Category: Scientific Progress

We’re at the dining table.
My 12 years old daughter said, “Daddy, everybody says you are a scientist but, daddy, what do you actually do at work?”
My wife jumped quickly and said, “Your daddy makes chemicals in a chemical company.”
My daughter immediately responded, “I hate chemicals.”
My daughter completely shut her mind regarding any activities related to chemicals. She started to complain about her shampoo and nail polish.
She also complained about her paints that she used for her painting class.
“These chemicals are so bad, I think they are very low quality chemicals, my hair gets tangled after using a particular shampoo,” she added.
She turned towards her mom and said, “Mom, I remember you’re complaining about your nail polish last time, you couldn’t remove nail polish completely, am I right?”

I told my daughter, “what your mom just said about my day to day work is true but she missed my main task, making chemicals is only a very small part of the work that I do everyday.”
“My main job is to think about how to solve problems that we all face everyday.”
“Just as you said, you’re not happy with poor quality shampoo, poor quality nail polish, so tell me, who do you think should do work on how to make better shampoo that doesn’t tangle your hair?
Who do you think will solve the problem of low quality nail polish?” I added.

I told my wife in private that you could have said it in a different way so that they don’t shut down their door of perception, their door of listening, and their door of understanding.
My wife nodded with a smile.

As a family, we must be very conscious about our pitch statements regarding our everyday work, our hobbies, and our leisure, when we discuss things on the dining table with others, especially with our children.
Dining table is a very important place to explore our children’s interests.
Interest is the only tool to make people curious, there is no other way around.
Interest is a force that propels us out of bed every single morning and makes us ready to get going.
Sometimes interest becomes really insane. Neil Armstrong, an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer, and the first person to walk on the Moon, got his pilot’s license before his driver’s license.
Siddhartha Gautama, better known as the Buddha, was interested in peace, he was a prince who renounced his position and wealth to seek enlightenment as a spiritual ascetic, attained his goal of peace and founded Buddhism.

We always say to our children, “You are too small, you don’t understand now, there are so many things I do at my work which are very important. You’ll learn them gradually when you grow up.” These are some answers many parents say to their children without giving any specifics.
If we cannot say what we do 8 plus hours everyday at work in a couple of sentences which they can understand then we’ve a serious problem as parents.

When I was a naive and a new parent, I used to say to my daughter that I make chemicals and sell them to make medicines. This is another type of answer I’ve found most often used by many other parents who also work in a place where things are made and sold.

There is nothing wrong with this answer but if your children don’t like making or selling chemicals or any medicines or any other particular things that you are involved in then you are done.
They don’t want to listen to any further details regarding your work, experience, and expertise.
If we don’t like some food then we don’t want to taste it, if we don’t want to taste it, then we don’t know what it feels like tasting.
This is true to all of us, including children, not only in food but also in many life experiences.

When children lose the patience to listen to us, they don’t understand our passion, our dedication, and most importantly, our attitude.
Listening isn’t only to listen to somebody, it’s a mental toughness practice, we need a lot of energy not to speak but to listen.
Listening is not just to be quiet, it means to be at present.

It’s not about our chemical knowledge or medical knowledge or legal or business knowledge or any specific expertise that we have which we are telling to our children.
It’s all about children’s experience of human attitude by opening their eyes, ears, and senses.
Our attitude is key to solving the most challenging human problems in the 21st century.
If our children are not paying attention in developing a good attitude then it will hamper in many different ways in their adult lives.

A good attitude is a settled way of thinking or feeling about a person or a thing that is generally reflected in a person’s behavior.
Good attitude also makes us aware of others’ perceptions towards us.

The most essential degree that we need in life is a good attitude.

Many skills are teachable but attitude is not.

I told my daughter, “I work various things but all of them help to improve people’s lives in different ways.”
Today I attended a presentation from a person from a cell phone company who was looking for something that he could add in cell phone battery materials so that the cell phone battery can last many years.
Think about your cell phone or laptop, what do you think if you don’t have to charge it for many weeks?

My daughter said, “That would be cool.”

Our cell phone and laptop’s battery life is still very short, we have to carry a charger all the time.
We have to solve this problem by creating technology so that we don’t have to carry a charger.
This is just one example of the type of problems that I face every single day at work.

I further added, “This is just one example of how I work to make a positive difference to people’s lives. I also help to discover unique ways and materials to treat the most challenging diseases. Many people are dying everyday due to many chronic diseases.”

I work to empower people as a team who are to deliver breakthroughs so that people get benefits faster and quicker. This team of people are called scientists.
Scientists always challenge the status quo.
Scientists are a very small segment of society but they change society forever.
They always work in unison to solve human problems because each person has specific expertise.

I also contribute to making science a tool of any technology that changes human lives on many frontiers.
Think about how technology is reshaping us to enhance our quality of life. We are living longer because we know how to cure many diseases.
Unfortunately, people are still dying due to many new diseases appearing every single day like cancer, dementia including Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and schizophrenia.

We have developed CRISPR as one of the biggest discoveries of the 21st century. It allows researchers to easily alter DNA sequences and modify gene function. CRISPR is a gene editing tool that has revolutionized biology research, making it easier to study disease by correcting genetic defects, treating and preventing the spread of diseases, and faster to discover drugs.

We have developed faster communication for documents via email and instant messages so that we don’t have to wait for the mailman to receive information. But what about physical delivery of things, can we do it everywhere using any technology such as drones?
Actually, this has already been started but we need more sophisticated technology to access a larger population.

We are developing a driverless car so that we can sit back in the car and read the book while commuting to work.
How does it feel?
My daughter replied, “scary.”

We’re living in the age of coronavirus, hundreds of thousands of people are dying, people around the world are still struggling to get vaccines easily.
This pandemic showed us as proof that the importance of science and scientists in any place on earth is always in top priority for human progress.
We still don’t have vaccines for children under the age 12.
Recently we made and delivered vaccines quickly and efficiently using science as a tool for age 12 and older to prevent the pandemic.
This is one example of how great human minds work at times of crisis taking advantage of science as a tool when we are desperate to save people’s lives.
Those people who made this vaccine mission successful worked 24/7 non-stop using science as a tool and developed a new mRNA technology.
At present, vaccines for COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, are the only authorized mRNA vaccines.

Kudos to all of those great minds who contributed to make mRNA vaccines and make our lives safer.

These are only a few examples of why science is the utmost tool for any kind of technology for human progress.

“Daughter, I’m just one of the many curious minds who are dedicated to human progress through science, whatever breakthrough technology it could be,” I added.

In reality, daughter, you don’t have to worry about anything at this point.
You have to focus on the basic foundation when you are young: excellent reading skill, excellent writing skill, excellent listening power, basic fundamental science and mathematics, and most importantly a very good attitude towards a person and a thing.

The basic foundation of education provides you how to handle the aforementioned tools in life, but sharpening these tools is a never ending process. You have to do it continuously throughout your life.

You’re just 12 years old, the work you will be doing may not exist now, therefore, don’t worry about it.
Always keep looking and focus on what you really love to do. You may not know or you might not have found what actually you love to do yet.
Focus mostly on why you do your work more than what you do, because why connects you to the broader world.
Your why should be bigger than yourself because it connects the people around you.

Don’t hate people and things quickly, sometimes the person or thing that you hate the most becomes the person or thing you love the most.

As I said, don’t worry about any existing work your dad and mom are doing, they are here to solve the existing problems, you might have to be ready to solve those problems which may not exist now.
Learn as many skills as you can which help to solve human problems by creating your own unique interests.
Always remember, your why should always be bigger than your how, this allows you to find security in insecurity in your work.
You have to know the answer of your why from inside otherwise you will never understand the answer from outside.
To do this, you must have a good attitude.

Keep in mind, a lot of things that we study in school or in textbooks become out of date pretty quickly and make no relevance with a particular time.
History is a good indicator how things keep changing, and our education also follows the same.
You have to develop the problem solving attitude which is directly related to the update of what happened today, yesterday, last week, and last year.
This update is more crucial than the past history, past textbooks, and past degrees.
I’m not saying these are not important but what I’m saying is don’t put too much emphasis on them and forget the real working ground.
You’ve to learn every single day by various means until you die, this is possible only if you become interested in learning.
Remember, problem solving attitude is learning from history and connecting to the present.

If you show your frustration and disliking thinking of your dad and mom’s everyday work at this age then you might start to lower your expectations in life.
This will affect you when you face bigger human problems later in future, when you should be ready to serve the world.

Remember, your mind is limitless.

