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What If We Built a Star-Sized Computer? | Unveiled

What if we built a Matrioshka Brain? In this video, Unveiled asks what would happen if we built a computer AROUND A STAR? This is one of the most incredible megastructures we’ve ever even contemplated… but what would the universe be like if it was home to these things? And how would we possibly keep control?

This is Unveiled, giving you incredible answers to extraordinary questions!

Find more amazing videos for your curiosity here:
What If Humanity Was A Type VII Civilization? — https://youtu.be/pz-Z8AavJZY
What If the Universe is an Atom? — https://youtu.be/WYyu9h9JJfg.

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#MatrioshkaBrain #Kardashev #Future

The Mere Sight of a Meal Triggers an Inflammatory Response in the Brain

Summary: The simple sight and smell of a meal prior to consumption triggers insulin release. This insulin release depends on a short-term inflammatory response. In those who are overweight, this inflammatory response is so excessive it can impair insulin secretion.

Source: University of Basel.

Even before carbohydrates reach the bloodstream, the very sight and smell of a meal trigger the release of insulin.

Better, Stronger, Faster: The Future of the Bionic Body

In the future, a woman with a spinal cord injury could make a full recovery; a baby with a weak heart could pump his own blood. How close are we today to the bold promise of bionics—and could this technology be used to improve normal human functions, as well as to repair us? Join Bill Blakemore, John Donoghue, Jennifer French, Joseph J. Fins, and P. Hunter Peckham at “Better, Stronger, Faster,” part of the Big Ideas Series, as they explore the unfolding future of embedded technology.

This program is part of the Big Ideas Series, made possible with support from the John Templeton Foundation.

Visit our Website: http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/worldscience… us on twitter: https://twitter.com/WorldSciFest Original Program date: May 31, 2014 Host: Bill Blakemore Participants: John Donoghue, Jennifer French, Joseph J. Fins, P. Hunter Peckham Re-engineering the anatomy of the “Vitruvian Man” 00:00 Bill Blakemore’s Introduction. 2:06 Participant introductions. 4:27 What is FES? (Functional Electrical Stimulation) 6:06 A demonstration with FES and without. 10:06 How did you test FES systems? 14:16 Jen French the first bionic pioneer. 16:40 What was the journey like from injury to today? 18:35 A live demonstration of FES. 20:40 What is BrainGate? 27:55 What is the potential for this technology? 37:00 When will this technology be publicly available? 40:50 A cell phone app to drink water or stand up? 44:55 Jen French would be the first to try new technology. 50:39 What is the history of altering the human brain? 1:00:57 The move from chemical to electrical medical care. 1:05:40 The challenge of what is going to drive the delivery of care to groups in need. 1:11:36 Can these devices be implanted without surgery? 1:18:13 What field needs the most funding for this to become available to everyone? 1:19:40 What are the numbers of people who can use this technology? 1:23:44 Why can’t we use stem cells to reconnect human spinal tissue? 1:25:37 What is the collaboration level between institutions? 1:29:16 How far away are we from using brain waves to control objects and communicate with each other? 1:30:20
Follow us on twitter: https://twitter.com/WorldSciFest.

Original Program date: May 31, 2014
Host: Bill Blakemore.
Participants: John Donoghue, Jennifer French, Joseph J. Fins, P. Hunter Peckham.

Re-engineering the anatomy of the “Vitruvian Man” 00:00.

Bill Blakemore’s Introduction. 2:06

Consciousness: Explored and Explained

Consciousness is a terrible curse. Or so says a character in screenwriter/director Charlie Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich. Part theater of the absurd and part neuroscience fiction, the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s work captures the splintering between what we perceive and what we feel as our brains grapple with multiple layers of reality. Neuroscientist Giulio Tononi, one of the world’s leading sleep researchers, casts new light on the science of the mind, probing where and how consciousness is generated in the brain. Watch this spellbinding conversation between Kaufman, Tononi, and moderator Alan Alda as they explore and explain the art, science, and mystery of consciousness.

The World Science Festival gathers great minds in science and the arts to produce live and digital content that allows a broad general audience to engage with scientific discoveries. Our mission is to cultivate a general public informed by science, inspired by its wonder, convinced of its value, and prepared to engage with its implications for the future.

Visit our Website: http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/worldsciencefestival.
Follow us on twitter: https://twitter.com/WorldSciFest.

Original Program Date: June 5, 2010
MODERATOR: Alan Alda.
PARTICIPANTS: Charlie Kaufman, Giulio Tononi.

Alan Alda Introduction 00:00

Participant Introductions 03:45

Your Brain In 2050

At present, our brains are mostly dependent on all the stuff below the neck to turn thought into action. But advances in neuroscience are making it easier than ever to hook machines up to minds. See neuroscientists John Donoghue and Sheila Nirenberg, computer scientist Michel Maharbiz, and psychologist Gary Marcus discuss the cutting edge of brain-machine interactions in “Cells to Silicon: Your Brain in 2050,” part of the Big Ideas series at the 2014 World Science Festival.

This program is part of the Big Ideas Series, made possible with support from the John Templeton Foundation.

Visit our Website: http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/worldsciencefestival.
Follow us on twitter: https://twitter.com/WorldSciFest.

