“With its hairless silicone skin and blue complexion, Emo the robot looks more like a mechanical re-creation of the Blue Man Group than a regular human. Until it smiles.

In a study published March 27 in Science Robotics, researchers detail how they trained Emo to smile in sync with humans. Emo can predict a human smile 839 milliseconds before it happens and smile back.

Right now, in most humanoid robots, there’s a noticeable delay before they can smile back at a person, often because the robots are imitating a person’s face in real time. ‘I think a lot of people actually interacting with a social robot for the first time are disappointed by how limited it is,’ says Chaona Chen, a human-robot interaction researcher at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. ‘Improving robots’ expression in real time is important.'”

This robot can tell when you’re about to smile — and smile back via Science News.

Art featured: Gustave Courbet, The Desperate Man, 1843–45. Image via Wikimedia Commons

“The human brain is home to around 86 billion neurons, nerve cells connected to one another by synapses.

Every time we want to move, feel or think, a tiny electrical impulse is generated and sent incredibly quickly from one neuron to another.

Scientists have developed devices which can detect some of those signals – either using a non-invasive cap placed on the head or wires implanted into the brain itself.

The technology – known as a brain-computer interface (BCI) – is where many millions of dollars of research funding appears to be heading at the moment.”

Learn more on Neuralink: Musk’s firm says first brain-chip patient plays online chess via BBC.

Art: The Game of Chess. Sofonisba Anguissola c. 1555
National Museum in Poznań, Poznań

“In this issue of the World Happiness Report we focus on the happiness of people at different stages of life. In the seven ages of man in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, the later stages of life are portrayed as deeply depressing. But happiness research shows a more nuanced picture, and one that is changing over time. We encourage you to explore the 2024 report for the latest findings on the happiness of the world’s young, the old – and everyone in between.”

Learn more on the World Happiness Report via Oxford University.

“So there is no shame in feeling lonely even though society often tells us that we’ve done something wrong or you know if we somehow find ourselves alone on a Friday night or if we feel lonely on the playground you know, or in the cafeteria at school. Perhaps most insidious but most harmful is the impact loneliness has on our sense of self. Over time we come to believe  when we’re lonely that we’re lonely because we’re not likable which makes it harder to take a risk and a chance in conversation. So in that way loneliness can be a downward spiral and part of the challenge and the mission to build a more connected society and a more connected life, is figuring out how do we break that downward spiral so that we can once again rebuild connection  which is what we’re naturally called to do.”
Vivek Murthy on Loneliness and the Power of Connection

“Under the circumstances, I feel compelled to speak out. As health professionals, we are committed to humanity and must condemn and fight these crimes against humanity.” ~ Aron Troen, Director of Hebrew University’s Nutrition and Brain Health Laboratory

Israeli and Palestinian Doctors Speak Out: Medics and health workers describe how they have been affected by Hamas’ attacks on Israel and the response in Gaza via The Lancet.

What cannot letters inspire?
They have souls;
they can speak;
they have in them all that force which expresses the transports of the heart;
they have all the fire of our passions.
They can rouse them as much as if the persons themselves were present.
They have all the tenderness and the delicacy of speech, and sometimes even a boldness of expression beyond it.

~ Heloise in a letter to Abelard

“Do you know what’s extraordinary?” asked the girl.

“That we found each other,” said the bird.

Ice is like soil in the garden
A garden can’t grow without soil
and without ice, the polar ecosystems can’t survive.

Paul Nicklen via Human Nature, p. 94

But now if one receives someone as a friend on the basis that he is good, but then he becomes, and seems, a bad character, should one go on loving him? Or is this not possible, given that not everything is lovable, but only what is good, and what is worthless is neither lovable, nor something one should love (for one should not be a lover of what is worthless, nor become like it, and it has been said that like is a friend to like)? So should one break off the friendship at once; or not in all cases, only where the badness is incurable.

Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, p.229, 1165b15

Even ending in the sense of “disappearing” can still have its modifications according to the kind of Being which an entity may have. The rain is at an end—that is to say it has disappeared. The bread is at an end—that is to say, it has been used up and is no longer available as something ready-to-hand.

Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, pg. 289.