The following are my two current mental projects that I constantly discuss with my friends who are generally problem solvers in one way or another. I know there is no guarantee that we could solve them during our lifetime.
Many people debate about these things as possible or impossible, but, in my personal view, we don’t have to go to the far ends of the spectrum, who knows 50 to 100 years from now how technology evolves.
Therefore, you might have to continue to be vigilant in such problems when you or your generation grow up and possibly bring solutions during your time.
These are just two of my personal favorites I like to mention to you but there are multiple of these types of challenges we have.

Most importantly, these kinds of problems also help us to make aware about our attitude, whether we are proactive or reactive or listener or talker.

My first thought.

We always talk about the shortage of fossil fuels for the future generations. Do we really know how much solar energy from the sun is wasted every single day?
So I’m still not sure whether we have to focus on preserving fossil fuels or to develop technology to use solar energy from the sun.
We’ve learned in fundamental physics that one form of energy can be converted to another form.
Does it make sense to you?

My second thought.

We eat food, we convert food into energy and that energy moves our body and our muscles.
Plants cannot move but still change one form of energy to another form.
Leaf slug is an animal that can do photosynthesis because it eats algae having chloroplasts.
Then, why can’t we do photosynthesis?
We eat plants that contain green chlorophyll, we have carbon dioxide that we generate inside the body, we drink water, we have sunlight, we have skin with pores.
So then where is the problem?
Why can’t we convert light energy into chemical energy in our body?
Am I thinking too superficially here?

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

What do you think about Sir Isaac Newton?
Was he a genius thinker?
Of course, yes.
Did he invent the law of gravity by miraculous experimentation?
Of course, not. It was by a powerful rational creative thinking.
As we all know, gravitation existed well before Newton’s time in this universe but the whole world was unaware of it.
There was gravity at the time the universe was formed.
The law of gravity was a ghost before Newton but he made it living.
That’s why Newton became the greatest scientist of all time.
Ghost is imaginary but living is usable that influences and prospers our lives directly or indirectly.

What about instantaneous change?
Did it exist before Newton?
Of course, yes, but it was again a ghost before Newton.
It was also imaginary before Newton but now we have the whole world of calculus, the extension of instantaneous change.
We are utilizing the whole world of calculus in different forms.

When we think about science, we still largely think only about invention.
Our curriculum, school, college, and society knows science mainly through invention and teaches us the same thing from the very beginning.
The younger generation is quite unaware about the other side of invention which is innovation.
At the same time, our society must teach innovation as the extension of invention in our institutions.
Unless we make people aware about innovation from the very beginning, society mixes invention and innovation and we never distinguish their priority.
As a matter of fact, invention and innovation have different core meanings.
Invention is a pure science but innovation is a business of value, the value which is flexible and can be rediscovered again and again.
Invention expands human knowledge but innovation utilizes it and accelerates human values and prospers us.

As a professional scientist, I see a huge knowledge gap even among the scientific community regarding the concept of innovation in both business and science.
Business itself is a branch of science, and innovation drives it forward.
There is still a wrong perception among ordinary people.
We are not fully able to make them understand the concept of business and innovation.
Business and innovation complement to each other.
They think business people are crooks, they loot the poor and they become rich.
As a matter of fact, business is a group of many different people.
It is a community of scientists, innovators, customers, employees, and suppliers.
All are integral parts of interconnectedness.
This is a business of innovation.
They all have specific missions but work together to prosper the human society.
If only one part is out of balance, then it affects others and would make our society unsustainable.
If scientists make supersonic jets available to travel space, then how many of us have access to go there matters because it affects our life and society directly and indirectly.
Innovation comes into play when ordinary people feel its influence in their lives.
The Wright brothers invented the airplane in 1903, the first commercial flight took place after 11 years in 1914, and the whole world changed.

Scientists may tell you a great deal about science but they tell you nothing about the future of innovation because innovation is a product of time.
Innovation captures great science and makes our life easy and comfortable.
Scientists must acquire innovation to lead not only an easy and comfortable life but also a happy and healthy life.

If we look back at the history of science, there is an endless series of stories of genius scientists who created inventions but then died broke and largely unhappy.
At the same time many other innovators utilized their inventions and made millions.

There are many examples of these situations, please allow me to go into some few modern examples.
Julius Lilienfeld, an American physicist and electrical engineer, patented the first transistor, but AT&T got the credit for the first working transistor.
Intel is earning billions of dollars from semiconductors, which is a product made based on the transistor.

Charles Babbage, a mathematician and philosopher, invented the first computer, but IBM innovated it and developed software applications for it.
IBM created an enormous and durable business serving billions of people across the globe, and is also earning billions of dollars.

In 1990, Alan Emtage, Bill Heelan, and Peter J. Deutsch, all students at McGill University at Montreal, Canada, invented the web content search engine but Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin became the most successful innovative winners.
They utilized it as their core business, they perfected it, they are serving billions now, and already became billionaires themselves.
Just think of our life without Google today.

It’s hard to produce many Newtons and many Einsteins as inventors in society.
Our society has certain limitations to produce this type of genius.
This also equally applies to innovators who generally perfect the inventions and change the livelihood of the general public.
We still have a confusing perception that innovation includes only grandiose scientific advancement. But in reality, innovation is a small idea, mini-management, little twist on supply chain, and a continuous thought about people’s life.

For every Bill Gates and for every Elon Musk, there are hundreds of innovators who are still working but have little or nothing to show to the world.
They started something, they failed, and they never tried again.
Failing means to give up, throw in the towel, but to keep trying is not failing, innovation is to keep trying.

Jennifer Aniston and Sandra Bullock worked as waitresses before they became Hollywood icons.
There were thousands of waiters and waitresses in the USA who never got a casting call from Hollywood.
During their time as waitresses also, Jennifer and Sandra were working mentally for acting.
They never gave up.
Hard work beats talent if talent isn’t put into mental work.

As invention, innovation is also expensive and it requires sustainability otherwise innovative efforts will disappear after a certain time.
We have to reduce risks in research otherwise there is a high chance of going out of business.

You can assume why big pharma buys potential small drug companies so that they can minimize their research effort.
This is done to reduce the risk and at the same time they can accelerate late stage development of small buying companies.
There is a high potentiality to go in the market fast.

There are many other versions of risk reduction on innovation.
When we think of big companies like Apple, we assume that they invest so much on design and development but they invest way more on patent litigation in comparison to pure research and development.
Pure research and development has no guaranteed result on stipulated time but still needs continuous emphasis for future advancements.

In science, sometimes, pure research and development also invites serendipity.
Artificial organs and black holes are unexpected discoveries but airplanes and automobiles are expected discoveries.
When there is an unexpected finding, it always becomes a promising area of innovation because there is almost no competition.
They are mostly the by-products of other major invention efforts so that there is no investment cost associated with.

Remember this, nobody starts invention and innovation with the hope of serendipity, it just happens as a by-product of continuous effort.

Failure is a recurring part of any research.
Any scientist who adapts all possible conditions to himself or herself, every single result depends on that person’s thought, emotion, and working model.
This is the reason scientists are sometimes quoted as unpredictable people.
Unpredictable basically indicates the freeflow thinking patterns.
Thinking pattern in innovation is amazing which is key in producing valuable results.
Most of us see only branches of the tree because they are up above the ground, no mental pressure.
We can not see roots because they are underground, needs more digging to see.
We don’t have time and energy to see roots, we see branches, enjoy it, and pass-by.
Whether you are an innovative scientist depends on why and where your focus is: on root or branch or both?
Innovative scientists also try to estimate the root and its underground spread while watching the branches on top.
The extension of root is new knowledge, new invention, and new science.
The decoration by the branches is a new innovation.
Root represents fundamental knowledge but branch represents more of an art than science.
Branches still need the support of root but they can give us many beautiful things in our life depending on how good interior designers we are.
Stronger the root, more the branches; more the branches, greater the selection of artistic decorations.
We ultimately want all: strong roots, strong branches, and beautiful decorations.

Innovative world doesn’t see only black and white, it actually sees in shades of gray.
To adapt to the innovative world, one must be curious and interested in learning.
We must see things from others’ views and find out nuggets in people before judging them.

Everybody says that diets of salad and fruit contain fewer calories, there is nothing new but the hidden part is both foods are less attractive eating materials.
We don’t like to eat.
Our psychology is that we are more tempted to eat chocolate than salad.
Innovation also lies in that borderline of hidden and known facts of human psychology.

