed.

Even though the message was well received and people understood the intention, there was still a bit of a difference in showing a nasty burger in an ad and still expecting people to buy it.

This ad was unique, it breaks all the rules of meal promotion, usually beautifully-shot items are set up by stylists.

Most people, however, still saw only a decaying burger, didn't really care much about the bigger narrative and so that was all that stayed in their minds.

It caught their attention, but drew mostly a negative response.

#GOATMoments #business

Your brain's storage capacity is virtually unlimited.

The human brain contains 80-100 billion neurons.

More than 100,000 chemical reactions take place in the brain every second.

The human brain is the only object of any kind that can contemplate itself.

The human brain weighs approximately about 1.4 kilograms (3 pounds).

The human brain can generate about 23 watts of power (enough to power a lightbulb).

Sixty percent of the human brain is made of fat. That make it the fattiest organ in the human body.

The brain uses 20 percent of the body's total oxygen and energy.

The brain doesn't have pain receptors, so it can't feel exterior pain.

The average brain is believed to generate up to 50,000 thoughts per day.

Your brain has an autopilot setting allows us to perform common tasks like driving without actively thinking about them.

Your brain never sleeps while you're asleep, your brain is busy performing maintenance.

When a person dies, they have 7 minutes of brain activity left.

#facts #BinanceTournament

Startup CEO biggest misconception:

Expecting the “Instagram-Life” of a successful CEO.

Startup CEO reality:

(Jeff Bezos’ first office back in 1994)

Strict and disciplined bootstrapping is the REALITY of every early stage startup.

A startup CEO’s responsibility is to maximize the use of every resource available to get the business off the ground.

#GOATMoments #startups

I decided to change my story. Enough was enough.

I hated the person I was seeing in the mirror. So, I decided to kill my old self.

I decided to quit bad habits like drinking alcohol, smoking weed, and swearing recklessly.

I started reading books, instead of procrastinating and watching porn.

I stopped complaining and started appreciating the life God has given me.

I decided to unpack myself, and live a completely different life.

I decided if I was to run my life, I was too reckless I would end up destroying it. So I gave my life to Christ to run it for ME.

I stopped other people from deciding things for me. I started a new chapter of my life where I would be the only author.

I embraced loneliness and started reinventing myself.

I stopped giving a damn about the opinions of other people after realizing I also had something to say.

I said goodbye to people who were not adding positive energy to my life.

I got rid of my TV and subscribed to YouTube channels that contributed to my personal growth.

I picked one skill that I thought I would still be in love with after 25 years.

I dropped all the girls I knew and married just one special person that I thought I was compatible with and we could grow together.

I committed myself to one life long goal that I thought would fulfil my life and never looked back.

I decided to sweat it out every day to boost my mood.

I decided even if I must fail I will only fail forward.

Nothing. At age 40, I had zero debt, and a few thousand in the bank. I worked 4 days a week, as a psychologist at a private psychiatric hospital. I also took a month paid leave, every year. I worked almost exclusively with violent, involuntary admissions. Most of which were the result of extreme drug or alcohol abuse. I was highly respected.

When I inherited $10k, I studied the stock market, read “Fortune 500” and “Forbes” magazines. I developed a strategy, and then waited for my chosen stock to drop down to my buy price. The wait was 3 months. It was Jan 9, 1991. 13 months later, I sold the shares for $22k. It was much more than I’d anticipated, and the money didn’t seem real.

I repeated the process, waiting 4 months for the next stock to hit my buy price. After 16 months, I sold the shares for $55k.

After waiting 3 1/2 months, I bought my next stock. The stock traded below my buy price for 11 months, before beginning a really good run. I loved this stock, and intended to own it til the day I died.

On Feb 15, 1995, my shares were worth $135k, my goal. It was my day off. I wrote my resignation letter, drove to work and turned it in.

On Feb 1, 2000, the value of my shares hit their all time high of $2 million. Then the tech bubble burst, followed by 9/11, and the recession.

By the time Intel Corp bought the stock for cash, the co-founders of the company had retired. I lost interest in the company and Intel.

In 2011, I bought NVDA, at $17 a share. The stock traded below my buy price for 2 years and 10 months.