Original Program date: May 29, 2014
Host: Robert Krulwich.
Participants: Gary Marcus, John Donoghue, Sheila Nirenberg, Michel M. Maharbiz.

Robert Krulwich’s Introduction. 00:11

Participant Introductions. 2:00

Visual Mental Imagery: A Patient Case Suggests a New Key Brain Network

Summary: Researchers identified a novel brain network that includes the fronto-parietal networks and fusiform gyrus which helps with the encoding of visual mental imagery.

Source: Paris Brain Institute.

Every day, we call upon a unique capacity of our brain, visual mental imagery, which allows us to visualize images, objects or people ‘in our heads’. Based on the recent case of a patient with a specific brain lesion, Paolo Bartolomeo’s group (Inserm) in the PICNIC Lab at the Paris Brain Institute has identified a region that may be key in mental visualization.

The century-old picture of a nerve spike is wrong: filaments fire, before membrane

Some insightful experiments have occasionally been made on the subject of this review, but those studies have had almost no impact on mainstream neuroscience. In the 1920s (Katz, E. [ 1 ]), it was shown that neurons communicate and fire even if transmission of ions between two neighboring neurons is blocked indicating that there is a nonphysical communication between neurons. However, this observation has been largely ignored in the neuroscience field, and the opinion that physical contact between neurons is necessary for communication prevailed. In the 1960s, in the experiments of Hodgkin et al. where neuron bursts could be generated even with filaments at the interior of neurons dissolved into the cell fluid [ 3 0, 4 ], they did not take into account one important question. Could the time gap between spikes without filaments be regulated? In cognitive processes of the brain, subthreshold communication that modulates the time gap between spikes holds the key to information processing [ 14 ][ 6 ]. The membrane does not need filaments to fire, but a blunt firing is not useful for cognition. The membrane’s ability to modulate time has thus far been assigned only to the density of ion channels. Such partial evidence was debated because neurons would fail to process a new pattern of spike time gaps before adjusting density. If a neuron waits to edit the time gap between two consecutive spikes until the density of ion channels modifies and fits itself with the requirement of modified time gaps, which are a few milliseconds (~20 minutes are required for ion-channel density adjustment [ 25 ]), the cognitive response would become non-functional. Thus far, many discrepancies were noted. However, no efforts were made to resolve these issues. In the 1990s, there were many reports that electromagnetic bursts or electric field imbalance in the environment cause firing [ 7 ]. However, those reports were not considered in work on modeling of neurons. This is not surprising because improvements to the Hodgkin and Huxley model made in the 1990s were ignored simply because it was too computationally intensive to automate neural networks according to the new more complex equations and, even when greater computing powers became available, these remained ignored. We also note here the final discovery of the grid-like network of actin and beta-spectrin just below the neuron membrane [ 26 ], which is directly connected to the membrane. This prompts the question: why is it present bridging the membrane and the filamentary bundles in a neuron?

The list is endless, but the supreme concern is probably the simplest question ever asked in neuroscience. What does a nerve spike look like reality? The answer is out there. It is a 2D ring shaped electric field perturbation, since the ring has a width, we could also state that a nerve spike is a 3D structure of electric field. In Figure 1a, we have compared the shape of a nerve spike, perception vs. reality. The difference is not so simple. Majority of the ion channels in that circular strip area requires to be activated simultaneously. In this circular area, polarization and depolarization for all ion channels should happen together. That is easy to presume but it is difficult to explain the mechanism.

A spatiotemporal model of firearm ownership in the United States

This study explores the relationship between the adoption of industrial robots and workplace injuries using data from the United States (US) and Germany. Our empirical analyses, based on establishment-level data for the US, suggest that a one standard deviation increase in robot exposure reduces work-related injuries by approximately 16%. These results are driven by manufacturing firms (−28%), while we detect no impact on sectors that were less exposed to industrial robots. We also show that the US counties that are more exposed to robot penetration experience a significant increase in drug-or alcohol-related deaths and mental health problems, consistent with the extant evidence of negative effects on labor market outcomes in the US. Employing individual longitudinal data from Germany, we exploit within-individual changes in robot exposure and document similar effects on job physical intensity (−4%) and disability (−5%), but no evidence of significant effects on mental health and work and life satisfaction, consistent with the lack of significant impacts of robot penetration on labor market outcomes in Germany.

Metasurfaces Open the Door to Telekinesis and Telepathy With Technology

If you need the hardware.


A separate study used metasurfaces as a telephone of sorts to help two people text simple messages, all without lifting a finger.

Direct brain-to-brain communication isn’t new. Previous studies using non-invasive setups had participants playing 20 questions with their brain waves. Another study built a BrainNet for three volunteers, allowing them to play a Tetris-like game using brainwaves alone. The conduit for those mindmelds relied on cables and the internet. One new study asked if metasurfaces could do the same.

Led by Dr. Tie Jun Cui at the Institute of Electromagnetic Space, Southeast University in China, the study linked a well-known brainwave signal, P300, to the properties of a metasurface. Their setup, electromagnetic brain-computer-metasurface (EBCM), used brainwaves to control a particular type of metasurface known as an information metasurface, which can code 0s and 1s like an electronic circuit board.