We all know scientists are trained to design experiments rather than to develop people systems, but innovative scientists do both.
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is a tool for innovative people, it is bigger than talent (IQ).
Emotional intelligence teaches us to collaborate with new dots which were unknown before to take a new direction.
Why did Bill Gates and late Steve Jobs adopt a daily meditation routine?
Because they wanted to excel in the world of innovation.
Emotional intelligence navigates society through which innovation emerges.
Innovation is our need to make our life easy.
Majority of us pretty quickly know the cost of a bottle of water in Walmart stores because there is a price tag but very few of us are able to estimate the value of the same water in the desert or halfway through a marathon because there is no price tag.
Cost comes from IQ but value comes from EQ.

We have no prediction of the future, we have only ideas from the past.
This is called literature search in research.
In any human project, the future we are trying to predict will indicate a past but a different past, another past having very little sameness of the previous past.
The people in the past, people in the present, and people in future would be different in various ways.
Understanding of this interconnectedness is innovation.
There is a beauty in the interconnectedness: innovators should be more eager to play with it.

R&D is the heart of Innovation.
We must see the continuity of existing products and services.
We must set priority on either the long run of existing product with less emphasis on R&D or short run of existing product or service with high emphasis on R&D.
This is a difficult choice but innovation seeks this distinction and balance.

Any technology company who does business for us if that doesn’t add new features or products continuously, they lose their customers and audience over the time.
If we aren’t emphasizing R&D, then innovative people will leave the company. This is a big risk in the sustainability of businesses.
If innovative companies stopped hiring new talents for research and development, their existing products would be obsolete very soon and there is a high chance that companies would go out of business.

We must seek the competitive advantage in research and development.
It could be more patent production, it could be a new kind of technological advancement.
If it is by patents, after a certain time, they will expire and the company’s competitive advantage will disappear.
If it is a technological advantage, there is always the threat that another newer technology will replace the old one.
And both are very true.
This is the main reason why Microsoft always competes with Google and Facebook always competes with Twitter.
Today’s advanced technology may become tomorrow’s obsolescence, if we don’t rediscover technology constantly.

Martina Navratilova, the greatest tennis player of all time, has said, “what matters isn’t how well you play when you are playing well; what matters is how well you play when you’re playing badly.” This clearly applies in research and innovation.

Slow and boring is also sometimes very good, especially in scientific and innovative development, be slow but always keep moving.

If you want to be an innovative scientist, be a good scientist first with enough scientific understanding and make a habit of watching branches of a tree with artistic flavor.
Remember, innovation is art on science.
As a scientist, if you acquire artistic intuition, you will become innovative.
Innovation is flexibility, innovation is change which makes our life exciting.
But we must be careful of change. If we have to constantly change in different ways without meaningful purpose then we are destined to fail.
This is no fun at all in both personal and professional life.
As always, innovation needs correct but slow change.
Progress is always slow and always boring.
Enjoy this boredom everyone because after boredom we have to rest, and after rest we will rediscover ourselves.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

Sometimes we all take something for granted.
We used to brush off things when not in need and we realize its value at the time of need.
Either we don’t understand its value properly or we pretend not to understand it.
Yes, I am talking about the value of our essential workers during the time of crisis like we are experiencing at the moment.
I am thinking about our health care professionals on top of my head, our janitorial friends who clean the hospitals all day and night, our nurses who make things ready for doctors and take care of the infected, our research scientists who are inside the research building to invent vaccines for COVID-19, and the security personnels to smoothen our lives at the time of isolation and social distancing in the society.
Majority of the population is inside the house to be safe.
We must remember and salute these essential workers who are outside their house for us when we are inside.
Please, let’s not brush off these people when there would be no crisis, no pandemic, and no suffering.
Learn the lesson if we haven’t, and treat them with dignity and boost their morale.
Their importance is, as never seen before, in the history of mankind.

We always keep our life and our survival at the top of our priority in the front line, but there are some professions in existence which always focus on other’s life first.
This is the ritual of these professions.
One of my friends said, “I’ve always appreciated essential workers, I pray for them and I love and respect them.”
But many of us have a tendency to forget these people immediately after the crisis is gone.
We follow more actors, models, athletes, and entertainers in social media, spend time in their gossip on television as if essential people.
World’s top actors, top models, top sportspersons, and top media entertainers are inside the house at the moment and scrolling the news everyday for the latest update of vaccines in research laboratories so that they can come out of the house and have a normal life.
There are very few committed individuals working inside these hospitals and research laboratories, and the whole population is counting on them.
I appeal all of you to salute them.
There is nothing more important than human lives so these people’s value and contribution is priceless.

I am not debating who is essential and who isn’t, everybody is an expert of something and has something to offer in society.
I am just reporting the governments’ categorization of who is essential and who isn’t at present that gives us a lesson who we should attribute our value to.
We must protect and nurture essential people every single day irrespective of societal conditions.
Where should our focus be?
My keen target right now is especially healthcare professionals.

Life is unpredictable, five month ago it was normal, no coronavirus, and after five month, it is upside down now but some people on earth try to make it predictable all the time.
They are healthcare professionals.
These people surround themselves with the most vulnerable people: diseased, sick, addicted, and infected in the society and take pride in transforming them into venerable.
They invent hope and give it to their patients when there is no outside hope, no available medications, and vaccines.
You have seen and experienced these vulnerable people at your home, or at your workplace or in your community.
For example, they are COVID-19 positive.
As of today, at time of writing this content, almost 2.2 million people across the globe are already infected and 156 thousands are dead.
In the US only, where I am living, 710 thousands are infected and 37 thousands are dead.
We don’t have any vaccines or medicines yet.
Infected people are isolated from their family but our healthcare professionals are their ultimate hope and they are next to their bed to feed, support, and console them.

It isn’t hard or difficult to become a doctor or nurse.
There is a traced track to become a healthcare professional.
But, It just needs courage to work.
A mantra of three words to inspire- “Do the work” whatever it could be, is inside or outside of them.
Trust us healthcare professionals, you will win this battle of coronavirus.

For some people imagining becoming a doctor or a nurse is the worst job on the planet at this time.
People are getting infected, and are dying every single day.
The viral epidemic is spreading everywhere like an unseen flame.
Smart doctors in the hospital are tirelessly fighting to win.
There is an equal chance that healthcare professionals might get infected while serving the infected people.
Many of them are already infected and some have already died, sacrificing their lives while serving others.
They’re facing incredible challenges from all sides and there is no one and nothing you can depend on or can talk to.
They are fighting with the virus even though they are having limited resources in some situations in many least developed and developing countries.

Imagine how sensitive this person should be as a doctor at the time of crisis.
If doctors tell the patients’ family members that it’s a disaster, we are losing him or her, a dying situation; not only will the patient quit but also their family members will be paralyzed with fear and uncertainties.
A doctor’s job is to smoothen out the emotional roller coaster.
When they see the face of a chronic COVID-19 patient, they have to give a small quiet glimpse of hope from distance and control the emotion.
They never let your patient or patient’s family members experience the same highs and lows as they’re feeling because the odds are patients’ family members aren’t built to handle these kinds of ups and downs like doctors are.

As a responsible global citizen, as we all are now, our number one job is to be there for the healthcare professionals when they are struggling, making sure they feel heard and they know we are on their side.
When we are confined inside our house, they are doing hard work outside to protect us.
If you are a relentlessly positive and candid doctor or nurse, you’re going to have a greater chance of success in your cases and you’re going to be able to remain positive, even in the face of failure.

At this time of global pandemic, everybody is scared.
But still we should not forget how to boost the morale of our healthcare professionals.

There are few things in life that we have control over, few things that we have no control over, and few things that we have partial control over.
It’s extremely important to spend our effort on things that we have complete control over.
We all depend on the doctor’s knowledge, their expertise, their service, their work experience, and most importantly, their unwavering hope.

As a doctor, if you are constantly learning about body organs and their connection to our emotions, many things are under control- many good things will happen.
As a doctor you are the most successful person on how to do finishing.
Finishing is extremely more difficult than starting.
You only realize this when you have to finish.
You have to finish this pandemic.
And you have to save millions of lives.
When Donald Trump was running for president, campaigning and winning the election was finishing for him.
Now after winning, running the office as a president is finishing for him.
People are dying every moment, he is surrounded by a bunch of doctors everyday and trying to finish the pandemic.
The country is virtually on lockdown.
Finishing is difficult but it’s the only option now.
But still, our president needs to finish it by listening and supporting the healthcare professionals, and his desperation to finish is reflected in his briefings everyday in white house.
As a doctor, your role is the major force, you have the mindset and experience to finish the disease.
You finish the pain.
You finish the suffering.
Ultimately, if you can not finish then you allow God to finish the suffering of the patient.
After the final finish also, you come back home and play with your kids.
If you remember that final finish done by God in hospital, how do you play with your kid?
But you still play with your kid because you have a power from God to do so.
This may be one of the reasons that many people see you as a form of god when they visit hospital with little to no hope.
No doubt, you have seen, experienced, and understood the hard part of finishing more than anybody else on the planet.
Therefore, we encourage you, support you, love you, and care for you.
You are an angel for us.