Today it’s trading at $312 a share. At the end of 2018, the shares went from $289 a share to $135. I sold just enough shares to live on.

#GOATMoments #expirience

I didn’t notice.

The first five years of my career were spent in big law firms. The starting salary was $160K/year back then (now it’s $180K/year), and by the time I was in my fifth year I think it went up to about $250K/year. Plus bonuses.

My wife also worked for the first roughly ten years we were married. Her salary fluctuated from about $50K/year (as a public school teacher) to about $90K/year (as a freelance editor in educational publishing.) For the past couple years, she has scaled work back drastically to raise our son. Maybe she earns $15K-20K/year now.

We don’t live a lavish lifestyle… we don’t own a car, we don’t buy jewelry, we don’t fly first class, etc. To be sure, we do live in the greater Boston area, which has one of the highest costs of living in the US.

The excess money was almost always invested in real estate, and specifically in rental properties.

One day I was putting documents together to purchase our fourth rental property. We were getting a mortgage, and the bank wants to know about your financial picture: your debt, your income, your assets, etc. At that point, I realized our net worth was well over $1M (but less than $2M). This kind of took my by surprise, so I double and triple checked.

I totally missed that milestone go by.

To be sure, a huge chunk of that is “paper.” That is, equity in houses/apartments that have appreciated over the years. But even with pretty conservative estimates (say, discounting the Zillows and Redfins of the world by 20%), it’s up over $1M.

But in terms of lifestyle, I don’t think there’s really anything remarkable. Again, modest house, no car, no fancy toys, etc. We might go to eat at restaurants a little more often than usual, or slightly fancier restaurants than usual. But these days, in a high cost of living area, I think a net worth between $1M and $2M is still pretty middle class. Maybe upper-middle class, but not at all glamorous.

#GOATMoments #expirience

Researchers from the Department of Mechanical Science and Bioengineering at Osaka University have invented a new kind of walking robot that takes advantage of dynamic instability to navigate. By changing the flexibility of the couplings, the robot can be made to turn without the need for complex computational control systems. This work may assist the creation of rescue robots that are able to traverse uneven terrain.

Most animals on Earth have evolved a robust locomotion system using legs that provides them with a high degree of mobility over a wide range of environments. Somewhat disappointingly, engineers who have attempted to replicate this approach have often found that legged robots are surprisingly fragile. The breakdown of even one leg due to the repeated stress can severely limit the ability of these robots to function. In addition, controlling a large number of joints so the robot can transverse complex environments requires a lot of computer power. Improvements in this design would be extremely useful for building autonomous or semi-autonomous robots that could act as exploration or rescue vehicles and enter dangerous areas.

Now, investigators from Osaka University have developed a biomimetic "myriapod" robot that takes advantage of a natural instability that can convert straight walking into curved motion. In a study published recently in Soft Robotics, researchers from Osaka University describe their robot, which consists of six segments (with two legs connected to each segment) and flexible joints. Using an adjustable screw, the flexibility of the couplings can be modified with motors during the walking motion. The researchers showed that increasing the flexibility of the joints led to a situation called a "pitchfork bifurcation," in which straight walking becomes unstable. Instead, the robot transitions to walking in a curved pattern, either to the right or to the left. Normally, engineers would try to avoid creating instabilities. However, making controlled use of them can enable efficient maneuverability. "We were inspired by the ability of certain extremely agile insects that allows them to control the dynamic instability in their own motion to induce quick movement changes," says Shinya Aoi, an author of the study. Because this approach does not directly steer the movement of the body axis, but rather controls the flexibility, it can greatly reduce both the computational complexity as well as the energy requirements.

The team tested the robot's ability to reach specific locations and found that it could navigate by taking curved paths toward targets. "We can foresee applications in a wide variety of scenarios, such as search and rescue, working in hazardous environments or exploration on other planets," says Mau Adachi, another study author. Future versions may include additional segments and control mechanisms.

