Rappin' to the beat

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today: A look at who’s spending all that money on AI; A new smartwatch feature can predict fainting 5 minutes in advance; and some genuinely out of this world wine!  

Let’s get into it!

You’d think that with all this spending on the growth of artificial intelligence infrastructure, someone would be getting rich. You’d be right.

Samsung became the latest company to reach the pinnacle of modern business, hitting a trillion dollar market capitalization last week after a rise initially propelled by smartphone technology, and now being propelled by AI.

The first company to hit the $1 trillion cap was Apple in 2018. Shortly after that, it was followed by Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Tesla.

Samsung makes memory chips and other hardware required for the rollout of the massive AI data centers at the heart of the AI spending boom.

Companies like TSMC, Nvidia and Broadcom, for example, reached market caps of $1 trillion in 2023 and 2024, respectively, due to their building and supplying of semiconductors and other hardware materials instrumental in the ongoing massive rollout of all things AI.

Just two non-AI companies reached trillionaire status in recent years: Berkshire Hathaway, and Walmart. Did the use of AI push them over the top though? Probably.

Samsung has its hands in quite a few exciting developments including the AI-driven algorithm in its Galaxy watch that can detect signs that a person is going to faint five minutes before it happens, according to a study it just conducted.

The most common type of fainting is called vasovagal syncope (VVS), and it happens when heart rate and blood pressure drop suddenly. 40% of people experience these symptoms at some point in life.

Researchers with Samsung, in conjunction with Chung-Ang University Gwangmyeong Hospital in South Korea, recruited 132 patients who were believed to be showing symptoms of VVS, and had them wear the Galaxy watch to test its effectiveness in detecting those symptoms.

Using a sensor that measures heart rate and blood pressure, the watch’s AI algorithm was able to accurately predict nearly 85% of fainting cases before they happened.

"An early warning could give patients advance time to get into a safe position or call for help, which would dramatically reduce the incidence of secondary injuries," Junhwan Cho said in a statement, referring to the head trauma and broken bones often experienced by those who faint due to VVS.

Mash fermented on the International Space Station was just turned into a 100-milliliter bottle of sake and sold for the equivalent of $700,000 in Japan. According to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the money will be used to help fund the future activities of Japan’s space program.

The product was the end result of the Dassai MOON Project’s first mission. The project’s final mission will be to produce sake on the Moon.

In October of last year, ingredients were transported to “Kibo,” which is Japan’s experimentation module aboard the ISS. The ingredients were shipped via Japan’s H3 rocket and a resupply vehicle for the purpose of seeing if the mash for sake could be fermented under gravitational conditions resembling the lunar surface.

The mash was fermented in December, frozen until February, then delivered back to Earth. By mid-March, it was in Dassai’s Iwakuni brewery, and by late March, the finished product was bottled in a titanium container, which was purchased by the anonymous buyer who paid $700,000 for it.

Does that person have $7 million earmarked for Moon-brewed sake? Perhaps we’ll find out in a few years.

It turns out even small bird brains are smart enough to know who wears the pants around here.

A study published in the British Ecological Society Journal found birds generally fear women more than men, and don’t get intimidated as easily when men get close to them. The researchers found men were able to get about three feet closer before urban-dwelling birds flew away.

“I fully believe our results, that urban birds react differently based on the sex of the person approaching them, but I can’t explain them right now,” said study author Daniel Blumstein.

The study results were consistent across 37 different species of urban European bird, observed in five separate countries.

It’s unclear what exactly triggered the different responses based on the gender of the approaching human. The results remained the same even when women and men were disguised to resemble the opposite sex.

“Differences in the physical appearance of observers (e.g. hair length, body size, height, etc.), movement patterns (e.g. hip movement, overall walking gait) or different clothing could be candidate factors. But we can reject these because, in our study, they were either controlled or their differences were non-significant,” the authors wrote.

“We can reject gross morphology, since the woman and man working at a given site were similarly tall and hid their hair if it was longer than their partner’s.”

Glee in ’83

We’re turning back the clock to this week in 1983. Play today’s trivia and find out how much you remember!