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In the novel A Brief History of Intelligence by Max S Bennet; Max Mentions how far the AI has come!

In one such example he tells us about a site!

I checked it out today! Shocking beyond words!

I am placing the site address for your shock!

ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com

As the site says, the person you click on DOES NOT exist! Every time you click on the link you get a different person!

Now I know you are intrigued but still you think what is so great about that! Well. each image generated when you click on the link is a person who is not real! He or she does not exist!

It is simply mind blowing!

So “This Person Does Not Exist” refers to a viral web project that uses artificial intelligence to generate hyper-realistic portraits of human beings who have never actually lived!

The core technology is called the StyleGAN! This is a generative adversarial network (GAN), developed by researchers at Nvidia in late 2018!

Yes! The Nvidia which makes your graphics cards for your very hyperrealist gaming experience!


The Process involves two neural networks—a “generator” that tries to create images and a “discriminator” that tries to detect if they are fake. They “train” against each other until the generator can produce images indistinguishable from real photos!

The most amazing thing here is that there is no human involved in the Generation of the random image of a HUMAN!

The model was trained on the Flickr-Faces-HQ (FFHQ) dataset, which contains 70,000 high-quality images of real human faces!

The site itself was created by software engineer Phillip Wang in 2019 to raise public awareness about the capabilities of AI!

Each time you refresh the page, the site generates a brand-new, unique 1024×1024 pixel portrait from scratch using a random 512-dimensional vector!

Of course it is a gold mine of images now!

Artists use it to generate unique characters for games, novels, or graphic designs.

It also provides “worry-free” faces for company websites, diverse profile pictures, or advertisements without the need for model releases or actor fees!

Users have even converted these AI portraits into 3D models using tools like Character Creator!

Then again where there is USE, there is ABUSE! (I am going to copyright this one!)

The technology can be used to create realistic fake social media profiles (sock puppets) to push propaganda or commit scams!

While many faces look real, some contain “artifacts”—glitches like distorted backgrounds, strangely shaped earrings, or “ghost” teeth—that can appear unsettling.

Researchers have also found that some generated faces bear a striking resemblance to real people from the original training data, raising potential privacy concerns! The evil twin is not that far away!

Then again success leads to copycats! (another copyright quote!)

The site has inspired copy cats such as well; This Cat Does Not Exist! which Generates realistic feline images! Followed by This Waifu Does Not Exist which is for anime fans! or This Rental Does Not Exist which generates fake Airbnb-style listing!

In summary; there is a very high probability that nothing in the digital world is real! If you want to see real people then put the phone down and turn to one side!

Or catch up some old movie like Jewel thief which also had a twin story who does not exist! Directed by Vijay Anand!

Do check out the site though! Since we do exist!

Shubh ratri!

Republic day!

Growing up this was a fun day! The best part was the Republic day was the Parade which we always used to miss ( at least the initial part!); the other cool thing was HALF DAY!

Nowadays though many kids generally have a holiday which is actually sad since then the would miss the celebrations that is Republic day! Read and weep Gen Z and Gen Alpha!

We used to get up in the morning but this time with joy!

That is because there was no need to carry the heavy school bag!!

No need to carry the lunch box and no need to be there till 3!

Republic day celebration was an event of it’s own!

We would rush to the extended assembly in our super clean uniform just in time for the prayer to start!

After that there will be cool programs (cool only if you are watching! Sometimes though we would be told to perform a skit or narrate a speech then it would seem like any other school day!!)

Then there will be a speech by our principal and the good point is that we would be sitting when all this would be going on!!

This of course was secondary to the falling kid phenomenon!

Apparently most of the time some kid would fall down so they made this rule for any extended assembly!!

We would see our friends dressed up as Gandhi, Nehru and many other leaders! The best of course would be Subhash Chandra Bose!! There was always a demand for playing Bose ji!

Coming up in his get up and saying “You give me blood and I will give you freedom!”

That would raise both our morale and adrenaline!

Then everyone would sing those national integration songs!