I would like to ask all of you a few questions to reflect your life at the time of crisis.
“What problem do you solve on a personal level?”
Think for a moment for your answer, your life, and your work.

“What pain do you remove from other people’s lives?”
Again, take time and think about what you are doing at the moment.

What I am trying to say is that many of the great doctors or health professionals in the world are destined on the promise of removing pain from people’s lives.
We, as humans, have a huge problem right now and we are looking for a solution.
Healthcare professionals are working tirelessly to find this solution for us.
Lets salute them.

Keep in mind, we have many blind spots than we have clear vision in our life.
For example, unexpected global pandemic coronavirus is one of the blind spots in human life.
We must unlearn what we have learned in the past to defeat the coronavirus.
We have to unlearn ego, we have to unlearn selfishness, we have to unlearn hatred, and we have to unlearn resentment in all human relationships.
Lets express our sincere gratitude for all these fighters, our health professionals, across the globe.
Thank you so much for your service to humanity.

And finally thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

We all are living in very critical conditions across the globe. We are fighting everyday, every hour, every minute, and every second to survive. The viral pandemic is engulfing the whole planet, nobody is untouched.
Our priority has become to protect our family. During this painful lockdown period, our mind flows mostly with what’s happening around us.
Our mind does not like anything incomplete. It constantly asks why, why, and again why?
If we have a vacuum in our mind, especially on a topic not understood or clear, it tries to fill the gaps itself. When that does not happen, our mind goes searching for it.
This is the nature of our mind. It is very curious.

Sometimes, curiosity helps to turn mundane small talk into interesting beneficial intense discussions.
We don’t experience anything without interesting people, that’s what happened to me in one of my latest conversations.
I was talking to one of my virologist friends who does research in the national institute of health in Bethesda, Maryland.
I quote the words of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, “Those who aren’t curious learn nothing.”
I directed my attention to my virologist friend, completely shifting my focus to him.
I asked him many ‘why’ questions so that I can console my curiosity.
The following is just a small part of my conversation.

Moreover, recently, I was talking to many of my family members and friends and everybody seemed interested to know about this contagious coronavirus.
This kind of situation invokes our mind, we set aside our regular tasks and become more curious.
I am utilizing the time to ignite your curiosity.
Plutarch, a Platonist philosopher, has said, “Our mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.”

I asked him, “What is the main tool to defeat coronavirus caused disease COVID-19?”
He said, “We don’t know yet.
It could be vaccines or more people with antibodies.”

I asked my another curiosity, “Why is it different from the common cold?”
He said, “There are some coronaviruses that cause common colds. Most often, however, the common cold is caused by rhinoviruses, according to the CDC (Center for disease control and prevention). However, what we are dealing now is a new or novel coronavirus, this means it mutated in some way and became more deadly for us.”
“Actually, there is no cure for a cold, according to the CDC, and up to now the same applies to COVID-19.”

I asked, “Do we know the source of the coronavirus?”
He replied, “At present, the source of the coronavirus is unknown. Available evidence suggests that it has a natural animal origin and is not a constructed virus. It might have had its ecological reservoir in bats.”

I asked him the most common people’s question, “ Why don’t we have a vaccine for Covid-19?”
He added, “This is a little bit of a long process. We need to know about a virus to create a vaccine.”
“Our immune system has to learn how to fight a virus by knowing its face, which is actually the outside of the particle including telltale antigens.
The easy part is, scientists have already made the coronavirus RNA sequence available.”
“After its design, vaccines need to be produced, tested, approved, and manufactured in large quantities by big pharmaceutical companies.
The bottom line is, it takes at least one year to eighteen months, as health experts say.”

My other query was, “ Is it seasonal?”
He replied, “We have no idea yet. Viruses are unexpected creatures.”
“They enter without alarms and surprise us in different ways.”

I asked, “Is this virus like the flu or zika or ebola?”
He said, “The answer in most part is no or we don’t know. Yellow fever, measles, mumps are also caused by viruses but the vaccines developed in the past are very effective for them.”


I asked, “So what is the solution?”
“The answer is we have to control the virus in some way. We have to win over the virus,” he said.

I asked, “How does it spread?”
“It spreads through different ways of infected human contacts, sneezes and coughs. But now we are learning more and more about this virus, it can spread by just talking or even just breathing. We might pass them object to object to us. There is likely that we might be carrying this virus without symptoms,” he added.

I asked, “How does it grow?”
He said, “The genetic material of a virus is RNA, but it is DNA in humans. Therefore, when viruses copy their genetic material, it doesn’t proofread its work. These mistakes are referred to as mutations.”

By the way, “what exactly is mutation?,” I asked.
He said, “It is abnormal growth in viruses. Viruses can cause mutation in the human genome or they can do genetic material change in their own genome.”

I further questioned, “How does it mutate?”
He said, “This is an animal virus. There is a possibility, it will continue to mutate. It gets mutated and adapted to another animal. It jumps from animal to human and continues as human to human transmission. As it goes infecting people, it also passes through a stabilization, which is also a part of the mutation process.”
“It might mutate different parts of the world in various forms depending on various factors, for example population density, it influences the number of people infected and how many chances the virus has to mutate.”

Finally, I asked, “What are the best precautions not to catch coronavirus?”

He said, “At the moment, avoid close contact with other people and wash your hands frequently with soap and water.”
“Alternatively, use an alcohol-based sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol.”
“Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.”
“Stay home.”
“Cover when you cough or sneeze and then trash it properly immediately.”
“Clean and disinfect touched objects and surfaces.”
“Use a face mask if you are sick.”

We have to learn a lesson here, yes we have to learn a lesson here, we are not better prepared to combat the epidemic. We must be better prepared. Let’s focus on not spreading the virus at the moment. Until the major source of this virus is known, there is a high risk of its re-introduction and new outbreaks in humans.
Therefore, let’s fight against this virus and save lives.
We are together in this fight.

The information in this content is based on CDC (Center for disease control and prevention) and WHO (World health organization) information. However, as the situation surrounding COVID-19 continues to evolve, it’s possible that some information might change.

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina

My hometown is on lockdown due to a pandemic coronavirus.
Most of the time I am working from home spending significant time on reading, brainstorming, planning, and analyzing the past experiments and results.
At this moment, world leaders and politicians are forced to go to the bottom of this pandemic, they are paying a lot of attention for not spreading the coronavirus pandemic.
They are processing and absorbing every single information of this nasty virus in more depth.

We support and encourage our world leaders and politicians to act fast against this viral tsunami to curb it. We will do our best to wipe out this pandemic as global citizens.

History has taught us that this type of pandemic occurs from time to time in our lifetime but I still assume that the huge devastation it has created is a consequence of our ill-preparation and foundation.
All politicians and leaders are learning hard lessons and we are paying the price of not having a focused robust research and development priority.

Keep in mind—we have no medications or vaccines to protect us from coronavirus until now. The only tool we have is physical separation (social distancing) from one another. Therefore, we need to use physical separation to stop this virus from spreading further at this point.

There are no shortcuts and quick schemes in medical research, we have to invest and investigate continuously to improve human lives.

Despite our geographical boundaries, coronavirus has taught us how to bring people together to fight against such pandemics, and how to share information together to protect us.

Another lesson for policy makers: research successes of yesterday are not enough but we have to continuously and consistently look for the challenges of tomorrow.
And how are we going to do this exactly?
The answer is: by investing, by inventing, and by innovating unwaveringly.
My pique questions.
What sets us off when we look for long term consistent A-level research and development?
What sets us off when we become eager to cut research funding?
What stimulates our desire to add funding in sports, politics and entertainment by cutting funding in scientific research and development?

This is the time to grade our leaders and politicians especially in advanced countries whether they have a growth mindset or fixed mindset especially for medical research.
People and leadership with a growth mindset never cut funding in scientific research and development.
We appeal to all visionary leaders to invest in young novelty seeking curious minds who make new inventions and innovations as attitudes towards their lives.

Suddenly, my cell phone rang and my uncle Addy was on the line.
We chatted a little bit about coronavirus, lockdown and its impact in society as well as in our professional life.
My uncle Addy said, “One day my department head of research entered my office and told, ‘Addy’- he is a new scientist in our group, pointing to a very young guy who came with him to his office.”
To Addy’s surprise, the new scientist looked very young and inexperienced.
My uncle Addy has been working in a pharmaceutical company for the last 30 years as a principal scientist.