#GOATMoments #science #robot

Poems, essays and even books -- is there anything the open AI platform ChatGPT can't handle? These new AI developments have inspired researchers at TU Delft and the Swiss technical university EPFL to dig a little deeper: For instance, can ChatGPT also design a robot? And is this a good thing for the design process, or are there risks? The researchers published their findings in Nature Machine Intelligence.

What are the greatest future challenges for humanity? This was the first question that Cosimo Della Santina, assistant professor, and PhD student Francesco Stella, both from TU Delft, and Josie Hughes from EPFL, asked ChatGPT. "We wanted ChatGPT to design not just a robot, but one that is actually useful," says Della Santina. In the end, they chose food supply as their challenge, and as they chatted with ChatGPT, they came up with the idea of creating a tomato-harvesting robot.

Helpful suggestions

The researchers followed all of ChatGPT's design decisions. The input proved particularly valuable in the conceptual phase, according to Stella. "ChatGPT extends the designer's knowledge to other areas of expertise. For example, the chat robot taught us which crop would be most economically valuable to automate." But ChatGPT also came up with useful suggestions during the implementation phase: "Make the gripper out of silicone or rubber to avoid crushing tomatoes" and "a Dynamixel motor is the best way to drive the robot." The result of this partnership between humans and AI is a robotic arm that can harvest tomatoes.

ChatGPT as a researcher

The researchers found the collaborative design process to be positive and enriching. "However, we did find that our role as engineers shifted towards performing more technical tasks," says Stella. In Nature Machine Intelligence, the researchers explore the varying degrees of cooperation between humans and Large Language Models (LLM), of which ChatGPT is one. In the most extreme scenario, AI provides all the input to the robot design, and the human blindly follows it. In this case, the LLM acts as the researcher and engineer, while the human acts as the manager, in charge of specifying the design objectives.

Risk of misinformation

Such an extreme scenario is not yet possible with today's LLMs. And the question is whether it is desirable. "In fact, LLM output can be misleading if it is not verified or validated. AI bots are designed to generate the 'most probable' answer to a question, so there is a risk of misinformation and bias in the robotic field," Della Santina says. Working with LLMs also raises other important issues, such as plagiarism, traceability and intellectual property.

Della Santina, Stella and Hughes will continue to use the tomato-harvesting robot in their research on robotics. They are also continuing their study of LLMs to design new robots. Specifically, they are looking at the autonomy of AIs in designing their own bodies. "Ultimately an open question for the future of our field is how LLMs can be used to assist robot developers without limiting the creativity and innovation needed for robotics to rise to the challenges of the 21st century," Stella concludes.

#GOATMoments #robots #science

The informed consent process in biomedical research is biased towards people who can meet with clinical study staff during the working day. For those who have the availability to have a consent conversation, the time burden can be off-putting. Professor Eric Vilain, from the Department of Paediatrics, University of California, Irvine, USA, will tell the European Society of Human Genetics annual conference today (Tuesday 13 June) how results from his team's study of the use of a chatbot (GIA -- 'Genetics Information Assistant' developed by Invitae Corporation) in the consent process show that it encourages inclusivity, and leads to faster completion and high levels of understanding. Since such consent is the cornerstone of all research studies, finding ways of cutting the time spent on it while continuing to make sure that participants' understanding is not lessened is something clinicians have aimed for some time.

Working with their institutional review board (IRB), Prof Vilain's team from across University of California Irvine, Children's National Hospital, and Invitae Corporation designed a script for the GIA chatbot to transform the trial consent form and protocol into a logic flow and script. Unlike conventional methods of obtaining consent, the bot was able to quiz participants to assess the knowledge they had attained. It could also be accessed at any time, allowing individuals with less free time to use it outside normal business hours. "We saw that more than half of our participants interacted with the bot at these times, and this shows its utility in decreasing the barriers to entry to research. Currently, most people who participate in biomedical research have time to do so as well as the knowledge that studies exist," says Prof Vilain

The researchers involved 72 families in the consent process during a six-month time period as part of the US national GREGoR consortium, a National Institutes of Health initiative to advance rare disease research. A total of 37 families completed consent using the traditional process, while 35 used the chatbot. The researchers found that the median length of the consent conversation was shorter for those using the bot, at 44 rather than 76 minutes, and the time from referral to the study to consent completion was also faster, at five as opposed to 16 days. The level of understanding of those who had used the bot was assessed with a 10-question quiz that 96% of participants passed, and a request for feedback showed that 86% thought that they had had a positive experience.

