What I Learnt The Previous Week #2: Google Pixel Ear Buds, Interesting Facts about Pi, Nomophobia, The wonders of superionic ice and Dangers of Genome Testing

Hi, dear steemians! Welcome again to my blog.

Today I bring to you the second episode of my “What I Learnt The Previous Week" series. The topics below represent some interesting discoveries I made within the last week which spanned between 23rd to 27th of April 2018.

Again, I'll like to acknowledge @mobbs for letting me be a partaker in this wonderful series he started. I will also like to thank my very own @samminator whose participation I saw and got me interested. Thanks for referring me to @mobbs

MONDAY: Communication Just got easier - Introducing the Pixel Ear Buds

God is so wonderful that He created different human with diverse culture, appearance and languages. Amongst each of these, language barrier remains one of the daunting of all as it kills communication and makes interrelationships harder to achieve.

But, technology has been striving to help you and I bridge this gap through many means like online translators and related techs. If you're a sci-fi fan, you'd know the famous yellow Babel fish used to get instant translation when slid into the ear in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”.

Luckily for us, in the real world, Google has launched a device known as Pixel Buds which work with a Pixel smartphone and the Google Translator App to provide the user with practically real-time language translation

The Pixel Buds requires one person to wear the earbuds while another person holds the smartphone with the translation app. As the person wearing the earbuds speaks in a language, the Pixel buds pick it and translate his words to the preferred language and output it loud to the other person holding the phone. As the person replies in the translated language, the wearer of the earbuds hears the person in the original language he spoke with earlier already translated.

Unlike the conversational feature of Google translate possible in Android and IOS phones where two people can speak different languages and be translated in that instant but marred with background noises and inability to recognize when one user had stopped talking, the Pixel buds would annihilate such error by allowing the wearer of bud press down a button on the earbud while he speaks disconnecting the background communications.

The Pixel Bud is projected to be the future of mutually intelligible communication in different languages in a manner close to real-time translation.

You can read more about it here

TUESDAY: Interesting Facts about Pi

If not everyone of us, I believe a whole lot of us are familiar with the popular greek letter usually pronounced "pi". It is one of the most appearing greek letters in basic and advanced mathematics.

The 22/7 or alternatively its floating value, 3.142 stuck till now right from basic maths of junior high school days. But little do we know of the many interesting facts relating to this wonderful symbol.

Do you know someone holds a Guinness record for memorizing the highest digits of the floating values of pi?

Up till now, the longest digits of Pi that I've managed to memorize is 3.142 after rounding the decimal to 3 places. The division of 22/7 gives an infinite decimal of numbers and Rajveer Meena of Vellore, India has managed to memorized as long as 70, 000 decimal points (March 2015)

Yes, 70, 000 decimal fucking points!

I bet many people like me are still struggling to memorize just the 14 digits of our friend's mobile number. More surprising is that there has been a previous record - considered unofficial where Akira Haraguchi videotaped himself reciting up to 100, 000 digits of the decimals. He later topped it to 117, 000 in another video later the same year (2005).

Do you know that there also exists a Pi language known as Pillish?

This sounds weird but definitely creative. Pillish is a language created by nerds whereby each successive words of the language matches the successive digits of Pi.

Mike Keith wrote a book entirely in Pillish. The book titled "Not A Wake" has the content to follow the Pi digit sequence. An example is seen below:

Now I fall, a tired suburbian in liquid under.............

If we study each word above, "Now" is 3 lettered corresponding to the first digit of Pi. Then, "I", "fall", "a", "tired" and so on following .1415 of the Pi digits.

Isn't that awesome? Can you write yours?

You can read more about the amazing facts about Pi here

WEDNESDAY: Nomophobia - "The Fear of Being Without a Mobile Phone"

Yes, you read it right! The Fear of Being Without a Mobile Phone. I don't know about you but I think I have this phobia and I'm certain that many would be in this category too.

The word Nomophobia originated from the British urban Dictionary and was first used by a British expert who said

My phone "no work no mo".

The term is used to describe the mental illness or dejection that follows the lack of network or being away from one's phone. It is a feeling that clouds the mind and make one feel lost or detached from a certain world - considered necessary.

Technology has in many ways blessed us so much that communication has been made so easy. In a space of a second, we can get through to a colleague miles away even to the extent of seeing the person through video chatting. Also, we are now able to initiate, execute or end a business transaction through the phone without having to travel an inch.

With these numerous favor bestowed on us through the "Phone Technology" and the increasing rate of social media frenzy, people now tend to find it hard to let go of their mobile phone for a second so much that people are now known to go extra miles into making is possible. People now charge and chat in the toilet, some can't let go of the phone even during lectures and more worrying - at worship places.

Scientists who studied a group of people were able to find out that people even experience anxiety attacks and feel a sort of weak signal that makes them feel down and inactive while experiencing a bad signal or not having their phone with them. It is a growing mental situation nd many people are known to fear this situation and would never want to witness it (I'm sure one of the victim)

Causes of Nomophobia

The number one cause of this phobia is addiction. Today, you can't walk past a normal room filled with youths without seeing with them mobile phones that either match their numbers or in some cases past it. The era of building presence in the social media platform has made many of us glued to the phone, watching out for the latest and getting our eyes fed. A moment away from it would then make us sick and clouded with thoughts of being lost or imprisoned for not having access to the phone and its functions, hence, the fear - Nomophobia.

