Word: alpha
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Leader Inventor: Toshiba Corp Availability: Prototype only To Learn More: www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/ 2005_05/pr2001.htm Robots may not invade anytime soon, but there's no denying that they're getting smarter. The ball-shaped ApriAlpha uses advanced voice-recognition technology to distinguish between voices coming from different locations. When Alpha hears a voice, it fixes its steely digital-camera eye on the person speaking. The taller ApriAttenda can identify a person in a crowd by the color of his clothes and shape of his body, and then follow its target. It even bleeps when it loses track of its subject. Next...
...Greek system at Harvard, my father–who attended University of Texas at Austin–said, “Hey, Rex. These look like a pretty good deal. You should consider joining.” It seemed like reasonable advice. After all, my dad had been an Alpha Tau Omega in college and had enjoyed his fraternity days immensely. Coming from my background, joining an all-male social club seemed natural, and at the time, hardly objectionable.By the end of my freshman year, I felt that I had a pretty good handle on the final clubs. There were...
...humans are an ambitious species, it's clear we're not the only one. Many animals are known to signal their ambitious tendencies almost from birth. Even before wolf pups are weaned, they begin sorting themselves out into alphas and all the others. The alphas are quicker, more curious, greedier for space, milk, Mom--and they stay that way for life. Alpha wolves wander widely, breed annually and may live to a geriatric 10 or 11 years old. Lower-ranking wolves enjoy none of these benefits--staying close to home, breeding rarely and usually dying before they...
...yearning for supremacy can create its own set of problems. Heart attacks, ulcers and other stress-related ills are more common among high achievers--and that includes nonhuman achievers. The blood of alpha wolves routinely shows elevated levels of cortisol, the same stress hormone that is found in anxious humans. Alpha chimps even suffer ulcers and occasional heart attacks...
...these reasons, people and animals who have an appetite for becoming an alpha often settle contentedly into life as a beta. "The desire to be in a high position is universal," says de Waal. "But that trait has co-evolved with another skill--the skill to make the best of lower positions...