"I was surprised and pleased that a significant number of people would feel comfortable communicating with a chatbot," says Prof Vilain. "But we worked hard with our IRB to ensure that it didn't 'hallucinate' (make mistakes) and to ensure that knowledge was conveyed correctly. When the bot was unable to answer a question, it encouraged the participant to speak with a member of the study team."

While it is not possible to give an accurate account of cost saving, the time savings of staff were substantial, the researchers say. Because people can pause the chatbot consent process at any time, it can be completed much more quickly -- for example, four participants completed in 24 hours. Of the consent conversations that were quick (less than an hour), 83% of them were with the chatbot. The consent conversations that were longer (between one and two hours), were with a study staff member (66%).

"But it's far from being just about speed," says Prof Vilain. "The traditional method of consenting does not have a mechanism to verify understanding objectively. It is based on the conviction of the study staff member hosting the conversation that the consent has been informed properly and the individual understands what they are consenting to. The chat-based method can test comprehension more objectively. It does not allow users who do not show understanding to give consent, and puts them in touch with a genetic counsellor to figure out why knowledge transmission did not occur.

"We believe that our work has made an important contribution to the obtention of properly-informed consent, and would now like to see it used in different languages to reach global populations," he concludes.

Professor Alexandre Reymond, chair of the conference, said: "The keystone to informed consent should be that it is by definition 'informed', and we should explore all possibilities to ensure this in the future."

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24: $0 - Broke neck in diving accident. Paralyzed from chest down. Began learning stocks. 25: $0 - Hired as an analyst by small brokerage at $1,000/mo. 26: $0 - Lost job. 28: $0 - Re-hired by different company at $500/mo. looking for defunct public companies to reverse merge with private companies wanting to go public. 29: $10k - Salary increased to $3k/mo. learned the biz inside and out. 30: $100k - Got stock in a few deals that worked out. Started my own company and did a few deals. 31: $1M - Did more deals. 32: $7M - Did more deals and invested on full margin during internet boom. 33:$700k - Market crashed and lost 90% of my net worth. Indicted for securities fraud but charges dropped. IRS nailed me for offshore account. 37: $500k - Lost more money in bad deals. Depression. Thoughts of suicide. No job. Too afraid of doing what I used to do, after getting burned. 40: $300k - Lost more money. Depressed. Studying spirituality. Tried day trading futures. 46: $300k - Never made money day trading. Still dealing with fears of losing everything, being broke and paralyzed. But trying to gain new strength every day. No longer depressed. Still seeking a new path. Meditating. Mostly at peace with fact I'm 46 and some would call a loser. But, no longer equate self worth to net worth.

Lessons: 1. You can achieve your dreams regardless of your limitations. 2. Find a mentor, offer to work for peanuts and learn everything you can. 3. Hire an assistant as soon as possible to free you up for high dollar activities. They provide a huge ROI. 4. Cherish your youth and don't be afraid to take calculated risks early once you have some skills. It's easy to make up a 10k - 50k loss when you have your whole life ahead of you. 5. Luck plays a huge role. But, you also need to position yourself to get lucky. For a surfer to catch a big wave, you need to first choose to be a surfer, have the right board, surf under the right conditions and show up every day. Something bigger than you decides the size of wave you get. 6. Peal aside a chunk of your net worth and build a fortress around it. You never know when luck will turn. Look at Eike Batista. Was worth $30 billion. Now filing bankruptcy.

I remember when I was in my mid-twenties and saw a friend's dad lose a nearly $20 million net worth in real estate. I thought: "What a loser. I will never risk all of my money like that". But when you're worth $2M you wanna be worth $5M. When you're worth $5M you wanna be worth $10M and so on. Money is a game. Your life isn't. After you have earned a nice nest egg, make sure you play the game with only what you can afford to lose. And check your greed every day. Much more to life than money. Of course, that what's often said by those who don't have it :)

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The recent progress in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) promises a future where these technologies would play a more prominent role in society. Current developments, such as the introduction of autonomous vehicles, the ability to generate original artwork, and the creation of chatbots capable of engaging in human-like conversations, highlight the immense possibilities held by these technologies. While these advancements offer numerous benefits, they also pose some fundamental questions. The characteristics such as creativity, communication, critical thinking, and learning -- once considered to be unique to humans -- are now being replicated by AI. So, can intelligent machines be considered 'human'?