There would be some speeches and then some ‘free life lessons as the Gen Z would call it now!’; we of course would listen to all of them with rapt attention since the punishment for speaking is to stand!

Now when the whole school is sitting; you do not like to stand with your bottoms completely brown! That was dirt of course since we would be sitting on the ground spoiling our very nice uniforms pants and trousers! The real irritation for our moms would be to wash those pants the next day! They would wonder how it could get so dirty!

Finally the next best part of the show would be the distribution of the laddus!!
I have never liked laddus (except Tirupati laddu of course!!)
But this laddu was special since we would be made to wait for it for hours together just like Tirupati laddu!! Sometimes though we all would get paper bags in the color of the Indian flags and in that there would be pieces of laddus and some other snacks thrown in for good measure!

After waiting for so long; getting that small paper bag would be a great achievement! Many would finish it off as soon as possible! I would eat a little and store it to give a little to my mother who of course refuse to eat it and tell me to finish them myself!

Rest would be munching on this and may be some other snack which some kid would have bought forgetting that you do not have to get lunch today!

We would then then rush to the ground to play until we get tired or our bus comes!
Sometimes we would be told that the bus will be late so we all would simply walk home!

Something you cannot even think of doing now! With the little flags and the little laddu bags we would munch and talk and walk!

Since there was no OTT or any Cable; the only channel that would be on at home at that time would be the DD!

We all would then watch the republic day parade! We of course would be waiting for our ‘State’ parade and cheer for it!

Then again; if you are from Army background you will be perpetually confused on which state to support since you belong to all! So we would support most of them! Including the North east since Assam and Arunachal were some of the best and most beautiful postings dad had and we loved those pristine places!

Watching that on TV along with the commentary alternating between Hindi and English was like watching the academy award with a front view! I always used to wonder how our dear President would keep his hands as salute the whole time! We would be amazed to see that glass covering!

Occasionally you would catch the glimpse of some known personality in the audience and that would be fodder to the next day’s gossip! We would even have a ‘working’ lunch!

All that work used to call for a quick afternoon nap! A rarity of those days since lunch was done and it was too hot out!

Then mom would wake us up and we would feel so sad that it is morning and we have to go to school again! Then to our delight we would realize that it was only evening! Another round of ‘Republic day’ delight!

A quick glass of milk and if your mom is in a good mood some snacks which would usually be some pakoras or Bonda!

Another round of playing cricket or football with the neighbor kids or simply cycling or skating since there is so much time to ‘waste’!

Then you would have the special screening of the movie Gandhi! It is not republic day if you do not watch that movie! Later on when we had the DD Metro then special National Integration movies like Roja used to shown which we loved to watch again!

Slowly then Mom would remind us to pack the bags and finish any homework and go to bed! The afternoon nap would make sure that the sleep would take its own sweet time to come! Then my brother would take his carefully preserved bag of Laddu and we would have a late night treat!

The night would be done but the whole day would be etched in our memories forever!

Today’s sketch needs no description! If you know you know!

Well deserved Padma for Maddy!

Happy republic day folks!!

proud to be an Indian!!!

Jai Hind!🙏🙏🙏

Do you know what is Montezuma’s Revenge?

It is a game and also a type of infection!

We will stick to the former for now!

The relevance of this game is in the development of the AI!

A Brief History of Intelligence by Max S Bennet traces the development of intelligence and how it applies to the development of the AI!

Since it is a novel written by a non medical person with a tech background, for a medico it is a very refreshing new outlook on the development of intelligence!

Now how it develops into the Artificial Intelligence is the key point here!

Now Montezuma’s Revenge is a classic platform-adventure video game originally released in 1984.

Designed by Robert Jaeger and published by Parker Brothers, it is often cited as an early precursor to the “Metroidvania” genre due to its open-exploration and backtracking mechanics.

The objective of the game is to Navigate multiple floors to reach a central Treasure Chamber, collecting jewels while avoiding hazards!

The issue here is that for humans this is a routine game but for AI with no scope of a right or a wrong way, the game is difficult to say the least!