Addy was quite shocked and went to his boss’ office the next day and asked, “What degree and experience the new scientist has?”
His boss replied, “He doesn’t have any previous work experience but he will succeed in our group.”

“I hired him because we need somebody in our discovery group who is young and thinks in a different way than we think,” the research head said.
“Addy, you are 60 years old now, and I am 66 years old. It is no offense, but trying new things for us is very hard. We are a company of invention and innovation. As we become older, our brain mechanism slows us down especially for you and me to immerse in the novelty.” Addy’s boss added.

“For our department we need novelty. This is possible only with people having increased sensory sensitization who immerse, explore, and experiment,” he continuously added.

Research also shows that young people are more likely to take risks, stay on the ball, and approach new and unfamiliar things without anxiety.
At one point Addy’s boss said something very interesting that actually inspired him to hire him right off the bat.

Addy’s boss said, “I already told you, we are old now to run this innovation company through only our perspectives.”
“I asked our new employee the same conservative interview question- Where do you want to be in five years?”
He said, “I would not dream about this but I would ask myself- Where do I not want to be in five years?- I would make a list and just do that”.
During the interview he said, “New ideas and concepts are nothing more than the unusual combination of existing ideas.”
“If we are looking for a completely new invention and innovation, “right” and “wrong” are often a matter of perspective. My “right” or “my truth” is nothing but only a function of my perception,” he added.

The old way of doing things in a new way is today’s necessity and this is possible only by young fresh brains.

This is absolutely no offense for old people. We have to learn from their experiences how to be in our own lane but we have to also evolve through overtaking at the time of crisis.
Science doesn’t lie, it explores the hidden mysteries of time.
When we become older, our curiosity gradually dwindles.
We collect more experiences, we become stronger in our feelings, knowledge, and feel proud how things work.
We don’t seek novelty because we stop asking questions.
We no longer want to go into uncertain situations.
We hesitate to take advantage of “free of charge” health tests because we are more focussed on negative results.
We enjoy comfort.
We want to put all the money in bonds and treasury bills rather than stocks.
We watch the same television channel even though we have 100+ channels on our TV.
We read the same newspaper.
Our curiosity gets lost because of our similar experiences, and same patterns in life.
Ultimately we become unable to break it and our learning becomes self-stabilizing.
When we become old, there is more downside to peek, our knowledge creates certainties and they become habits, and they entrap our mental capacities.
This has serious repercussions especially for research oriented invention and innovation companies.
The only way out of this problem is, old folks have to work with young curious minds.

The most harmful tradition among all is old folks start to instruct young people to follow rules and prevent them from reading their own intuition and trust.
Old folks stop listening to the young folks because old folks feel proud with “ value the old, shun the new.”

I am not making up these statements. In 2004, discovery channel had done a study that says after age 49, curiosity dwindles.

One of my friends told me, “It took me 4 weeks of daily training to ride the bike with confidence with no accident, but for the same level of competence, it took only 9 days for my son.”
My friend is 42 years old and his son is 16 years old.
The fact is: this applies to everything.

Young minds enjoy unconventional tools, procedures, and ideas. They learn faster because their neurons connect faster in different directions which didn’t exist before.

When we see the present interview process, first thing we look for is professionalism, energy, and self-confidence.
We judge these things on academic degrees and previous work experiences.
We assume these past actions as measuring tools for success.
Most of the older interviewers don’t even look at the hobby section in interviewee’s curriculum vitae or resume.
I am not being judgemental, I’m simply reporting.

One of my friends, who is still under 30, is a very successful computer engineer in silicon valley, earns a six figure salary, and told me that we can pinpoint a smart and curious mind from the hobby section of their curriculum vitae or resume.
As he said, “This is extremely important if you are looking for a self-monitored and intellectually curious mind. Their potential talents are reflected in the hobby section of their CV and resume. Interviewer should be qualified to read that. Their degrees and past work experiences make them sincere routine employees but not curious innovative individuals.”

He told me that if the interviewee has an everyday habit of doing mediation and aerobic activity, you simply can’t ignore that. These small everyday habits as an inventor or innovator work as a lubricant for your innovation engine.

The other factor we attribute to the younger mind is that they carry many ideas and they are able to filter bad ideas faster than old minds.
As two time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling said, “If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which one to throw away.”

Young minds observe their environment like anthropologists.
This is a key to success particularly in innovation.
They are interested in people who don’t look, think, speak or act like they do themselves.
They try to get behind the thinking of the others by relentlessly asking amazing questions.

At age 30, the world’s richest man on the planet, Jeff Bezos, had a successful regular job as hedge-fund vice president, but he quitted the job and started Amazon. His mind worked as an anthropologist, an innovator mindset.

Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity at age 26.

At age 18, Blaise Pascal invented the first mechanical calculator.

At age 18, Alexander Graham Bell invented the first modern telephone.

At age 17, Robert Heft created the modern day 50 star American flag.
Remember, these are only a few drops in a sea.

Age is an important factor for invention and innovation.
Deep immersion and trying out new things, as it appears, gets harder and harder as we become older.
Because of our past history of experiences makes it harder to immerse ourselves in the novelty.
Science is clearly supporting these findings.
In the invention and innovation group, it is essential to include the younger minds.
Invention and innovation loves youth. Nurture it.

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina

I was in a hurry for the office, when I came out of the house I saw uber and lyft stickers on my neighbor’s car.
I had seen him driving a taxi two days ago.
I remember him telling me that he was driving a taxi for the last 13 years.
We had a conversation in our jogging a month ago about life, job, and family.
He is a sole breadwinner for his family.
In our conversation, he’d told me that he has not paid the rent for the last 2 months yet, he doesn’t have regular income, no savings, no 401(K), nor an IRA account.
“My friend, I am a PhD and I don’t have all of these you mentioned. Life happens in hustles, not in plans.” I shared.
I am very familiar with his three kids who are all under age 10.
Sometimes his kids and my kids play together.
He came to see me on Saturday evening and told me that he sold his taxi and loaned the new car to use as an uber drive.
He teared up, looked down and said something, I couldn’t imagine expressing myself here.
“If my mom would have grabbed one extra glass of wine when I was in her womb, I would be better off.” he said.
I consoled him by saying you are not alone. American culture is strange, as a nation we have 23 trillion dollars national debt and 14 trillion dollars consumer debt. At least one in four people who make 100,000 plus a year still report living paycheck to paycheck. We are in a society where we carry i-phone insurance but we don’t buy insurance for our kids. He listened to me but still I could feel his pain in his appearance.

I added, “You can drive an uber for a few years from now but 10 to 20 years from now, you may not drive it because all cars will be driverless.”
“You can not unlearn what you already know but you can transform it into something else.” I emphasized.
We don’t need to create new jobs but we have to invent a new tweak in the same old job.
After we know the basics of our daily job, it’s easier to live in a bubble than reality. What’s important and harder is how to navigate the repetitive daily job with the people, technology, and most importantly, the unknowns around us.

Everything changes with time and change comes a lot faster in today’s fast pace technology.
We must change and adapt with the changing circumstances, therefore, sometimes we might have to be a little bit ahead of time by learning a few new tools and skills.
There are many tough decisions we have to make in life. Deciding to change the way we work in our comfort zone is the most difficult part. It certainly involves making difficult choices and making a habit of saying ‘no’ to many unimportant things in life.

Through my elementary to middle school, my family used to have only a portable national panasonic battery radio in the house as a technological equipment. My mother used to cook breakfast for me everyday for sixteen years until I finished high school listening to that radio. Nowadays, she receives calls from me and other family members and says, it’s not difficult to use a smartphone, push ‘f’ icon to scroll facebook, push a green phone icon to accept a call and a red icon to end the call. My mom didn’t get a chance to study after 6th grade. I am bringing this up here because she was scared of the smartphone in the beginning but now smartphone has become her new best friend, a very comfortable piece of device. She hesitated in the beginning because she thought it was hard and difficult to use, but she was forced to adapt to it because many of our family members are out of home. She needed it to talk to us in time of need. She learned and adapted with it. I love you mom, you are awesome.

Comfort is the result of repetitions. My neighbor was very comfortable as a taxi driver, he didn’t pay attention outside of his comfort zone so he didn’t see that he is losing his job very soon.

Remember that sustainable life is lived outside of the comfort zone that brings growth and independence. Be as aggressive as you want with your repetitive mundane daily job, work harder than you ever thought with it. But the repetitive job may crush you very soon due to automation.