In a step toward answering this question, Associate Professor Tomohide Ibuki from Tokyo University of Science, in collaboration with medical ethics researcher Dr. Eisuke Nakazawa from The University of Tokyo and nursing researcher Dr. Ai Ibuki from Kyoritsu Women's University, recently explored whether robots and AI can be entrusted with nursing, a highly humane practice. Their work was made available online on 12 June 2023 and published in the journal Nursing Ethics on 12 June 2023.

"This study in applied ethics examines whether robotics, human engineering, and human intelligence technologies can and should replace humans in nursing tasks," says Dr. Ibuki.

Nurses demonstrate empathy and establish meaningful connections with their patients. This human touch is essential in fostering a sense of understanding, trust, and emotional support. The researchers examined whether the current advancements in robotics and AI can implement these human qualities by replicating the ethical concepts attributed to human nurses, including advocacy, accountability, cooperation, and caring.

Advocacy in nursing involves speaking on behalf of patients to ensure that they receive the best possible medical care. This encompasses safeguarding patients from medical errors, providing treatment information, acknowledging the preferences of a patient, and acting as mediators between the hospital and the patient. In this regard, the researchers noted that while AI can inform patients about medical errors and present treatment options, they questioned its ability to truly understand and empathize with patients' values and to effectively navigate human relationships as mediators.

The researchers also expressed concerns about holding robots accountable for their actions. They suggested the development of explainable AI, which would provide insights into the decision-making process of AI systems, improving accountability.

The study further highlights that nurses are required to collaborate effectively with their colleagues and other healthcare professionals to ensure the best possible care for patients. As humans rely on visual cues to build trust and establish relationships, unfamiliarity with robots might lead to suboptimal interactions. Recognizing this issue, the researchers emphasized the importance of conducting further investigations to determine the appropriate appearance of robots for facilitating efficient cooperation with human medical staff.

Lastly, while robots and AI have the potential to understand a patient's emotions and provide appropriate care, the patient must also be willing to accept robots as care providers.

Having considered the above four ethical concepts in nursing, the researchers acknowledge that while robots may not fully replace human nurses anytime soon, they do not dismiss the possibility. While robots and AI can potentially reduce the shortage of nurses and improve treatment outcomes for patients, their deployment requires careful weighing of the ethical implications and impact on nursing practice.

"While the present analysis does not preclude the possibility of implementing the ethical concepts of nursing in robots and AI in the future, it points out that there are several ethical questions. Further research could not only help solve them but also lead to new discoveries in ethics," concludes Dr. Ibuki.

Here's hoping for such novel applications of robotics and AI to emerge soon!

I think robots do to much, it’s seems like revolution 😅

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The hottest drink of the summer may be the SEAS-colada. Here's what you need to make it: gin, pineapple juice, coconut milk and a dielectric elastomer actuator-based soft peristaltic pump. Unfortunately, the last component can only be found in the lab of Robert Wood, the Harry Lewis and Marlyn McGrath Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

At least, for now.

Wood and his team designed the pump to solve a major challenge in soft robotics -- how to replace traditionally bulky and rigid power components with soft alternatives.

Over the past several years, Wood's Microrobotics Lab at SEAS has been developing soft analogues of traditionally rigid robotic components, including valves and sensors. In fluid-driven robotic systems, pumps control the pressure or flow of the liquid that powers the robot's movement. Most pumps available today for soft robotics are either too large and rigid to fit onboard, not powerful enough for actuation or only work with specific fluids.

Wood's team developed a compact, soft pump with adjustable pressure flow versatile enough to pump a variety of fluids with varying viscosity, including gin, juice, and coconut milk, and powerful enough to power soft haptic devices and a soft robotic finger.