The game in fact serves as a primary benchmark for testing “hard-exploration” in Artificial Intelligence, particularly in reinforcement learning (RL).

Because the game requires a long sequence of non-obvious actions to gain any points (sparse rewards), it exposed critical failures in early AI models, leading to significant advancements in how AI explores and learns!

Most AI agents (like DQN) failed completely on this game because they rely on immediate feedback (points) to learn! Which means that there is a right way and wrong in simple games! But in this game the reward is in the end so there is no wrong or right way!

Montezuma’s Revenge is a puzzle-platformer that requires navigating complex, trap-filled, multi-room, and multi-level, requiring agents to climb, jump, and collect items (keys/swords) in a specific order before receiving a single reward!

Early attempts to fix this involved giving AI “curiosity” (intrinsic motivation) to explore new areas. However, agents became obsessed with unpredictable, high-entropy, or “noisy” areas (like flickering screens) rather than useful gameplay, a failure known as the “noisy TV” problem!

Then key AI advancements were developed specifically to conquer Montezuma’s Revenge!

One algorithm called the Go-Explore (Uber AI) successfully solved the game by prioritizing “exploring from promising states” rather than relying on random exploration. It memorized “visited” game states, allowing it to revisit them and continue exploring from there, rather than starting over!

Finally an AI system called Agent57 or the DeepMind was the first to achieve superhuman performance across all 57 Atari games, including Montezuma’s Revenge, by combining advanced exploration strategies with a meta-controller to balance short- and long-term behavior!

The key techniques used was called the Reinforcement Learning (RL) where the agent plays by trial-and-error, receiving rewards or penalties!

Mastering Montezuma’s Revenge is considered a milestone because the techniques developed—specifically, intelligent, curiosity-driven, and memory-based exploration—are directly applicable to real-world AI challenges, such as robotic navigation in unknown, complex environments (e.g., search and rescue, home automation etc.!)

So how does an AI demonstrate intelligence? By defeating a Video game released more than 30 years back!

Then again Kavita Krishnamurthy who has been active for more than 40 years now!

That is real natural talent!

Now stop playing Montezuma’s Revenge and sleep!

SHubh Ratri!

India’s first satellite launched in 1975 was named after Ārybahaṭa!

If you are wondering why then read these two statements made over 1000s of years apart!

Ārybahaṭa I, the great Indian wrote this “As a man in a boat going forward sees a stationary object moving backward just so in Sri-Lanka a man sees the stationary asterisms (stars) moving backward exactly toward the West.”

About one millennium after this Copernicus said, “For when a ship is floating calmly along, the sailors see its motion mirrored in everything outside, while on the other hand they suppose that they are stationary, together with everything on board. In that same way, the motion of the earth can unquestionably produce the impression that the entire universe is rotating.”

When you see the similarity of these statements you would realize that the fact that great minds do think alike!

Now you must also know that the observations by Ārybahaṭa I was made without any telescope or special instruments!

This is not his only contribution! He has several!

Aryabhata’s, in his work Aryabhatiya (499 CE), provided several key findings that were advanced for his time!

Aryabhata proposed that the daily rotation of the Earth on its axis causes the apparent movement of the stars, rather than the sky itself revolving around the Earth!

He gave a scientific Explanation of Eclipses and correctly explained that lunar and solar eclipses are caused by the shadows cast by the Earth and the Moon!

He also stated that the Moon and planets do not have their own light but reflect sunlight!

Another amazing thing is how you struggle to calculate the area of your house while he calculated the Earth’s circumference to be about 24,835 miles which is remarkably close to the modern value of 24,902 miles!

Finally he estimated the sidereal rotation as 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.1 seconds and deduced the value of Pi to four decimal places 3.1416!

Sometimes great minds and those who can do, are not limited by instruments!

Of course some great minds are instrumental in some pretty entertaining movies like Hero and Ram Lakhan! Of course that was because growing up I was a big fan of Jaggu dada! Hero and Ram Lakhan though were super entertaining cause of Subhash Ghai!

Now stare into the sky and sleep!
Shubh ratri!

