A squeeze in the arm, a pat on the shoulder, or a slap in the face — touch is an important part of the social interaction between people. Nobody needs to drive the point home in the days of social distancing, but social touch is a relatively unknown thing to robots. In order to enable a robot to respond in the correct manner to being touched in social-touch interactions, Merel Jung (University of Twente) identified four different stages: The robot must perceive, be able to recognize, interpret, and then respond in the correct way. Jung explored the first two stages (perceiving and recognizing) could be tested in a relatively simple experiment involving a mannequin’s arm fitted with 64 pressure sensors. Jung could distinguish 60% of almost 8,000 touches (distributed over 14 different types of touch at three levels of intensity). The constraints help us appreciate the output. There was absolutely no social context. And the people who touched the mannequin’s arm were not briefed on how to ‘perform’ their touches. People themselves won’t correctly recognise every single touch at times.
SNEAK PEEK
1. Like logs of wood
Insect populations are like logs of wood under water. They want to come up. We keep pushing them further down. Freshwater insects have shown that we can reduce the pressure so they can rise again. Who proposed it as one way to stop the decline of land-dwelling insects?
1. Dr Roel van Klink (German Centre for iDiv)
2. Two entry points
Two nose cell types get specific attention — the mucus-producing goblet cells and ciliated cells, which have high levels of the entry proteins that the COVID-19 virus uses to get into our cells. Who reported that these cells are the most likely initial infection route for the virus?
2. Dr Waradon Sungnak (Wellcome Sanger Institute)
3. Squirming leader
Apostasy is the renunciation of a religion by a person — a “thoughtcrime” per George Orwell’s definition. When challenged on death penalty for apostasy in Islam, Iqbal Sacranie “wriggled and squirmed”, but was unable “to deny or decry it”. What is alarmingly special about it?
3. Sir Iqbal Sacranie was knighted for promoting good “interfaith relations”!
4. “Thank God, I am…”
Filmmaker Luis Bunuel famously said, “Thank God I’m an atheist”, but later, he admitted he is weary of hearing that “accidental old aphorism of mine”. In which movie did Bunuel feature a village too poor to support a church and a priest, and what was his statement about it?
4. ‘Mexican Bus Ride’ / “It’s guilt we must escape from, not God.”
5. Nobody believes it
Cassandra possessed the gift of prophecy but, after a curse, nobody believed her warnings. Predictions of keen environmentalists are mostly lost on authorities. ‘Denial’ is the psychologists’ term for it, which conjures up an expression attributed to Mark Twain. What is it?
5. “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt” (a pun on “denial” and ‘de-Nile”)
6. Selenium status
Why China got COVID-19 first? The answer could be in Selenium (an essential trace element from the diet). China has populations with both the lowest and highest selenium status in the world. Who identified a link between COVID-19 cure rate and this status in China?
6. Margaret Rayman (University of Surrey)
7. Armies of the night
The titles of several works use words like “clash” or “night” — all taken from a single line of an old poem. ‘The Armies of the Night’ by Norman Mailer is an example. A Broadway play by Clifford Odets has borrowed the last three words of the poem for a title. What’s the poem?
7. “Dover Beach” (1867) by Matthew Arnold (the key line is “Where ignorant armies clash by night”)
8. A collective mind?
The tipping point is the point at which an unorganised crowd suddenly breaks into a riot as if driven by a collective mind — strength from weak ties! After all, even dodgem cars appear to bump into each other endlessly in an arena. Who proposed this as a network theory?
8. Mark Granovetter (in ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’)
9. Ants, new and old
Scientists often view biodiversity as a fixed image while in fact it is a very long and complex movie. Ants that lived in Europe 10-to-45 million years ago were more similar to modern South-East Asian or Indian ants than their European counterparts. Who made the discovery?
9. OIST biologist Evan P. Economo
[ANSWERS]
1. Dr Roel van Klink (German Centre for iDiv)
2. Dr Waradon Sungnak (Wellcome Sanger Institute)
3. Sir Iqbal Sacranie was knighted for promoting good “interfaith relations”!
4. ‘Mexican Bus Ride’ / “It’s guilt we must escape from, not God.”
5. “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt” (a pun on “denial” and ‘de-Nile”)
6. Margaret Rayman (University of Surrey)
7. “Dover Beach” (1867) by Matthew Arnold (the key line is “Where ignorant armies clash by night”)
8. Mark Granovetter (in ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’)
9. OIST biologist Evan P. Economo
QUIZ No. 953
1. In those close quarters “things get itchy.” Who said it about skin rashes in space?
– Gerald Weissmann
– Jennifer Anne MacKinnon
– Zena M. Cardman
1. Gerald Weissmann
2. Who contended that disease avoidance must be and is part of our survival instinct?
– Mats J. Olsson
– C. Margarave Armstrong
– Miguel Rolando Covian
2. Mats J. Olsson
3. A gut-to-brain pathway responds only to sugar, not everything sweet. Who found it?
– Charles S. Zuker
– Cornelia ‘Cori’ Bargmann
– Christine Ann Denny
3. Charles S. Zuker
4. Who came up with the first “standard candle” to measure the distance to galaxies?
– Henrietta Swan Leavitt
– Philibert Jacques Melotte
– Ruby Payne-Scott
4. Henrietta Swan Leavitt
5. Which renowned magician was born without hands or lower legs and was 2’5″ tall?
– Morgan the Escapist
– Drummond Money-Coutts
– Matthias Buchinger
5. Matthias Buchinger