Shane Wighton, faced with needing a haircut during a Covid quarantine, invented a robot that cuts his hair. Shane is shown below looking apprehensive as the robot does its work. I’d be apprehensive too. You could wind up with a bad haircut and no ears.
The human brain has been called the most complex structure in the universe. The brain has 100,000,000,000 neurons that come together to create consciousness, creativity, and memory. Shane may not have used his brain to do the most productive thing in the world, but he certainly was clever and skilled.
One of the mysteries of human evolution is why, about 2 million years ago, did the size of the human brain see such a dramatic increase in size? Equally mysterious, why did the brain begin to shrink after the last Ice Age, about 3,000 to 5,000 years ago (see the “us!” above)?
Equally impressive is the brain’s energy efficiency. This amazing organ consumes only about 20 Watts of power. While that’s 20% of the body’s power consumption at rest, it’s less than a typical laptop (30-70 Watts) and a 40-Watt bulb (40 Watts).
The brain needs about 300 calories a day. A typical vanilla milkshake has about 300 calories as does a Snicker’s bar. Next time we spend time with the grandkids I am going to give them a candy bar and admonish them. “This is brain food. You should have at least one candy bar a day if you want to achieve your full potential. How do you think Shane got to be so clever?”
Shane also developed a basketball hoop that uses various motors to adjust its angle, within a 600-millisecond timeframe, in order for the basketball to always go into the net. And he owes it all to Snickers.