Spasm is a new thriller by Robin Cook! That is surprising because he is 86 years old!

Then again the blog is not about good Old Robin!

It is about what the novel is about! the ZOMBIES of microbiology!

Yes! You thought that zombies are not real! Well they are!

So much so that just like the actual zombies; some scientists do not believe that they exist!

Without further ado; the blog is about PRIONS!

Prions are one of the most bizarre and terrifying infectious agents known to science, fundamentally challenging the definition of “alive.”

They are not bacteria, viruses, or fungi, but rather misfolded proteins that can force normal proteins to misfold in a, self-propagating, deadly cycle!

They are alive but barely so since they contain no genetic material (no DNA or RNA). They are simply proteins that have adopted an abnormal, disease-causing shape (PrPSc)!

Now since they are not alive, they cannot be killed in the traditional sense! They are notoriously resistant to sterilization, surviving autoclaving, radiation, boiling, alcohol, and formaldehyde!

In fact they can be ‘alive’ even in dead bodies of your cadaveric lab! A nightmare for any med student!

They can even persist for decades! Prions can remain infectious in the environment (soil, water) for years, resisting natural degradation.

American biologist Stanley B. Prusiner coined the term “prion” (short for proteinaceous infectious particle) in 1982. He received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1997 for his discovery.

For decades, physicians believed that diseases like Kuru and CJD were caused by “slow viruses” because of their long incubation times.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), Variant CJD (linked to mad cow), Kuru, and Fatal Familial Insomnia (which stops people from being able to sleep) are known to be due to the Prions!

Misfolded proteins are now linked to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and ALS, which have shown to operate in a similar, “prion-like” mechanism!

Because prions are made of natural proteins, they do not trigger an immune response, making them invisible to the body’s defense!

By the way; it is a disease which can be transmitted by eating or consuming even infected ‘brains’! Which is why it can be seen in cannibals who eat brains!

Which is maybe why we always say don’t eat my brain! Or was it don’t eat my head!
My brain is not working me thinks!

But at least it knows that Subhash Chandra Bose is the real revolutionary and one of the greatest freedom fighter ever!

A humble sketch of a fighter I truly respect

Now keep rest to your brain or you may look like a zombie Tommorow!

In the era of social media if you do not know this word, well then you are not in this world!

I did not know this till yesterday when it came in the NYT crossword!

I thought it was some new word and later found out that it was the Oxford University Press word of the year 2025!

The word is called RAGE BAIT!

Now now, do not get upset (or get into a RAGE!) if you did not know the word! You still experience it day to day! You just did not know that it is what it is!

There is still hope for you and me!

Coming back to some free knowledge so that you look tech savvy and at least do not fumble when you solve the NYT crossword!

So Rage bait is online content created specifically to provoke anger, outrage, or strong negative emotions to drive engagement (likes, comments, shares) and traffic, often for financial gain!

It exploits psychological vulnerabilities, using deliberately offensive, frustrating, or polarizing material to keep users scrolling and interacting, even if the interaction is hostile!

The fact here is that the content is not accidental! It is designed to offend or challenge beliefs or cause intentional provocation!

It also aims to bypass rational thought and trigger strong emotional responses like anger and moral outrage! Then again finally in the age of social media; any publicity is good!
The end intent is to get comments, shares, and views, which algorithms boost, increasing visibility and revenue!

The whole idea is that it thrives on creating division, making users feel they must take a side! For the ‘young’ it can be a take on intentionally bad art or music while for the ‘older’ generation it is usually a misleading political or religious statement!

We all fall for it time and again!

This is not trolling or click bait though!

Rage bait and trolling both provoke strong negative emotions online, but rage bait is content specifically engineered to maximize engagement.

In contrast, trolling is a broader term for deliberately upsetting people for personal amusement, causing drama, or disruption, and may not always have a clear monetization goal like rage bait does, though they overlap significantly!

Finally you have the CLICKBAIT which I was aware of! (some hope for me after all!)

So Clickbait uses curiosity or mystery to get clicks! Lile many times how I start my blogs! That is a very obvious click bait!

