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Cameras for machine vision and robotics are essentially bionic devices mimicking human eyes. These applications require advanced color imaging systems to possess a number of attributes such as high resolution, large FoV, compact design, light-weight and low energy consumption, etc1. Conventional imaging systems based on CCD/CMOS image sensors suffer from relatively low FoV, bulkiness, high complexity, and power consumption issues, especially with mechanically tunable optics. Recently, spherical bionic eyes with curved image sensor retinas have triggered enormous research interest1,2,3,4,5,6,7. This type of devices possess several appealing features such as simplified lens design, low image aberration, wide FoV, and appearance similar to that of the biological eyes rendering them suitable for humanoid robots8,9,10,11,12,13. However, the existing spherical bionic eyes with curved retinas typically only have fixed lens and can only acquire mono color images. Fixed lenses cannot image objects with varying distances. On the other hand, conventional color imaging function of CCD/CMOS image sensors are achieved by using color filter arrays, which add complexity to the device fabrication and cause optical loss14,15,16,17,18,19. Typical absorptive organic dye filters suffer from poor UV and high-temperature stabilities, and plasmonic color filters suffer from low transmission20,21,22. And it is even more challenging to fabricate color filter arrays on hemispherical geometry where most traditional microelectronic fabrication methods are not applicable.

Herein, we demonstrate a novel bionic eye design that possesses adaptive optics and a hemispherical nanowire array retina with filter-free color imaging and neuromorphic preprocessing abilities. The primary optical sensing function of the artificial retina is realized by using a hemispherical all-inorganic CsPbI3 nanowire array that can produce photocurrent without external bias leading to a self-powered working mode. Intriguingly, an electrolyte-assisted color-dependent bidirectional synaptic photo-response is discovered in a well-engineered hybrid nanostructure. Inspired by the vertical alignment of a color-sensitive cone cell and following neurons, the device structure vertically integrates a SnO2/NiO double-shell nanotube filled with ionic liquid in the core on top of a CsPbI3/NiO core-shell nanowire. It is found that the positive surrounding gate effect of NiO due to photo hole injection can be partially or fully balanced by electrolyte under shorter (blue) or longer (green and red) wavelength illuminations, respectively. Thus, the device can yield either positive or negative photocurrent under shorter or longer wavelength illumination, respectively. The carriers can be accumulated in SnO2/NiO structure, giving rise to the bidirectional synaptic photo-response. This color-sensitive bidirectional photo-response instills a unique filter-free color imaging function to the retina. The synaptic behavior-based neuromorphic preprocessing ability, along with the self-powered feature, effectively reduce the energy consumption of the system23,24,25,26,27,28. Moreover, the color selectivity of each pixel can be tuned by a small external bias to detect more accurate color information. We demonstrate that the device can reconstruct color images with high fidelity for convolutional neural network (CNN) classifications. In addition, our bionic eye integrates adaptive optics in the device, by integrating an artificial crystalline lens and an electronic iris based on liquid crystals. The artificial crystalline lens can switch focal length to detect objects from different distances, and the electronic iris can control the amount of light reaching the retina which enhances the dynamic range. Both of the optical components can be easily tuned by the electric field, which are fast, compact, and much more energy efficient compared to the conventional mechanically controlled optics reported hitherto. (Supplementary Table 1 compares our system with some commercial zoom lenses.) The combination of all these unique features makes the bionic eye structurally and functionally equivalent to its biological counterpart.

Resolving activity in cortical columns and cortical layers in the human brain with ultra-high field fMRI — new insights for biological models of cognitive functions.
Speaker: Rainer Goebel, Maastricht University, Netherlands.

HBP School — The Human Brain Atlas: Neuroscientific basis, tools and applications.
3–7 September 2018
Düsseldorf/Jülich, Germany.
Maastricht, Netherlands.

Follow us:

Facebook: @hbpeducation.
Twitter: @hbp_education.
Instagram: @hbp_education or visit:
www.humanbrainproject.eu/education.

Video recorded by Bergrath & Siebert.

A new study in both mice and humans has found that biological age is dynamic, and that some increases in biological age caused by stress can be reversed with recovery. The research is published in Cell Metab olism.

How can we measure age?