We all grew up with our family, especially parents telling us we were talented, special and unique, the truth is that most of us are almost the same, never try to go beyond the comfort zone. There is pleasure sitting in comfort. We don’t want to lose the pleasure because if we lose it, there is pain. And nobody likes pain.
We all start from different points in life but only those who grow gradually who step out of comfort to win the game of life.

After my conversation with my neighbor, I remembered the quote from late Stephen Hawking, a renowned physicist and cosmologist, “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”
If we adapt we survive if we don’t we become extinct.

Uber and Lyft made all private cars accessible for an independent income source for hundreds of thousands of people but the same became hurricane for taxi drivers.
Taxis became things of the past now.

Automation will eliminate more and more jobs in the near future.
Its impact is already in manual labor jobs but it will not be limited there. Many skilled and cognitive labor jobs will also be disrupted immensely, probably permanently.
I recall my uncle’s best friend, who was an investment officer in a bank.
I also remember his quirky face when he was talking about Robo-advisers with my uncle.
He retired early from bank and now is a freelancer as a personal finance expert and teaches finance in undergraduate college.
Robo-advisers are coming after expensive investment advisers and their high paying jobs.

In the age of automation, many jobs will be lost especially to AI.
If we are seriously thinking about this issue as Yuval Noah Harari, a historian, predicted that, “Industrial revolution manifested a working class, the AI revolution will manifest a useless class.”
Automation could invite mass unemployment and destitution if we are unprepared for it.
Looming automation and declining employment will spark financial insecurity for the disadvantaged.
Majority of our institutions, current bureaucratic systems, and government mechanisms are not prepared to manage technology-centric upheaval.
For example, we have 16 million Americans as retail workers, 11 millions construction workers, and 4 million truck drivers, who will be affected directly by automation in the first stage. This is only a very small snapshot of a bigger picture.

When we do repetitive tasks continuously, smart technocrats and entrepreneurs always question: is it possible to continue repetitive work in our absence? This is how automation enters in our life to free our time.
If automation and robots do the mundane tasks, we as humans will have more time to imagine, explore, and discover. But this is possible only if we are eager to break the barrier of comfort that we have been living for years.
We shouldn’t only go through the comfort job but grow through it. This is the only way not to be outsourced by robots and technology.
Automation is an achievement of curious minds to make human life easy and luxurious.
Comfort is always broken by curiosity.

We have advanced a lot in neuroscience, we exceled it in its understanding but still we don’t know the full picture of how the brain produces curiosity.
Our body is made up of mainly carbon and hydrogen and the brain also has the same composition but its uniqueness is unknown.
Imagine the power of a curious mind.
Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity because of his curious mind.
Think of this curiosity generated machine which is about 2.5 petabytes of memory as one petabyte is roughly 13.3 years of HDTV video.
The more we explore curiosity, the more we discover automated-technology.
Curiosity has human connection therefore, one curious mind links to another curious mind.
For example, Nikola Tesla invented the AC motor, but Thomas Edison refined it for our use and we are utilizing it for automation now. Language processor ELIZA was conceptualized by Joseph Weizenbaum but Siri and Alexa are about to revolutionize us in the age of automation and AI.
The more curious we become, the more chances of advanced technology to reshape our lives.

Mark Twain said, “There are only two important days in life, the day we were born and the day we discover the purpose of our life.”
After finding the purpose, the curious minds go all in to achieve their goals. They make their failure a curiosity towards success. They give us incredible technologies which we consume regularly.

We all have two persons inside us, one is real that represents us and the other is across us who is controlled by others.
The other might be our family, friends, or society as a whole.
Out of these two persons, who do you listen most determines everything in your life including your everyday job.
We must listen inside us, our gut, and our intuition that tell us what needs to be acquired or changed in a everyday job.
Always move with your gut and intuition, break your comfort zone, instill curiosity and live a happier life.
I asked my neighbor friend, “If you were going to build a career from scratch using the available resources, how would you do it?’’
He replied, “I would spend time studying human interest and curiosity.”

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

I was reading an article online, immediately another similar article appeared on my screen. I didn’t have time to read the second article because I planned to read only one article. After seeing the second article, I started to read it without noticing my time. My priority changed because instead of reading one, I read two articles and obviously that affected my whole working schedule.
Suddenly I realized that what is controlling me, and my decision power?
I thought, am I choosing this article or this article is choosing me?
My mind was constantly asking me how am I controlled by something else?
Without any doubt, the incoming second article was choosing me instead of me choosing the article.

When we start to type something into Google, it predicts what we are thinking and typing. It remembers our past searches and it also remembers some similar searches by others.
These are only small glimpses that artificial intelligence (AI) is already affecting our lives.

Now a days, we are constantly bombarded by the term artificial intelligence (AI) all the time, but we have already adopted it unknowingly in our life. We have already reduced our brain memory significantly without much notice.

We wake up in the morning, rather than to see weather outside the window, we ask Siri and Alexa, what’s the weather outside. Amazing.
We have Siri, Alexa and Cortana as our Virtual AI assistants, already affecting significant portions of our personal and professional life.

We browse the google map to check the traffic before taking a next move towards office. Know the traffic situation while in the bed.

My wife always buys stuff from Amazon, at least, I don’t remember buying outfits and other utensils visiting any malls or department stores recently. She goes into the website to buy one thing but she ends up buying two more every time. By the time she clicks the purchase button, five more similar items appear on the side of her screen and she couldn’t resist not to buy.
Amazon is controlling her buying decision.
These consequences may seem like small leaks in our daily lives, but one day they might sink our entire ship if we are unaware of its implications.

The hard truth is, we are already swimming in AI, proprietary algorithms are making decisions for us.
An algorithm is a guide or a bunch of instructions that make a computer program which instruct a machine to make the next move.
Robots, software, and computers are about to disrupt us in many ways.

Fire was the first technology that humans discovered almost 1.5 million years ago.
Before 1940, nobody typically believed we would send a man to the moon, but just after 30 years, it happened.
Let’s look around us, we see TV, smartphone, laptop, tablet, and noise canceling bluetooth headphones. Every single thing was a dream idea for some smart minds in the past.
Twenty years ago, I wasn’t expecting that I would have a smartphone in my hand and I could call my mother instantly who is sleeping on the other side of the planet, and talk to her with her video on my screen.
Oh, how far we’ve come.

We are definitely moving towards superintelligent AI. Progress in technology also brings bewilderness, affecting our thinking, freedom, privacy, relationships, and happiness in different ways. Superintelligent AI is in our doorstep with both great danger and great possibilities ahead.

Human brain is very complicated because it is entangled with more than 86 billions neurons, even some connecting and disconnecting continuously, therefore, it is almost unhackable.
This is one of the main reasons AI is coming to explore human intelligence, human cognition, human behaviour, and human common sense.
How do we portray human common sense by technology? There is obviously a challenge, but we are exploring the trend of human psychology and physiology by artificial devices.

Typically, AI is an artificial construct revolving around software, computers, algorithms, and robotics.
This combination is about to bring an exponential feat, especially in technology.

Think of driverless cars and pilotless airplanes, they are not very far from regular access.
Autonomous weapons such as drones are already in use. These are already pilotless because they are controlled in the military bases on video monitors.
If you are living in Auckland, New Zealand, you can order pizza via drones at your home now. It is happening.
The same drone technology can be used to deliver food and medicines to remote under-developed areas. In 2018, Joy Nowai, one month baby became the first baby to receive a drone-delivered vaccine.

Think of robots, they do music composition and singing for our songs, we are about to experience it.
Ask, hey Alexa, can you play a romantic song for me?
You will have your favorite song right away but you wouldn’t identify human is singing or robot is singing. Most possibly, it would be robot singing.

Think of robot scientists and robot doctors, they will be serving us in the near future.
Almost twenty years ago, american surgeon Mani Menon used a robot to remove a cancerous prostate gland.
In the future, AI might cure our cancer, might accurately detect the risk for Alzheimer’s disease, and robots might perform more complicated open-heart surgery. AI experts already predicted that robotic surgical systems will be better than humans in all surgical procedures by 2053.
Robots will be the key players in the operating rooms because they will be able to draw fast and more accurate information from a CT or MRI scan than human radiologists.
Radiologist’s job is in serious danger in upcoming days.

IBM’s question-answering computer system, Watson, is already used by 90 percent of nurses.
Watson can read 25,000,000 published medical journal articles in a week, as 1.8 million scientific journal articles are published annually worldwide. This is impossible by a human doctor.

Think of the situation when AI will recognize our personality traits. It would be a new world.

What happens if we know our death ahead of time?
AI can accurately predict if a person would die in three to twelve months; Stanford researchers reported the preliminary AI death predictor.