The premise and intent though is not the same!

Click baits targets your Curiosity while Anger is the target for Rage Bait!

Clickbait though often relies on misleading titles while Rage bait can use truthful but manipulated content to provoke outrage!

Finally Clickbait leads to a click while Rage bait keeps you on the page arguing in the comments!

In short Clickbait can take you somewhere while Rage bait keeps you angry and in the same place!

Like how acting by Neeraj Vora can baiy you and keep you hooked!

Now stop clicking links and sleep!

Shubh ratri!

Do you know what are the MAGIC BULLETS?

As early as early 1900s; Paul Ehrlich proposed the “magic bullet” concept—a substance that could selectively target and destroy disease-causing agents, laying theoretical groundwork!

Most of the time; side effects of a drug is because of lack of specificity! Like you have a simple analgesic which acts on the pain receptors but also on gastric mucosa! So it may relieve pain but can cause gastritis!

This is practically why drugs used in Chemotherapy have many side effects since they also act on normal cells! It is the same even in medications such as in allergy where medications do give relief but cause side effects!

The MAGIC BULLETS concept thus are developed in such a way that these medications specifically act only on the cells causing the problems and sparing the normal cells!

These drugs are now the forefront of cancer and allergy and immunology treatments! They are technically called the MONOCLONAL ANTIBODIES or mAbs!

The history of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) began with early concepts of “magic bullets,” as above but truly launched in 1975 when Georges Köhler and César Milstein developed the hybridoma technique, allowing the production of identical antibodies against specific targets, earning them the 1984 Nobel Prize!

This breakthrough led to the first FDA-approved mAb, Muromonab-CD3, in 1986 for transplant rejection, paving the way for modern therapies that now treat many diseases, with continuous innovation moving towards humanized and more effective antibody designs!

Now these are basically laboratory-made proteins designed to mimic or enhance the immune system’s ability to fight specific targets, such as cancer cells, viruses, or proteins causing inflammation!


Monoclonal antibodies treat diseases through several distinct methods like flagging Cells, or Blocking Signals or Delivering Payloads or Neutralization  They bind to viruses or toxins to prevent them from entering or harming human cells!

With these amazing features the mAbs have now become one of the best inventions of modern medicine as close to the discovery of penicillin!
One of their actions is to bind to two different targets—one on a cancer cell and one on an immune cell—bringing them together to facilitate destruction!

Meaning they can use the body’s own defense system to fight the disease! They are like the secret cells or informants!

They have now found wide use in the fields of Oncology, Autoimmune Disorders and even Infectious Diseases!

They have also been used by allergologists (like the person writing this blog!) in the treatment of chronic issues like allergic bronchitis and sinusitis!

They have been approved for allergic asthma, chronic hives, and nasal polyps!
They have been found to be highly specific in targeting of allergy-driving molecules and significantly improvement in quality of life for many patients.

In short; Magic Bullets!
Talking about Bullets or Goli reminds me of Kalia aka Viju Khote!

Now have a magic sleep!

Shubh ratri!

A Brief History of Intelligence by Max S Bennet is an interesting novel about the development of Intelligence (not only human mind you!)!

One interesting thing (there are many!) you can see is that the average Fish has got this inbuilt capability which even the most important and really clever species; the bee does not have!

It knows the passage of time! It can tell time would have been more dramatic but that is not technically true!

In this novel he traces the development of the intelligence from the first ‘brain’ to the complex one we see in most of your skulls!

This is of course the base of explaining how the development leads to the development of AI! Now just like many computers; some people have the hardware but do not use it! Instead they read a ‘manual’ and follow the rules!

In the case of fish listen (sorry I heard it on the audible so that is stuck to my mind! Nothing fishy! You can READ!) to the experiment first.

You keep the fish in a tank and once in a while you test for this ‘conditioned’ reflex! In one experiment; the researcher puts on the light over a dark tank and gives a ZAP! Which is a short electric charge which shocks the fish! Very fishy and shocking! Now it does not harm the fish but it does feel the shock which is not pleasant!

