Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: neuroscience – Page 1,371

This neural network ‘hallucinates’ the right colors into black and white pictures

The machine overlords of the future may now, if it pleases them, eliminate all black and white imagery from the history of their meat-based former masters. All they’ll need is this system from Berkeley computer scientist Richard Zhang, which allows a soulless silicon sentience to “hallucinate” colors into any monochrome image.

It uses what’s called a convolutional neural network (several, actually) — a type of computer vision system that mimics low-level visual systems in our own brains in order to perceive patterns and categorize objects. Google’s DeepDream is probably the most well-known example of one. Trained by examining millions of images of— well, just about everything, Zhang’s system of CNNs recognizes things in black and white photos and colors them the way it thinks they ought to be.

Grass, for instance, has certain features — textures, common locations in images, certain other things often found on or near it. And grass is usually green, right? So when the network thinks it recognizes grass, it colors that region green. The same thing occurs for recognizing certain types of butterflies, building materials, flowers, the nose of a certain breed of dog and so on.

Magic Microbes: The Navy’s Next Defense?

Synthetic biology involves creating or re-engineering microbes or other organisms to perform specific tasks, like fighting obesity, monitoring chemical threats or creating biofuels. Essentially, biologists program single-celled organisms like bacteria and yeast much the same way one would program and control a robot.

But 10 years ago, it was extremely challenging to take a DNA sequence designed on a computer and turn it into a polymer that could implement its task in a specific host, say a mouse or human cell. Now, thanks to a multitude of innovations across computing, engineering, biology and other fields, researchers can type out any DNA sequence they want, email it to a synthesis company, and receive their completed DNA construct in a week. You can build entire chromosomes and entire genomes of bacteria in this way.

“Biology is the most powerful substrate for engineering that we know of,” said Christopher Voigt, Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT. “It’s more powerful than electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, materials science and others. Unlike all the other fields, we can look at what biology is already able to do. When we look at the natural world, we see things like the brain. That’s a complex place computing, electrical engineering and computer science can’t reach. The brain even constructs nanostructures very deliberately, something materials science has not accomplished.”

Neuromorphic supercomputer has 16 million neurons

Today, Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) and IBM announced the development of a new Scale-up Synaptic Supercomputer (NS16e) that highly integrates 16 TrueNorth Chips in a 4×4 array to deliver 16 million neurons and 256 million synapses. LLNL will also receive an end-to-end software ecosystem that consists of a simulator; a programming language; an integrated programming environment; a library of algorithms as well as applications; firmware; tools for composing neural networks for deep learning; a teaching curriculum; and cloud enablement.

The $1 million computer has 16 IBM microprocessors designed to mimic the way the brain works.

IBM says it will be five to seven years before TrueNorth sees widespread commercial use, but the Lawrence Livermore test is a big step in that direction.

Tigra scientifica: A pathway to consciousness

Now, we have to truly ask ourselves; when one looks at all of the complexities of the brain and how it interacts with the body such as pathways; and then you look at our existing digital infrastructure and technology how can anyone truly believe that they can mimic the human brain and all of its functions. Not on the existing digital platform, not happening. We need a way more advance platform and infrastructure.

Suppose it’s Thursday night and you’re in bed. Your roommate is talking to you about the football team’s chances for the fall, but just when they predict a Tiger playoff berth, you drift off to sleep.

Enzo Tagliazucchi, a physicist at the Institute for Medical Psychology in Kiel, Germany, might explain why you fell asleep during the conversation by suggesting that your neurons are too disconnected.

In the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, Tagliazucchi and colleagues suggest that there is a specific balance between brain signaling pathways that causes consciousness to arise. The finding is based on six years of research on the neuronal pathways of the brain which prompt the sleep state.

Testing to Start for Computer With Chips Inspired by the Human Brain

To solve some of the world’s toughest computing problems, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is getting a boost from the human brain.

The U.S. government lab will begin testing on Thursday a $1 million computer, the first of its kind, packed with 16 microprocessors that are designed to mimic the way the brain works.

The chip called TrueNorth, introduced by International Business Machines Corp. in 2014, is radically…

Experts wary of electrical brain stimulation at home

Hmmm;

Researchers are testing mild electrical stimulation to improve brain function and mental health, but warn do-it-yourselfers to be wary of treating themselves with models available online.

Dr. Fidel Vila-Rodriguez, director of the Non-Invasive Neurostimulation Therapies (NINET) Lab at the University of B.C., is starting to lend devices for home use to people with Parkinson’s disease and depression that will deliver a weak electrical current through electrodes placed on their temples.

The machines in his experiments can’t be adjusted above two milliamps — similar to the power created by two AA batteries. In contrast, some unregulated brain stimulators sold online can deliver about 10 times that amount of current, something he calls “worrisome.” It is an amount of electricity still small enough that users might not notice an immediate effect — or danger.

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