Procreation

It sure is funny how your mind wanders when you are in bed, recovering from an illness, half-way between sleep and alertness...

It was two weekends ago when the flu hit me - hard. I had all the typical symptoms and I spent a lot of time in bed, trying to rest and help my body fight-off the infection. It was during this time, that my mind wandered to thoughts of procreation and I marveled at the complex series of biochemical reactions which keep us all alive.

A few decades ago I remember learning that hard-wired in all living organisms is the fervent desire to ensure that they create offspring, so that their genetic material (DNA for humans) survives once they are no longer on this Earth. A definition of procreation could be the desire to create offspring, which will create more offspring, etc. Each species, in other words, wants to make sure that others like them will be around in the future.

If you are an animal, you need to worry about whatever predator(s) plans on having you for dinner. If you are a plant, you need to worry about the climate wherever you happen to have sprouted, as well as those animals which might come around and gobble you up. Regardless of what type of living organism you might happen to be, you also need to compete with other organisms for a limited amount of resources which are needed to sustain you. This is what scientists term the "Carrying Capacity" of an ecosystem, which I touched-upon in a previous post.

Thinking back to living things and the desire for procreation, I got to thinking about whatever virus was wreaking havoc on my body. While viruses are not technically living things, they are remarkably efficient at procreation. By hijacking other living cells, they force them to churn out many new copies of themselves, depleting the resources available to the infected cells and many times killing those host cells in the process. [Merriam-Webster definition of Virus]
Those new copies of the virus are then available to infect new cells, creating even more copies of themselves and starting the cycle anew.

Of course organisms have developed defensive mechanisms, which fight to eliminate the viruses infecting the organism's cells (in the process of fighting the infecting viruses, they can trigger symptoms such as those that were making me miserable). If however a virus has no way of leaving the body of the infected organism, its efforts at procreation will end when it exceeds the organism's carrying capacity (and the organism dies), or when the organism's defensive systems wipe-out all copies of the virus. Therein lies the sneaky genius of viruses: those that are effective at procreation have developed various means of jumping from one organism to another.

Two news stories about viruses caught my attention right around the time I was coming down with the flu.
The first dealt with Ebola, that modern day scourge which seems to suddenly show a resurgence in Western Africa, and what scientists are discovering about it's lethality related to an infected person's age (bad news for people my age).
The second dealt with something a bit stranger ... and scarier. Scientists examining ice cores from Northern Canada discovered two new types of viruses in frozen Caribou droppings that were 700 years old -- viruses are able to survive for centuries in ice.

Viruses are by far the most abundant biological entities on Earth and they outnumber all the others put together. They infect all types of cellular life including animals, plants, bacteria and fungi.
New versions/types of viruses keep getting created through genetic mutations.
Thankfully, genetic mutations also allow the various organisms at risk from viruses to evolve and cope with the viral onslaught.

It staggers my mind to think of the glorious system of checks and balances present in the environment we live in and causes me to pause in awe at the way life has evolved on this planet we call Earth.

Lost and Found

Trade shows are hard on the feet - you are on your feet all day, walking around from booth to booth. It gets worse if you are a staff member in a booth, since you spend most of your time standing.
It feels great to have the opportunity to sit down every once in a while and take a load off your feet.
A hard chair feels blissful, while a comfortable couch feels downright heavenly.

There are hidden dangers associated with couches however, which trade show attendees and exhibitors need to keep in mind.

My friend Bob Walker had found a coveted spot on a couch while attending the Greenbuild trade show on Oct. 22. He enjoyed a few minutes of rest while he made a phone call. As he got up to leave, he spotted some folded bills on the couch next to him.
They were not his, so he figured they must have slipped out of the pocket of another attendee who was sitting next to him.
When he examined them closer, Bob discovered there was a fair amount of cash there, as well as a driver's license ... he also found a credit card and a hotel room key card!

When Bob returned to our booth, he showed me what he had found. We quickly came to the conclusion the owner would be frantic. Not only would he be unable to get into his hotel room, he would not be able to travel either (a driver's license is required before someone is allowed to board a plane).

Bob went to the trade show registration desk, explained what had happened and asked for a phone number associated with the name on the driver's license. It was a work number, however the person who answered the phone there stated that no one by the name on the driver's license worked there... The registration desk then called the hotel and left a message for the guest.

Fast forward to Oct. 23. I was in the booth when the show opened in the morning. A gentleman arrived, looking for Robert Walker. I explained Bob had left and asked if there was something I could help him with. He explained he was the owner of the cash and cards Bob had found and wanted to thank him personally for turning them in.

I accepted his gratitude on Bob's behalf - well played Mr. Walker!

Robots

Wow, it has been a LONG time since I posted here ... please accept my profuse apologies

It started with the Jetsons, I think.
I remember the robot maid and other time- & labor-saving appliances used in the cartoons I watched as a child.

Then came Asimov -- he had me hooked as I voraciously consumed his stories about the future and all things robotic during my teen years: I, Robot

In college, I remember Hajime Sorayama's robot creations adorning the walls to my room:

Shortly after the turn of the century, I remember a friend telling me about this uber-cool robotic vacuum cleaner he had bought called a Roomba and how it was the shape of things to come:

In 2004 came the (loose) movie adaptation of Asimov's vision: I, Robot

Fast-forward to 2014. Where are the robots today?

I feel a bit let-down, even though I hear of advances such as medical assistant robots and future robotic assistants, such as Jibo, which are slowly advancing towards a robotic future.

I found the following article illuminating, especially since the title agrees with my question above: iRobot CEO decries the slow advance of robotics.

Here's an interesting insight from the article:

Pam Henderson, a former assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University and co-founder and CEO of consulting firm NewEdge, Inc., agreed, adding that too many roboticists are in love with their own ideas.

"Some of you have one idea you are in love with and you are going to ride that thing until it goes to market or it kills you," Henderson said during a keynote talk at RoboBusiness. "Robotics is not the industry. Appliances are the industry. Home health care is the industry. The need isn't for a robot.... What's the opportunity? No opportunity? Don't build. Be pretty crisp on the applications before you do the development."

In the end, it comes down to money:

"It takes $20 million or more to build a legitimate robot. It's a much bigger check to write to get to play," said Colin Angle, CEO and co-founder of iRobot (the maker of the Roomba vacuum cleaners).

Allow me to add my personal appeal to all the Angel Investors out there:

Please don't overlook the robots!