So the next time the researcher puts on the light, sure enough; the fish escapes before the shock!

Now what is so great about this you say!?

Glad to see you are using your ‘hardware’!

Apparently the fish does not escape immediately after the light is switched on! But after some time!

At this point you must know that there is a time interval of around 5 seconds after the light is put on and the ZAP is delivered!

The fish escapes exactly FIVE seconds AFTER the light is switched on!

The fish and the time to zap! Like the meme goes! IT KNOWS!
Like always what we know is a DROP in the OCEAN of knowledge!

But who would have thought that fish would have time intelligence!

Now intelligence is the hallmark of a country! And the one who is the legend when it comes to intelligence and secret service is Ajit Kumar Doval!

That’s not fishy!

Shubh ratri!

In Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients, author David Hatcher Childress highlights the Iron Pillar of Delhi as a prime example of “impossible” ancient Indian metallurgy.

He argues that this 1,600-year-old, rust-resistant pillar is evidence that ancient civilizations possessed advanced, lost knowledge of iron-working and chemical engineering, rather than being primitive.

Childress points to the pillar’s ability to withstand corrosion for over a millennium as evidence of a specialized, almost alchemical, manufacturing process.

In another book called Ancient Hindu Science: Its Transmission and Impact on World Cultures, Alok Kumar positions Charaka, Shuśruta, and Kauṭilya as foundational, intellectual, and scientific figures rather than merely religious or mythological ones.

All medical students need to read history and most of the history begins with the mention of the earliest physicians and surgeons of the world!

Charaka and Shuśruta!

Kumar highlights that Charaka (medicine) and Shuśruta (surgery) developed a highly sophisticated, empirical system of medicine.
He states that these texts provide evidence of advanced understanding of the human body, anatomy, and surgical techniques (such as plastic surgery) that was later transmitted to the Arab world and subsequently to Europe!

He uses Kauṭilya’s writings to illustrate how the state supported technological advancements like “Wootz” (Damascus) steel, which was highly advanced for its time!

In fact there are countless such examples all over our country!

Sometimes what sounds of looks primitive is only one’s opinion or ignorance!

One opinion is also that Feluda was a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Tintin! I used to love reading his adventures! The first actor to play him was the legendary
Soumitra Chatterjee or Soumitra da!

Now if you want to know about him start with Apur Sansar! It is slow so don’t sleep!

Shubh ratri!

A lucky ‘man’ gets a great mother though all mothers are great! A luckier man gets a great wife in addition to a great mother! The luckiest though are those who get a daughter!

The father daughter bond is one of the most purest and sacred!

When I first held my very pink just born daughter in my trembling hands I was so overwhelmed to have been chosen to be the father of this angel!

I simply held her and exclaimed that, “She looks like my mother!” and ran out to ‘show’ off to everyone!

My mother in law ran behind me saying, “Do not forget your wife who is still in recovery!”

A Man is thus known by how he treats three women of his life; mother wife and daughter!

In Bengali culture (I have a close association with that!); daughters, especially from a father, are often affectionately called “Maa” (mother) as a term of deep respect, seeing them as embodiments of the divine mother (Maa Durga)

Now the formal word for daughter is “meye” (মেয়ে) or “konnya” (কন্যা).

This affectionate naming reflects honor, not burden, with fathers calling their daughters “Maa” and sometimes even “Baba” (father) to show love and respect, similar to how sons might be called “Baba” or “Khoka”!

This practice highlights the elevated status of daughters in Bengali families, viewing them as goddesses. It’s a term of endearment, signifying love and reverence, not a literal role reversal!

Now although it is a reference to Ma Durga; it is also a reference to your own mother! Father many times treats their daughter as they treat their mother while the daughter when she gets old, treats her father like a mother!

Which is why they are called MA!

Then again you treat your mother with pure respect and you treat your daughter with pure love! Then what about the wife  you say?

Well, it is an amalgamation of both love and respect! The percentages differ every other day!


Lucky are those who still can call up their mother!

My calls are one way for some time now…

A sketch of a Ma! Durga Khote ji…

Shubh ratri…