Researchers have successfully demonstrated how it is possible to interface graphene — a two-dimensional form of carbon — with neurons, or nerve cells, while maintaining the integrity of these vital cells. The work may be used to build graphene-based electrodes that can safely be implanted in the brain, offering promise for the restoration of sensory functions for amputee or paralysed patients, or for individuals with motor disorders such as epilepsy or Parkinson’s disease.
(draft)
We’ve just posted a proposed definition of the notion of a technological singularity in our blog. Please comment freely.
Synopsis: Careful expositions of a technological singularity anticipated by the mid-21st century can be uniquely described using three common characteristics: superintelligence, acceleration, and discontinuity.
Now, this is intriguing — pathways are a critical part of our system that monitors and manages how our bodies respond and interact to changes in our bodies. This recent SRC report focuses on the researchers efforts in monitoring pathways and how defects in pathways contribute to the biology and pathophysiology of cancer.
Bethesda, MD — This SRC focuses on new developments in the biology of lipid signaling with an emphasis on cancer, neuronal and cardiovascular diseases. The emphasis will be on molecular, cellular, structure/function and enzymatic mechanisms of physiological signaling pathways and how defects in these pathways contribute to the biology and pathophysiology of cancer, neurodegeneration and cardiovascular disease. The focus will be on how diacylglycerol, phosphatidic acid, lysophospholipids, sphingolipids and phosphoinositide lipids modulate specific pathways and processes in the contexts of physiological growth-regulatory signals, intracellular and extracellular vesicular trafficking, regulation of cell polarization, migration, motility and invasion, autophagy and epithelial extrusion, and as nuclear regulators of mRNA processing and gene expression. These sessions will include discussions on how signaling becomes dysfunctional in diseases. There will be presentations on new translational approaches and therapeutic targets. There will be significant representation from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry in order to facilitate networking between industry and academia. The topic areas have been chosen to maximize discussion of provocative and important developments.
We particularly wish to encourage the participation of new and junior researchers in the field and are securing additional support to provide PhD/postdoctoral fellow travel awards. Organizers have kept multiple short session speaking slots open. These will be selected from novel advances during 2015–2016 and from submitted abstracts. There will be multiple opportunities for new investigators and postdoctoral fellows to present and discuss their work including at poster sessions, short talks and short 5–10 minute oral ‘research snapshots’ to highlight their submitted abstracts. There will be multiple poster sessions during the conference. Time will also be allocated to at least two “meet the expert sessions” wherein established research leaders will dedicate time to interact with trainees and new investigators, specifically to give advice concerning the science and possible prospects for postdoctoral training, research funding, publishing or employment tracks.
The 2016 meeting brings together a wide range of leading investigators from across the globe. The scope of their subjects is vast, encompassing studies at the level of single proteins as well as the pathophysiology of complex disease. The program will highlight inter-disciplinary approaches and how major advances in biophysical, proteomic, genomic, imaging, modeling and therapeutic approaches are driving the field. The discussion forums and recreational activities will provide all participants extensive opportunities to exchange new ideas and forge new collaborations in a supportive interdisciplinary environment for participants at all stages of their research profession.
Unbelievable
A patient playing guitar looks odd in a surgery but actually helps doctors detect his brain signals.
A 57-year-old guitar musician received a brain operation in Shenzhen on Jan 25 as he played his guitar through the whole session.
The patient suffered a rare neurological disease called musician’s dystonia.
Finally. Bionic eye technology that could give sight back to millions of individuals worldwide is set to start trials.
Adding to the recent buzz surrounding the development of bionic eye systems is news of scientists from Australia who are set to begin trials on The Phoenix99 bionic eye—a fully implantable system that marks a significant breakthrough in neural stimulation technology.
The device, developed by engineers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), has already been demonstrated successfully in pre-clinical work led by a team of elite surgical experts from Sydney, and it is expected to give patients better vision than any of the current restoration technologies.
Interesting; “Human memory is not the same as computer memory,” said James Kozloski.
An inventor at IBM has patented technology for a cognitive assistant that could learn all about you, then remind you of a name you can’t remember the moment you need to say it.
Interesting approach.
A group of scientists has created a neural network based on polymeric memristors — devices that can potentially be used to build fundamentally new computers. These developments will primarily help in creating technologies for machine vision, hearing, and other machine sensory systems, and also for intelligent control systems in various fields of applications, including autonomous robots.
An international team of researchers has developed a new algorithm that could one day help scientists reprogram cells to plug any kind of gap in the human body. The computer code model, called Mogrify, is designed to make the process of creating pluripotent stem cells much quicker and more straightforward than ever before.
A pluripotent stem cell is one that has the potential to become any type of specialised cell in the body: eye tissue, or a neural cell, or cells to build a heart. In theory, that would open up the potential for doctors to regrow limbs, make organs to order, and patch up the human body in all kinds of ways that aren’t currently possible.
It was Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka who first reprogrammed cells in this way back in 2007 — it later earned him a Nobel Prize — but Yamanaka’s work involved a lot of labourious trial and error, and the process he followed is not an easy one to reproduce. Mogrify aims to compute the required set of factors to change cells instead, and it’s passed its early tests with flying colours.
Scientists hope to create a computer that can interpret, analyze, and process information with the same efficiency as a human.