Our biological age is not completely linked to our chronological age. While chronological age is a measure of the amount of time you have been alive, biological age indicates how much aging has occurred to your cells over your lifetime.

The field of plate tectonics is relatively new, and researchers are still uncovering the intricacies of geologic faults that cause earthquakes. One such fault, the Cascadia Subduction Zone, is a potentially catastrophic offshore fault located in the Pacific Northwest that has yet to reveal all its secrets. Despite its eerie calmness, it is capable of producing a massive magnitude-9 quake.

A study led by the University of Washington discovered seeps of warm, chemically distinct liquid shooting up from the seafloor about 50 miles off Newport, Oregon. Their research, published in the journal Science Advances.

<em>Science Advances</em> is a peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal that is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It was launched in 2015 and covers a wide range of topics in the natural sciences, including biology, chemistry, earth and environmental sciences, materials science, and physics.

Calorie restriction, a proven intervention to slow aging in animals, showed evidence of slowing the pace of biological aging in a human randomized trial.

In a first-of-its-kind randomized controlled trial, an international team of researchers led by the Columbia Aging Center at Columbia University.

Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in New York City that was established in 1754. This makes it the oldest institution of higher education in New York and the fifth-oldest in the United States. It is often just referred to as Columbia, but its official name is Columbia University in the City of New York.

In this episode, my guest is Oded Rechavi, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology at Tel Aviv University and expert in how genes are inherited, how experiences shape genes and remarkably, how some memories of experiences can be passed via genes to offspring. We discuss his research challenging long-held tenets of genetic inheritance and the relevance of those findings to understanding key biological and psychological processes including metabolism, stress and trauma. He describes the history of the scientific exploration of the “heritability of acquired traits” and how epigenetics and RNA biology can account for some of the passage of certain experience-based memories. He discusses the importance of model organisms in scientific research and describes his work on how stressors and memories can be passed through small RNA molecules to multiple generations of offspring in ways that meaningfully affect their behavior. Nature vs. nurture is a commonly debated theme; Dr. Rechavi’s work represents a fundamental shift in our understanding of that debate, as well as genetic inheritance, brain function and evolution.

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Dr. Rechavi.
Academic Profile: https://en-lifesci.tau.ac.il/profile/odedrech_66
Lab Website: https://www.odedrechavilab.com.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OdedRechavi.
TEDx Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/oded_rechavi_transgenerational_biology?language=en.

Articles.

The Singularity is a technological event horizon beyond which we cannot see – a moment in future history when exponential progress makes the impossible possible. This video discusses the concept of the Singularity, related technologies including AI, synthetic biology, cybernetics and quantum computing, and their potential implications.

My previous video “AI, Robots & the Future” is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaGIo_Viazs.

The episode on “The Metaverse: A Facebook Fantasy?” is here:

And I have a video on “Nanotechnology 2.0” here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X14sRtcHJXs.

Links to websites shown in the video are as follows:

Amyris (synthetic biology pioneer):

What did scientists think about aging in 1931? That’s right. 1931. because that is the year the first biological textbook was published “The Science of Life”. I managed to get my hands on the first edition of this textbook. This was my face when i first received it. As you can see i was quite excited. And this textbook is made up of separate books. I bought book i last year and i read it. Having enjoyed it and discovered that it was part of this massive ensemble piece — well, i’ve read the first “book” — there are, if my roman numerals are correct, 9 books in total. And in this first book, penned “The Living Body”, the authors, most famously, H.G.Wells, Sir Julian Huxley and G.P.Wells, H.G’s son discusses the body as a machine and that.

“For the present it is enough to remember that all animals (including men) are combustion engines of an intricate and curious kind, which live by oxidising their food”

I bought first The Living Body and then discovered it was part of this massive ensemble piece and decided i needed to read it. Now, besides being surprised to find out that H.G.Wells wrote not just non-fiction, but biology non-fiction, i was also surprised to hear how both similar & dissimilar their views were back in 1931 compared to today and i wasnt sure if that was good or terrifying.

So, how did they think of human aging. Well, in the last chapter of this 1st book titled “The wearing out of the machine and its reproduction”, they discuss it.

Sheekey bookmarks — https://www.contrado.co.uk/stores/the-sheekey-science-show/c…rk-1999569

Find me on Twitter — https://twitter.com/EleanorSheekey.