Another culprit is the fear of insecurity, belonging and detached from the real world conveyed through the mobile phone. People tend to feel they might miss out on important information or alarming messages and this make them scared of being disconnected from their phone.

The notion of companionship and desire for constant connection exhibited by humans, being social beings makes it more a case for the possibility of building phobia for being disconnected from their phones. Talking and chatting about how each others' day is going and many other ways of constant communication contributes to the development of Nomophobia

Symptoms of Nomophobia

As exhibited by many phobics, the symptoms of Nomophobia could be physical or psychological. Some of these are:

• The most vivid one seen in Nomophobics is the notion of constantly checking their phone for any new updates. They are known to rarely lose a sight of their phone. People like that annoy their parents! (at least, Nigerian Parents)
• Nomophobic usually have increased heart rate, sweaty palms and become restless when they are without their phone.
• They are also known to hard unplug their phone from the electric socket, constantly charging so that their battery will never get drained and thus, avoid being away from the phone
• As said earlier, sufferers of this phobia can use their phone anywhere without considering it inappropriate even at places like toilets or worship places.

How to get rid of Nomophobia?

Getting rid of this phobia may prove daunting than expected as a sufferer of this phobia are known to be very addicted and would find it very hard to let go. But definitely, it can be overcome with determination and personal training.

Trying to go offline for some period of time and finding new hobby are other ways to overcome it.
You can read more here

THURSDAY: The wonders of superionic ice

The stride of scientists in the space industry keeps improving so much that each time, we are one step closer to replicating things happening on the other planet on our peaceful planet earth. Many discoveries have been unraveled and many happenings on the other "giant planets" aren't hidden anymore.

Recently, scientist discovered the existence of a special state of water known as "superionic ice" to be existing in Uranus - the giant planet referred to as an ice giant planet along with Neptune.

The presence of this "Superionic Ice" which exists as in both solid and liquid form remained theoretical until just recently when it is announced that scientist has been able to replicate it right here on planet earth! Yes, right here on our dear planet!

This breakthrough was made at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California where the scientists were able to experiment and mirror frozen water ice existing at thousands of degrees in the giant planet like Uranus right inside planet Earth.

Uranus and other ice giant planets like Neptune that have inside them existence of high temperatures and pressure are known to have water existing in the ionic state. Even at high conditions, the water can further condense into a superionic state where oxygen crystallizes and hydrogen atom gets to hang freely around the lattice, floating.

To create this strange ice, water was first compressed into an ultrastrong cubic crystalline form using diamond anvils to apply a pressure that is about 25, 000 times the atmospheric pressure. This takes water to a state called ice VII which is about 60% denser than normal ice and exists as hexagonal crystals.

The ice VII was further compressed using laser-driven shocks applied for a few billionths of a second taking the pressure to over 2 million times the atmospheric pressure and a temperature of nearly 5000°C (9000°F). At this point, ice VII is converted to Superionic ice which moves from a transparent form to an opaque form.

After the formation, the ice was only stable for about 10 - 20 nanoseconds before pressure waves released the compression formed, and the water dissolved to its previous state. This experiment doesn't only help ascertain that such condition of ice exist in Uranus and Neptune but will also help in future to build materials that can withstand such condition which before now would only seem theoretical

Wanna know more about the Superionic ice formation? check here and here

FRIDAY: Dangers of Genotype Identity to our Privacy

It is no news that through genotypes a long chain of a lineage can be traced subject to few lab. tests. Also, its application in crime and paternity identification are becoming wide in usage. But do you know that, like the Cambridge Analytica Crisis of facebook, we might be facing a more dangerous privacy issue through the concept of genome testing?

It was announced on April 25 by the California law enforcement that they have successful captured a long-sought serial killer and shortly after, it was reported they had used public DNA databases to track down the criminal's identity.

How is that alarming?

Well, it was found out that for-profit genome testing companies like 23andMe could be selling anonymized genomic data to the police and other firms to make money. This become dangerous because re-identifying genomes i.e identifying someone's identity through their genetic profile could be so straight-forward and revealing of about 10 more people relating to the person's whose DNA is tested.

Innocent people who agreed to participate in genomic research for the believe that it would help scientists to uncover the roots of many problem facing man like human diversity and some deadly disease.

Many times, they prefer to remain anonymous and definitely wouldn't want their family's identity known either. But with this worrying news of the possible leaking of genetic data, they might not just get themselves exposed but also a significant number of their family members.

Humans share about 99 percent of their genetic base properties with one another that they can easily trace people related to them. With companies beginning to offer genome sequencing as an employee benefit and some members of Congress trying to remove some of the little genetic privacy protection in existence, we could be on the verge of witnessing a dangerous genome hacking where bad guys can easily track you down even without necessarily having to know you before.

This is but an alarming phenomenon that deserves to be looked into. Are we to blame people for supporting research work? or what could be done?

You can as well read more here

Thanks for Reading

So, guys! This is the summary of what I learnt in the previous week. I hope you learnt something.

References for further reading

Ref. 1, Ref. 2, Ref. 3, Ref. 4, Ref. 5