The pump's size, power and versatility opens up a range of possibilities for soft robots in a variety of applications, including food handling, manufacturing, and biomedical therapeutics.

The research was published recently in Science Robotics.

Peristaltic pumps are widely used in industry. These simple machines use motors to compress a flexible tube, creating a pressure differential that forces liquid through the tube. These types of pumps are especially useful in biomedical applications because the fluid doesn't touch any component of the pump itself.

"Peristaltic pumps can deliver liquids with a wide range of viscosities, particle-liquid suspensions, or fluids such as blood, which are challenging for other types of pumps," said first author Siyi Xu, a former graduate student at SEAS and current postdoctoral fellow in Wood's lab.

Building off previous research, Xu and the team designed electrically powered dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) to act as the pump's motor and rollers. These soft actuators have ultra-high power density, are lightweight, and can run for hundreds of thousands of cycles.

The team designed an array of DEAs that coordinate with each other, compressing a millimeter-sized channel in a programmed sequence to produce pressure waves.

The result is a centimeter-sized pump small enough to fit on board a small soft robot and powerful enough to actuate movement, with controllable pressure, flow rate, and flow direction.

"We also demonstrated that we could actively tune the output from continuous flow to droplets by varying the input voltages and the outlet resistance, in our case the diameter of the blunt needle," said Xu. "This capability may allow the pump to be useful not only for robotics but also for microfluidic applications."

"The majority of soft robots contain rigid components somewhere along their drivetrain," said Wood. "This topic started as an effort to swap out one of those key pieces, the pump, with a soft alternative. But along the way we realized that compact soft pumps may have far greater utility, for example in biomedical settings for drug delivery or implantable therapeutic devices."

This incredible news?

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The new technology can fit 10 to 100 times more information on one device and process it in one place. The new memory processes data in a similar way as synapses in the human brain. A feature of the memory is resistance switching, which is capable of a continuous range of states, unlike traditional memory, which has only two states: one or zero.

Prototype device based on hafnium oxide, a material already used in the semiconductor industry. The technology was patented by the Cambridge Business Enterprise.

One potential solution to the problem of inefficient computer memory is a new type of technology known as resistive switching memory. Conventional memory devices are capable of two states: one or zero. A functioning resistive switching memory device however, would be capable of a continuous range of states – computer memory devices based on this principle would be capable of far greater density and speed.

“A typical USB stick based on continuous range would be able to hold between ten and 100 times more information, for example,” said Hellenbrand.

Hellenbrand and his colleagues developed a prototype device based on hafnium oxide, an insulating material that is already used in the semiconductor industry. The issue with using this material for resistive switching memory applications is known as the uniformity problem. At the atomic level, hafnium oxide has no structure, with the hafnium and oxygen atoms randomly mixed, making it challenging to use for memory applications.

However, the researchers found that by adding barium to thin films of hafnium oxide, some unusual structures started to form, perpendicular to the hafnium oxide plane, in the composite material.

These vertical barium-rich ‘bridges’ are highly structured, and allow electrons to pass through, while the surrounding hafnium oxide remains unstructured. At the point where these bridges meet the device contacts, an energy barrier was created, which electrons can cross. The researchers were able to control the height of this barrier, which in turn changes the electrical resistance of the composite material.

“This allows multiple states to exist in the material, unlike conventional memory which has only two states,” said Hellenbrand.

Unlike other composite materials, which require expensive high-temperature manufacturing methods, these hafnium oxide composites self-assemble at low temperatures. The composite material showed high levels of performance and uniformity, making them highly promising for next-generation memory applications.

A patent on the technology has been filed by Cambridge Enterprise, the University’s commercialisation arm.

“What’s really exciting about these materials is they can work like a synapse in the brain: they can store and process information in the same place, like our brains can, making them highly promising for the rapidly growing AI and machine learning fields,” said Hellenbrand.

The researchers are now working with industry to carry out larger feasibility studies on the materials, in order to understand more clearly how the high-performance structures form. Since hafnium oxide is a material already used in the semiconductor industry, the researchers say it would not be difficult to integrate into existing manufacturing processes.

The research was supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

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