The direction we are heading by technology carries a lot of societal responsibility than somebody’s individual technological breakthrough.
We have a huge responsibility to make our kids and grandkids prepared for unimaginable leap in technology associated with AI and robotics.
Our kids and grandkids won’t take these as new technology but as a new normal life.

Imagine for seconds when artificially intelligent scanners are used for face recognition and retinal scanners are used to upload our personal information.
Our personal information can be bought, sold, stolen, and molded for money.
It’s already happening by the tech giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix; as they store our personal information using our credit card, playlist, IP address, buying history etc. and use for their benefit.
When we use Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram,we are not paying for them now; but we are being used as products for them, and being monetized.
Our personal data is our precious asset and its importance will be quadrupled in the near future.

There is no doubt, we have to change the world, but we have to change it for the better and prosperous world, and we still need this change within the frame of our societal norm.

Technology is innocent.
It can completely wipe out the planet or provide us a new era of healthy and prosperous life. All depend on our use.
This might be the reason that Vladimir Putin, Russian President, once said, “Whoever becomes the leader in AI will become the ruler of the world.”
There is also a high possibility that the first trillionaire might be a person as an AI entrepreneur.
Human progress is unstoppable so that there is also a great hope.
When AI collaborates with blockchain, 3D printing and CRISPR, many mysteries of life could be revealed.
AI can be used to predict earthquakes, or reduce destruction from other natural disasters.
Aiserve is using AI-enhanced streetmaps as a tool for aiding the visually impaired people.

But whatever the progress we leap, we, the humans, have to lead everything.
When self-driving vehicle crashes into a human, we should take full responsibility.
We have to focus on what we as humans can do that machines can not.
It’s not only technology we should progress, we should also progress towards developing responsible citizens.
All these algorithms are human creations, therefore, human role is a must as a global citizen in the age of AI.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

“ When you finish teenage, spend 20 minutes in aerobic activity, and 10 minutes in meditation everyday, change your underwear and socks everyday, and also floss your teeth everyday, you will live at least 100 years.”

This is my make up statement after reading some research on aerobic activity, meditation and personal hygiene topics. This statement came in my mind when I was running on a treadmill a few days ago.
My curiosity is can I discover the secret of a long life? If I state this as my opinion, everyone will trash it. If I state this as my belief, I still won’t secure the support. But if I state this as my conviction, then there is a chance, I might secure the support of the majority of people.
Conviction comes from my inside, my research and understanding of the content, and largely my understanding of nature, human beings and health. Not only this, my conviction also seeks the large body of existing data regarding the relationship of aerobic activity, meditation, and personal hygiene to life extension.
Conviction comes with emotion to begin action that is called science, the evolution of new knowledge.
Opinions, beliefs, and truths are just evolving concepts in human mind but with conviction they all lead to facts at some point.

Not only opinions or beliefs or truths, sometimes even evidence on our eyes could be incorrect. In the time of Copernicus, everybody believed that the sun revolves around the earth. Because there was a proof, everybody could walk outside the house and could see the sky. They could see the sun moving from one direction to another. Everyone believed that the earth is the center of the universe. Time passed by with this belief, but later Copernicus discovered the first accurate model of sun-based solar system. Though, he could not see the acceptance of his conviction during his life-time but gave one of the greatest discoveries regarding the universe to the world.

Many opinions and beliefs from Aristotle including the theory of falling objects appeared to be incorrect by Galileo’s conviction. Convictions have to be tested, and precisely measured.
Convictions lead to experiments and observations.

Until now there are no solid evidences, and proofs to support my opening statement. But still my statement looks genuine and makes sense with no guaranteed results. I don’t know the validity of the statement until I commit painstaking observation and interpretation through scientific experiments.
Opinions, beliefs and convictions are not the same. First two can be deviated in different ways but the conviction is substantiated by action.
This is the only way to add a layer on top of layers of knowledge. The origin of more and more science.

Science is not merely a passage for knowledge bank. It is a human evolution for incremental acquisition of understanding of nature through observation. It is basically the continuous understanding of how the universe functions and adapts.
It is also a language of nature, human progress simply depends on how much time and effort we spend to acquire its fluency.

C. V. Raman, a great physicist and first Asian Nobel laureate said, “Science is a fusion of aesthetic and intellectual functions devoted to the representations of nature.” His discovery of the Raman effect would not have been possible if he were not on voyage to London in 1921 where he saw blue sea and wondered why it is blue. Nature gave him a tool for his research.

Our convictions are content of nature. Convictions are what cause a few people to become great scientists. Most of the personal breakthroughs and discoveries begin with a change in opinions and beliefs to convictions.

I spent five plus years graduate career in doing study in cobalt metal and its role in many chemical transformations. When our body’s immune power becomes weak showing fatigue, lethargy or breathlessness, our physician prescribes vitamin B12 to make our immune power strong. Vitamin B12 is one of the largest and most structurally complex vitamins with a biochemically rare cobalt metal. The only organisms to produce vitamin B12 are certain bacteria and archaea.
Nature has already given the power of this metal for human use in the form of vitamin B12. On the basis of that we explore more of its role, understanding and significance for human health.
Nature is the biggest reservoir for lateral thinking, we can take a lesson from it and transfer it to another form, as a scientific development for human progress.
Considering vitamin B12’s humongous impact for humanity, R. B. Woodward and Albert Eschenmoser took one of the classic feats of organic synthesis, total synthesis of vitamin B12 with the effort of 91 postdoctoral fellows and 12 PhD students from 19 nations completing 72 chemical steps giving an overall chemical yield 0.01%.

Nature is not a random force either, everything it does has a reason. We are not aware of the reason deeply. The single driving force to understand nature is through science, the understanding of nature impacts every facet of human lives. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the first antibiotic from natural species of fungus, in 1928 by accident in an abandoned petri dish and it saved at least 200 million lives during World War II. He said, “I did not invent penicillin. Nature did that.”

World’s great discoveries, ideas and inventions are inspired by nature. Archimedes’s eureka moment during bath made him run home naked and Newton’s apple falling observation in his grandmother’s orchard are both inspired by law of nature. Both scientists discovered these findings as a dream but both were happening in nature as they observed consciously or subconsciously.

The modern mathematics is still struggling to figure out the 20-faced polyhedron icosahedron. T4 bacteriophage is a virus in nature and its genetic material is captured in a capsid in the form of an icosahedron. Nature made this complex mathematical structure long back but we understand it now.

Modern physics thought that we invented gear mechanism. But recently scientists found that nature already have grasshoppers to use gear mechanism for jumping. Scientists are inspired by this biomimetic form of jumping because it allows micro-robots to travel over many types of rough terrain where no other walking or wheeled robot could go.

More you learn about nature, you realize how little you know about the real things. Most of the time, science explores nature curiously.

But, there is also another side of science, challenge the understanding of nature. People like Bryan Johnson, an entrepreneur and investor, bring scientists together and tackles unnatural things like asteroid mining, artificial intelligence, and life extension. At present he is developing the world’s first neuroprosthesis, brain-implantable computer, to mimic, repair, and improve cognition. This is not a challenge to nature, this is an overdue understanding of nature in the form of extension.

Science works on nature, not in nature.
What do you think is on the other side of nature?
The answer is science. The understanding of nature.
When we step out of our house, we see a giant laboratory, nature.
We all are kids of nature. Kids don’t do what we say, kids do what they see.
Touch it, smell it, feel it, experiment on it, and observe it to transcend humanity.
We are not too young or too old to start our own experiment, we all are blessed by the limitless laboratory, nature.
Remember, science does not grow with spectators, it grows only with active participants. Be an active participant.
Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

One day my elder daughter came from school and asked me.
Who was Thomas Edison?
“A great scientist, an inventor” I said.
She replied, “he never went to school, he was deaf, and how did he invent light bulb?”
I paused for a moment and trying to know what her intention was.
She asked me again very curiously, “you are a doctor, you are a scientist, you spend more time in laboratory than with us, what did you invent?”
I was struggling to give her answer, but she immediately diverted her attention to fashion design that she was bringing up to me for last couple of weeks.
My daughter is just 10 years old, 5th grader.
She was raging to me, “why don’t you send me in fashion design course rather than my usual school?”
She repeated again, “Thomas Edison never went to school but gave light bulb to the world.”
I felt I needed to continue this conversation, so I told her, “you have to finish high school first to start fashion design course.”
“Why?” she questioned.
“Because you need to know basic reading, writing, and mathematics” I told.
“What?” “I already know them” she replied.
“No, you know reading but not how to read fast; you know writing, but not how to write fast; you know addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division but you need to know how to do all of them very fast” I told her.
“These are basics in life and are required before to join fashion design or any course.” I told her.
“Aly, you can excel all of these things during high school after that you are free to fly in your destination.” “I will not only let you fly but also support to achieve your dream.” I told her.
Thanks god. My conversation abruptly ended because her younger sister called her inside.
After this conversation, I paused for a moment.
I recalled a book, I had read a while back, a must-read book by Dr. Jordan Peterson-12 rules for life. Jordan is not only a good author but also a clinical psychologist. One of his 12 rules says, don’t let your child do anything that makes you dislike her.
I have no objection with fashion design or any other profession, the only thing I was more curious was to know how she got influenced with it.
I can definitely tell that committed self-education with self-motivation beats formal education even though it lacks 21st century validation called diploma.
I could not tell my daughter you could become Leonardo da Vinci or Benjamin Franklin or Wright brothers of fashion design if you quit school. But I needed to teach her not to be on trap of passing by shiny objects in life.
My worry was she shouldn’t be a movie played out of direction.
There is another part I didn’t tell my daughter which she needs before joining fashion design. She has to learn how to develop manner and character? And how to be generous, compassionate, and empathetic? I believe these are core principles to instill before to pick any career.

