What I Learnt For The Week 12: Smart Intelligent Table, Pogonophobia (fear of beards), Taller In The Morning, Alien Hand Syndrome, Singing Whale.

Hello Buddies!! Welcome once again to another exciting and educative episode in the series of "What I Learnt For The Week", and I still express my gratitude to @mobbs for the privileges.

Over the course of the week (2nd-6th April), I made some amazing discoveries, of which I will select some random five to represent the lessons learnt for each day of the week.

Okay buddies; let's go straight to the lessons learnt for the week.

Monday: Smart Table (the intelligent table)

Just as you may have already known; I normally begin an episode with lessons from emerging technology on "Robotics and Machines", and this episode would not be an exception.

The advancement in technology has given us the possibility to create some mind-blowing things from our imaginations. The other time, we looked at the smart slippers that can park themselves; but clearly, machine intelligence has now found practicality in some other things too, and among them is the Smart Table.

Okay; have you ever imagined a table that can keep your food warm and keep your drinks cold at just the press of a button? If you've not thought of that, I would love to tell you that this tech has arrived and it is codenamed "Smartslab".

Dynamics of Smartslab

Now, some might be thinking, how does this table do these stuffs? Okay, here's the thing: The table has various segments which have various temperatures at each time (some points provide cooling temperature for drinks, while some points provide warming temperature for food). Now, to be able to achieve this, the table is made of Sapienstone ceramics which can withstand temperature variations without stress or strain.

The heating process is achieved by means of "inductive cooking" which is a form of heating process that uses magnetic induction (this is even more efficient than the traditional thermal conduction we have been used to). The components relating to the induction process include: Ferromagnetic rods, induction coils, and of course some touch sensors to detect when a food is placed on that spot. Then for the cooling process, this is achieved through the "peltier effect".

Okay! Too much talk, let us have a little video clip from YouTube of how this table looks like, and the functionalities.

So you see, in this era of emerging technology the advancement of technology is only mind-limited, as long as the mind can conceive it, the achievement would only be a question of time.

To know more about the smartslab, click here.

Tuesday: Pogonophobia (fear of beards)

Beards, or generally; facial hairs, are considered relatively attractive by some, and has also been seen to have cosmetic effect on some guys. No wonder some men leave their beards to grow (Yes, I have grown some beards, and I also read in the post of @lemouth where he talked about his beard/goatee) really cool, you must agree with me. But do you know that some people view beards differently? Not only viewing it differently, but they have irrational and unconditional fear for beards. This is known as pogonophobia.

[Image Source: Pixabay. CC0 Licensed]

The term pogonophobia came from "pogon" (from Greek, meaning; beard), then of course "phobia" which means "fear of". Here's a little tip for you before I continue: The last American president with a fully grown beard; Benjamin Harrison, left White House in 1893. Okay; so wassup with beards? Some people have associated some level of anxiety to bearded people, and this is an actual phobia; though very weird.

Causes of pogonophobia

The cause of pogonophobia is the sight of beards, but what creates this irrational feeling for it? There are many possible factors, but I would just mention a few of them:

• Some have associated people that have beards with roughness, and being rugged. And maybe, in the past, they may have been ill-treated by some bearded fellows, this could actually ignite the fear of beards in them. And remember, phobias can actually grow.

• In this part of the world, people have often associated bearded people with some kind of extremist religious sect (I won't mention the name for some reasons), which perpetuate acts of terrorism. This could make people to dread men with beards.

• Also, cultural and political factors could have a part to play in this.

I once asked someone this question: If you're a police officer and you come to a joint to make an arrest of some suspected drug abusers, and you find a very densely-bearded guy among some clean-shaved guys, who will you go after first? I'm sure you know the answer the person gave. Now you see, this is an irrational attachment of "ill" with beard, and it can be a manifestation of pogonophobia. Well, I'll tell you for free that my beard doesn't make me bad; moreover they're really cool, lol.

I'm sure you may want to know more about pogonophobia, click here.

Wednesday: Taller In The Morning

For sometime, I have been noticing this weird phenomenon. In the early hours of the morning, when I wake up to visit the convenience, the tip of my head would slightly touch the lintel of the door to the convenience, but in the evening, it wouldn't touch it. So I began to wonder "do I increase in height in the morning and then decrease in the evening?" (P.S: I'm roughly a 6 footer). So I had to do some research, and boom!! I found out why.

[Image Source: Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain licensed]

The human spine comprises of 33 individual vertebrae which are joined by intervertebral discs, which makes it possible for easy flexibility and movement of the spinal column. Also, you know that the force of gravity has an exertion effect on the spine (this is the reason astronauts gain some inches in height when they return from a lesser-gravity space). The same effect happens when you sleep. Because you lie horizontal on the bed, the pressure of the gravity would not have effect on your spine, and they would be able to replace the intervertebral fluid which adds up to about 0.5inches or more to your height in the morning (well, except you sleep while standing up).

This principle has been understood by some yogist, and as they constantly engage in stretching exercises, they could add up some inches to their height over time. I wouldn't mind some extra inches too.

To read up more, click here.

Thursday: Alien Hand Syndrome

Now, the name of this syndrome may have given you a brief insight of what I'm about to write. The Alien Hand Syndrome (AHS) is a weird medical condition in which the hands (one or both) act autonomously without the body having control of it; hence the name "Alien hand".

[Image Source: Pixabay. CC0 licensed]

Some times, the sufferers of this condition tend to complain of their hands doing things that they wouldn't want to do. Some even go as far as grabbing objects without control, or even going rogue sometimes. The first case of this syndrome was identified by Dr Kurt Goldstein (neuro-psychiatrist) in the early 1900s. And this was thought to be the human version of the "mad cow disease".

Causes of AHS

The majority of the sufferers of AHS are people that had previously had extreme epileptic seizure and had undergone a Corpus Callosotomy, which is a type of neurosurgical intervention in which the two halves (or hemispheres) of the brain are separated to relieve the effect of the seizures. Also, people with stroke can experience this condition.

Here's a little tip for you: The first case of AHS was also called the "anarchic hand". And it has also been said that the left hand is more affected than the right hand.

I'm sure you want to know more about AHS, click here.

Friday: The Singing Whale

People have been recording some whales making some human-understandable sounds. Like Wikie the orca has been seen to be taught how to say words like "hello, bye". But do you know that some whales do sing? Yes! the humpback whale does that. But most fascinating is the one by the bowhead whales which produce melodies that look pretty well like our contemporary jazz.

Okay! You may not be able to sing jazz, but bowhead whales can, lol. And not only that, scientists have proven that there are about 185 distinctive melodies produced by the bowhead whales. Now that's fascinating. I would drop a video at the end, so you can hear them sing. But don't feel jealous if they can sing better than you.

It has also been recorded that these whales change their melodies at each point of the year. That is, they have specific melody for each season, and more often than not, they won't repeat the melody till the same season next year.

This is quite amazing as to which abilities Mother Nature has bestowed on animals. Maybe soon, we could see whales dancing (maybe moonwalk would suffice).

Okay, I promised to drop a video from YouTube for you. Here we go:

To know more about this amazing whale, click here.

Okay buddies, this is the summary of some of the lessons I learnt for the week, and until I come your way again, don't stop learning. @samminator says so.

Thanks for reading

References for further reading: Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5, Ref6, Ref7, Ref8, Ref9, Ref10

All images are CC0/Public Domain licensed and are linked to their source

gif by @foundation