Lifeboat Foundation

Neuromorphic computing provides alternative hardware architectures with high computational efficiencies and low energy consumption by simulating the working principles of the brain with artificial neurons and synapses as building blocks. This process helps overcome the insurmountable speed barrier and high power consumption from conventional von Neumann computer architectures. Among the emerging neuromorphic electronic devices, ferroelectric-based artificial synapses have attracted extensive interest for their good controllability, deterministic resistance switching, large output signal dynamic range, and excellent retention. This Perspective briefly reviews the recent progress of two-and three-terminal ferroelectric artificial synapses represented by ferroelectric tunnel junctions and ferroelectric field effect transistors, respectively. The structure and operational mechanism of the devices are described, and existing issues inhibiting high-performance synaptic devices and corresponding solutions are discussed, including the linearity and symmetry of synaptic weight updates, power consumption, and device miniaturization. Functions required for advanced neuromorphic systems, such as multimodal and multi-timescale synaptic plasticity, are also summarized. Finally, the remaining challenges in ferroelectric synapses and possible countermeasures are outlined.

The possibility of direct interfacing between biological and technological information devices could result in a merger of mind and machine — Ultimate Computing. This book, a thorough consideration of this idea, involves a number of disciplines, including biochemistry, cognitive science, computer science, engineering, mathematics, microbiology, molecular biology, pharmacology, philosophy, physics, physiology, and psychology.

Scientists at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, have found a powerful new way to program optical circuits that are critical to the delivery of future technologies such as unhackable communications networks and ultrafast quantum computers.

“Light can carry a lot of information, and optical circuits that compute with light—instead of electricity—are seen as the next big leap in computing technology,” explains Professor Mehul Malik, an experimental physicist and Professor of Physics at Heriot-Watt’s School of Engineering and Physical Sciences.

“But as optical circuits get bigger and more complex, they’re harder to control and make—and this can affect their performance. Our research shows an alternative—and more versatile—way of engineering optical circuits, using a process that occurs naturally in nature.”

“In recent years, the clinical development of liquid biopsies for cancer, a revolutionary screening tool, has created great optimism,” write Liz Kwo and Jenna Aronson in the American Journal of Managed Care.

At present, liquid biopsies can detect more than 50 different types of cancer. A standard visit to the doctor may eventually be able to detect cancers years before they become lethal.

In the future, even the toilet in your bathroom may be sensitive enough to detect the signs of cancer cells, enzymes and genes circulating in your bodily fluids, so that cancer becomes no more lethal than the common cold. Every time you go to the bathroom, you might be tested for cancer. The “smart toilet” might become our first line of defense.

Researchers develop artificial ‘power plants’ in the form of tiny leaf-shapes to harness energy from the wind and rain.

Can Emir

The US and China are racing to be the first to put a man on the moon in the 21st Century, but NASA last week announced delays to its crewed missions.

Silicon-based complementary metal-oxide semiconductors or negative differential resistance device circuits can emulate neural features, yet are complicated to fabricate and not biocompatible. Here, the authors report an ion-modulated antiambipolarity in mixed ion–electron conducting polymers demonstrating capability of sensing, spiking, emulating the most critical biological neural features, and stimulating biological nerves in vivo.

Researchers have identified the oldest black hole ever observed, dating from the beginning of the universe, and determined that it is ‘eating’ its host galaxy to death. The study, published in the journal Nature, used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to locate the black hole, which formed 400 million years after the Big Bang, more than 13 billion years ago.

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Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope have uncovered the oldest black hole ever detected—and declared a new era in astronomy.

It was found at the center of GN-z11, a galaxy first discovered in 2017, about 13.4 billion light-years away from our Milky Way galaxy—but about 100 times smaller. That means it exists just 400 million years after the Big Bang, which is thought to have created the universe. However, the black hole looks to be about a billion years old, suggesting problems with theories about how quickly black holes form.

The discovery, announced in a paper published today in the journal Nature, is the result of the sensitivity of JWST, which can see deep into the infrared, detecting old light that has been traveling across deep since the dawn of time.