Dameyo

The Making of Iranian Caviar

// June 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // General

Well, Iranian caviar is considered to be the world’s most exquisite delicacies. The price for the cheapest one is around 70,000 baht.

Although caviar might seem to be something quintessentially Russian, the word caviar is not, the native Russian term being ikra. Caviar first came into English in the 16th century, probably by way of French and Italian, which borrowed it from Turkish havyar.

The source of the Turkish word is apparently an Iranian dialectal form related to the Persian word for “egg,” khāyah, and this in turn goes back to the same Indo-European root that gives us the English words egg and oval.

This rather exotic etymology is appropriate to a substance that is not to everyone’s taste, giving rise to Shakespeare’s famous phrase, “’twas caviary to the general,” the general public, that is.

Can you eat this bread?

// June 5th, 2009 // No Comments » // Funny pictures, General, Weird Science

The human bread is made by a 28-year-old fine arts master degree student, Kittiwat Unarrom, from Thailand. These bread sculptures are made out of dough, raisins, cashews, and chocolate.

This bakery house looks like the lair of a serial killer where realistic-looking human body parts are hanging on meat hooks.

Scary or not, just check out the video.

Emotional Robot

// June 3rd, 2009 // No Comments » // General, Science and Technology

There have been a variety of robots that emulate emotional expression through their facial features.

Researchers from Waseda University have teamed up with Kyushu-based robot manufacturer Tmsuk to develop a humanoid robot that uses its entire body to express a variety of emotions.

Named “KOBIAN,” the android integrates features of two previously developed robots — the WABIAN-2 bipedal humanoid and the WE-4RII emotion expression humanoid — into a bipedal machine that can walk around, perceive its environment, perform physical tasks, and express a range of emotions. The robot also features a new double-jointed neck that helps it achieve more expressive postures.

Surprise

KOBIAN can express seven different feelings, including delight, surprise, sadness, and dislike. In addition to assuming different poses to match the mood, the emotional humanoid uses motor in its face to move its lips, eyelids and eyebrows into various positions.

Delight

To express delight, for example, the robot lifts its soft rubbery hands over its head and opens its eyes and mouth wide.

Sadness

To show sadness, the robot slouches over, hangs its head down and holds a hand up to its face in a gesture of grief.

Dislike

According to KOBIAN’s developers, the robot’s expressiveness makes it better equipped to interact with humans and assist with daily activities. In the future, the robot may seek work in the field of nursing.

*The video shows KOBIAN cycling through a variety of stock emotional expressions. Tmsuk claims the robot’s postural emoting will make it better able to interact with humans. At least if the humans involved enjoy interacting with an emo robot. I think a future in stage performance may be more likely.