Life is built by scientists, doctors, farmers, builders and engineers. These people will guide and influence our life in many different ways. These people are more than they are.
We have a tendency to follow a media person, a celebrity, or a sportsperson who have produced very little value to evolve the society.

Many of us have our own taste of life. We admire a celebrity and follow in social media even if the celebrity is a drug addict. Celebrities, media persons divorce each other, they alienate their children. It becomes breaking news in the national television, and we follow that news.
Value based recognition which is actually very important for the younger generations to teach is depleting. It is very sad.
We are not teaching kids about our standards of value-base community. They need to learn what is valuable and what is pleasurable. Who brings more value to the society, a scientist or a celebrity?
Most of the pioneering scientists have decided to sacrifice the present to the future. They don’t express dissatisfaction about it. They don’t say take the easier path.
They don’t take anything but are happy. They get stuck in the laboratory and remain unknown and unloved. Many scientists do the same with a hope that one day one result will transcend the generations.

Doing science is a choice of value creation and comes with its own standards and limitations. Science is not an expedient reciprocal arrangement and scientists are morally obliged to produce something that makes the world a better place in the long run.
Science is also a unique mix of thinking and risk. But if experiment doesn’t work, scientist has to transfer thinking power to next generation to create better ideas that make people far stronger and healthier.
Scientist’s mind is a battle ground for thinking with aim to cure schizophrenia, cancer, and diabetes.
It’s essential to follow and surround ourself with these minds than with media person and celebrities. It is.
It requires a lot of strength, courage, and pain to follow the footsteps of Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla so that we will take supersonic jet with vertical takeoff and landing to go to Mars.

We always face the world with many shiny bombardments and distractions. We have to teach our kids how to see valuable things. Kids cannot see value if we don’t teach how to focus. And they cannot focus if we don’t teach them which is valuable and which is pleasurable.
With love, teaching and guidance, any kid can be resilient to achieve dream career beyond imagination.
-Yam Timsina

Albert Einstein said, try not to become a person of success, but a person of value. Our value starts with how many lives we have touched or impacted. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates both impacted billions of people so that we say them billionaires. If iPhone and computer systems code is changed, our complete office and business system including even our non-web related affairs need to be reshuffled to adapt that code change.

There are two ways of getting success and create value, either we alter the circumstances, or we alter ourselves to adapt the change. It does not matter where we came from yesterday or who we are today. Success is the constant battle of adaptation for what we do tomorrow. I am a firm believer that the only way to succeed tomorrow is to create value for tomorrow, and it lies in our ability to adapt. Success comes when opportunity and adaptation meet.

I asked Durga, “Could you come to cheerlead 5K Run participants next Sunday?”
She replied, “Don’t you think I’m so busy”.
I said, “I know”.
We all are busy, but sometimes we’re busy for being busy.
I’m not judging Durga, I’m just reporting.
She is twenty-seven-year-old two hundred thirty-pound lady in my office.
She visits McDonald’s fastfood pretty regularly via drive through because she doesn’t have time to cook at home. But she never visits in fastlane gym to workout. She is getting out of shape because she isn’t congruent with eating and workout. She says obesity runs in her family.
I respect her genuine excuse of non-action.

More than one-third of Americans are obese costing billions of dollars in medical expenses. Very few of us do minimum aerobic activities because we are not adapted to regular exercises. Not doing it creates stress and slows down the production of new brain cells. It also brings reduction in serotonin and dopamine making us poor memory person.

Tomorrow’s work stations should adapt free massages and free yoga class for their employees, if we want high performance and productivity. Workspace should not be cubicled, but open, and pets should be allowed so that everyone could feel like home. Very few people are aware of the relationship between productivity and pets. This is the future of office culture so that everybody enjoys going there. This new practice will make normal office hours obsolete.

Most of us know that meditation significantly lowers stress and anxiety, and elevates attention and creativity. Ray Dalio’s company, Bridgewater Associates, offers free meditation service to its employees. This is another example why we need to adapt new tool in office culture. This exotic vision and willpower come from sheer leadership to adapt new tomorrow. This not only brings sustainability and profit to the organization but also maintains work life healthy balance to employee.

In today’s world, specialized skill in any area is required, but it has both good and bad ramifications. The good aspect is we become expert in the area with keen understanding and knowledge, but the bad part is, there is also high possibility of becoming a trivial market value that has high chance to become obsolete. For example, the specialized expert in automobile industry never thought about the robotics when they were in peak of their career. Now their job is gone. The person who can envision the future spends time to study the forthcoming. The specialized automobile engineering skill could be diverted to the robotic skill. This is called adaptation to change.

My dad used typewriter and also used to repair it when I was kid, but now our typewriter is once upon a time story.
Specialized skills in stock brokerage now, is not far from extinction due to Robinhood and Vanguard.
Priceline dot com already engulfed my friends travel agency office located in King’s way.

Uber and Lyft have now transformed the travel industry, they own nothing except one app, but that single app has put thousands of taxi drivers’ career in jeopardy. Today, dependence on one skill specialization has high risk of obsolescence. When we become experienced in one skill set, our activities revolve around repetition over and over again every day. Daily job becomes monotonous rat race. Our mind goes to autopilot and acquiring new knowledge with hours of learning commitment becomes a distant goal.

The real personal growth in life comes from everyday new life experiences, not from everyday job. New uncomfortable conversation with someone whom you never talk before gives competitive advantage. Single visiting card of a medical science liaison officer who was next to you in your Dubai flight last month can open plethora of avenues. New thoughts, ideas, and experiences don’t come from regular job but from seemingly unrelated dots we experience in five hundred miles away in Florida beach. Growth happens outside of our comfort zone if we are open to adapt it.

Success in career, business, and life is built with time. Time is asset only if we are able to convert one skill set to another with required adjustment and modification. Otherwise, time becomes liability for us. The more we work with people environment, the more we learn about ourselves. This is the key to develop new ways of thinking, new skills, and new ways of serving for tomorrow. Obsession in one area of skill without open mindset to change hurts. And it hurts another skill set. Insanely good at one skill may also take us to obsolescence, if we don’t listen to others.

If we are resistant in adapting to change, we may go out of business. Many of us know that, in 1952, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa both conquered the peak of Mount Everest and also returned safely on the ground. But very few of us know that George Mallory had also reached the peak of the Mount Everest before Edmund and Tenzing, in 1924, but died while returning. It’s not the strong that survives the best, but the one who adapts the quickest.

Many of us have a vivid memory of renting DVDs from Blockbuster Video, an iconic original VHS and DVD rental industry. But now, Blockbuster became the history. At one time, Netflix wanted to sell its company to blockbuster. Blockbuster ignored to adapt to change assuming that live-streaming Netflix is transient. The result is with us, failing to adapt to change is extinction.

Finally, I am coming to conclusion with one alarming note of our current teaching system inside the class room, it is still a teacher centric unidirectional. Holding iPhone and sitting inside the class means we have unlimited accessibility of information. I am curious how long do we attend boring and tedious history and English literature lectures from one-person knowledge bank, the instructor? These teaching practices are endangered to be extinct in coming years. Adaptation to online information tool with advanced curriculum is indispensable now, even in elementary schools. Those who absorb the changes and assimilate to take advantages of it will remain forever. If anybody is not willing to adapt to change, extinction is the inevitable outcome.

-Yam Timsina