Chatbots

What if instead of clicking on link after link on a company’s website, you could type a question and get an immediate, customized answer? Some companies are working to make this a reality using chatbots. Chatbots are computer programs that can communicate with human beings by phone, on messaging apps or on websites.

There are two types of chatbots: open and closed. A closed chatbot follows a script, which may or may not involve using AI (artificial intelligence) to understand users’ messages. An open chatbot uses AI both to figure out what users want and to generate responses. Open chatbots are able to learn from their conversations and thus improve their ability to communicate over time. This means that open chatbots can respond to a wider range of inquiries, compared with closed chatbots. Communicating with them feels more natural, but if they have not been correctly trained, users may have a bad experience with them.

One significant advantage of chatbots is that they are available all the time, even in the middle of the night. Plus, a single chatbot can cater to multiple users at once. This means that users can get immediate answers to their questions rather than waiting for a human representative. Chatbots have the potential to overcome several technological problems people face. These include difficulty in searching websites and trouble finding basic information and answers to simple questions.

However, in order for chatbots to work, humans are still indispensable (不可或缺的). Someone has to program the chatbots initially, train them, and maintain and improve the chatbot system. Further, even open chatbots may not have the answers to detailed questions, and many people simply prefer speaking to a human rather than a chatbot. Thus, chatbots are unlikely to completely replace human agents. Rather, they will help users resolve simple problems so that customer service representatives can focus on more difficult issues.

8 . Israeli Company Develops 3D Printed Beef

If there were an award for the funniest company name of 2022, then the 3D printed meat company “Steakholder” would win that award.

Israeli company Steakholder Foods Ltd. has introduced its new product, Omakase Beef Morsels, which are bioprinted with cultured meat. The bites are inspired by the world-famous Wagyu beef, famous for its fat marbling patterns (大理石花纹) in the meat, which is also very expensive.

The company was formed in 2019 and has an office in Israel and Belgium, and is now expanding its operations to the US.     1    

Stakeholder uses stem cells from cattle for the production of its printed beef, and the muscle tissue and fat are printed from two separate bio-inks.     2     A bite can be made juicier, chewier, and the taste can also be altered.

The process works by first selecting the animals to extract (提取) the stem cells from. The cells are selected from animals that will provide the best meat and yield. The next step is proliferation, in which the cells are placed into a nutrient rich reactor to multiply. When the cells reach appropriate numbers, the stem cells change into muscle cells and fat cells.     3    

“This product marks a major step forward for us and for the cultured meat industry in general,” said Arik Kaufman, CEO of Steakholder Foods. “It is the result of a lot of hard work and our desire to achieve the highest level of meat possible through bioprinting and cell culture processes.”

    4     Its patent for 3D-bioprinting technology is the result of intensive cooperation between its 3D printing engineers and cell biologists. “We see Omakase Beef Morsels as the combination of food, technology and fine art,” Kaufman said. “We want to inspire chefs around the world to create delicious masterpieces and unforgettable dining experiences.”

So there you have it, guilt-free meat eating may be just around the corner.

9 . The water off the coast of northwest Greenland is a glass-like calm, but the puddles (水坑) on the region’s icebergs are a sign that a transformation is underway higher on the ice sheet.

Several days of unusually warm weather in northern Greenland have caused rapid melting, made visible by the rivers of meltwater rushing into the ocean. Temperatures have been running around 60 degrees Fahrenheit — 10 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year, scientists said.

The amount of ice that melted in Greenland between July 15 and 17 this year alone — 6 billion tons of water per day — would be enough to fill 7.2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Each summer, scientists worry that they will see a repeat of the record melting that occurred in 2019, when 532 billion tons of ice flowed out into the sea. An unexpectedly hot spring and a July heat wave that year caused almost the entire ice sheet’s surface to melt. Global sea level rose permanently by 1.5 millimeters as a result.

Greenland holds enough ice — if it all melted — to lift sea level by 7.5 meters around the world. The latest research points to a more and more threatening situation on the Northern Hemisphere’s iciest island.

“Unprecedented (史无前例的)” rates of melting have been observed at the bottom of the Greenland ice sheet, a study published in February found, caused by huge quantities of meltwater flowing down from the surface. This water is particularly concerning because it can destabilize the sheet above it and could lead to a massive, rapid loss of ice.

And in 2020, scientists found that Greenland’s ice sheet had melted beyond the point of no return. The rate of melting in recent years exceeds anything Greenland has experienced in the last 12,000 years, another study found — and enough to cause measurable change in the gravitational field over Greenland.

At the East Greenland Ice-core Project — or EastGRIP — research camp in northwest Greenland, the work of scientists to understand the impact of climate change is being affected by climate change itself.

Aslak Grinsted, a climate scientist at the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute, said that they have been trying to get flights into the camp but the warmth is destabilizing the landing site.

Before human-caused climate change kicked in, temperatures near 32 degrees Fahrenheit there were unheard of. But since the 1980s, this region has warmed by around 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit per decade — four times faster than the global pace — making it all the more likely that temperatures will cross the melting point.