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Category: computing – Page 350

Scientists from Trinity College Dublin believe our brains could use quantum computation. Their discovery comes after they adapted an idea developed to prove the existence of quantum gravity to explore the human brain and its workings.

The brain functions measured were also correlated to short-term memory performance and conscious awareness, suggesting are also part of cognitive and conscious brain functions.

If the team’s results can be confirmed—likely requiring advanced multidisciplinary approaches—they would enhance our general understanding of how the brain works and potentially how it can be maintained or even healed. They may also help find and build even more advanced quantum computers.

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Reservoir computing (RC) is an approach for building computer systems inspired by current knowledge of the human brain. Neuromorphic computing architectures based on this approach are comprised of dynamic physical nodes, which combined can process spatiotemporal signals.

Researchers at Tsinghua University in China have recently created a new RC system based on memristors, that regulate the flow of electrical current in a circuit, while also recording the amount of charge that previously flowed through it. This RC system, introduced in a paper published in Nature Electronics, has been found to achieve remarkable results, both in terms of performance and efficiency.

“The basic architecture of our memristor RC system comes from our earlier work published in Nature Communications, where we validated the feasibility of building analog reservoir layer with dynamic memristors,” Jianshi Tang, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. “In this new work, we further build the analog readout layer with non-volatile memristors and integrate it with the dynamic memristor array-based parallel reservoir layer to implement a fully analog RC system.”

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Summary: A new theory suggests glial cells, specifically astrocytes, play a key role in cognitive processing.

Source: University Health Network.

A team of scientists from the Krembil Brain Institute, part of the University Health Network in Toronto, and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, has developed the first computer model predicting the role of cortical glial cells in cognition.

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Two-dimensional material-based transistors are being extensively investigated for CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology extension; nevertheless, downscaling appears to be challenging owing to high metal-semiconductor contact resistance.

Two-dimensional (2D) nano-materials could be a replacement for conventional CMOS semiconductors for high-speed integrated circuits and very low power usage. CMOS is reaching the physical limits of about 1 nanometer circuits.

Lab performance of these devices has been found to meet the international roadmap for devices and systems (IRDS) requirements for several benchmark metrics.

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Tiny single-celled critters obviously don’t have room for a brain to tell them how to move in complex ways, so to get about, they usually roll, slither or swim.

But microscopic pond dwellers called Euplotes eurystomus have mastered a way to walk brainlessly – scurrying about like insects, with their 14 little appendages.

They appear to move a bit like the Dutch-designed kinetic sculptures called Strandbeasts, with clockwork-like connections cycling them through a pattern of set states that can be adjusted in response to their environment.

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