Lifeboat Foundation

One of the major unsolved mysteries of biological science concerns the question of where and in what form information is stored in the brain. I propose that memory is stored in the brain in a mechanically encoded binary format written into the conformations of proteins found in the cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) adhesions that organise each and every synapse. The MeshCODE framework outlined here represents a unifying theory of data storage in animals, providing read-write storage of both dynamic and persistent information in a binary format. Mechanosensitive proteins that contain force-dependent switches can store information persistently, which can be written or updated using small changes in mechanical force. These mechanosensitive proteins, such as talin, scaffold each synapse, creating a meshwork of switches that together form a code, the so-called MeshCODE. Large signalling complexes assemble on these scaffolds as a function of the switch patterns and these complexes would both stabilise the patterns and coordinate synaptic regulators to dynamically tune synaptic activity. Synaptic transmission and action potential spike trains would operate the cytoskeletal machinery to write and update the synaptic MeshCODEs, thereby propagating this coding throughout the organism. Based on established biophysical principles, such a mechanical basis for memory would provide a physical location for data storage in the brain, with the binary patterns, encoded in the information-storing mechanosensitive molecules in the synaptic scaffolds, and the complexes that form on them, representing the physical location of engrams. Furthermore, the conversion and storage of sensory and temporal inputs into a binary format would constitute an addressable read-write memory system, supporting the view of the mind as an organic supercomputer.

I would like to propose here a unifying theory of rewritable data storage in animals. This theory is based around the realisation that mechanosensitive proteins, which contain force-dependent binary switches, can store information persistently in a binary format, with the information stored in each molecule able to be written and/or updated via small changes in mechanical force. The protein talin contains 13 of these switches (Yao et al., 2016; Goult et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2019), and, as I argue here, it is my assertion that talin is the memory molecule of animals. These mechanosensitive proteins scaffold each and every synapse (Kilinc, 2018; Lilja and Ivaska, 2018; Dourlen et al., 2019) and have been considered mainly structural. However, these synaptic scaffolds also represent a meshwork of binary switches that I propose form a code, the so-called MeshCODE.

The United States Army has new goggles capable of letting soldiers see through walls of combat vehicles — which enables infantry troops to greatly enhance their situational awareness, according to a press release shared on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.

And, in combat, situational awareness is key to survival.

Large language models are already business propositions. Google uses them to improve its search results and language translation; Facebook, Microsoft and Nvidia are among other tech firms that make them. OpenAI keeps GPT-3’s code secret and offers access to it as a commercial service. (OpenAI is legally a non-profit company, but in 2019 it created a for-profit subentity called OpenAI LP and partnered with Microsoft, which invested a reported US$1 billion in the firm.) Developers are now testing GPT-3’s ability to summarize legal documents, suggest answers to customer-service enquiries, propose computer code, run text-based role-playing games or even identify at-risk individuals in a peer-support community by labelling posts as cries for help.

A remarkable AI can write like humans — but with no understanding of what it’s saying.

Four Emerging Technology Areas Impacting Industry 4.0: Advanced Computing, Artificial intelligence, Big Data & Materials Science.

Different methods of searching for and finding distant exoplanets give different information about the planets found.

The transit method — where an exoplanets passed in front of its sun and dims the bright sunlight ever so slightly — gives astronomers not only a detection but also its radius or size.

The radial velocity method — where an exoplanet’s gravity causes its host star to “wobble” in a way that can be measured — provides different information about mass and orbit.

Scientists have discovered the most distant radio blast ever known.

The blast came from a quasar that is so far away that its light took 13 billion years to arrive at Earth.

Continue reading “Scientists detect radio blast coming from further away in space than ever before” »

When it comes to microelectronics, there is one chemical element like no other: silicon, the workhorse of the transistor technology that drives our information society. The countless electronic devices we use in everyday life are a testament to how today very high volumes of silicon-based components can be produced at very low cost. It seems natural, then, to use silicon also in other areas where the properties of semiconductors—as silicon is one—are exploited technologically, and to explore ways to integrate different functionalities. Of particular interest in this context are diode lasers, such as those employed in barcode scanners or laser pointers, which are typically based on gallium arsenide (GaAs). Unfortunately though, the physical processes that create light in GaAs do not work so well in silicon. It therefore remains an outstanding, and long-standing, goal to find an alternative route to realizing a ‘laser on silicon.’

Writing today in Applied Physics Letters, an international team led by Professors Giacomo Scalari and Jérôme Faist from the Institute for Quantum Electronics present an important step towards such a device. They report electroluminescence—electrical light generation—from a semiconductor structure based on silicon-germanium (SiGe), a material that is compatible with standard fabrication processes used for silicon devices. Moreover, the emission they observed is in the terahertz frequency band, which sits between those of microwave electronics and infrared optics, and is of high current interest with a view to a variety of applications.

It was the size of a bowling ball but exploded like 440 pounds of TNT.

If you live in Vermont and heard an explosion just before dinnertime Sunday (March 7), there’s a good chance that was a shockwave from an incoming meteor exploding over the state.

You’ve heard of animals that can lose and then regenerate a tail or limb. But scientists reporting in the journal Current Biology on March 8 have now discovered two species of sacoglossan sea slug that can do even better, shedding and then regenerating a whole new body complete with the heart and other internal organs. The researchers also suggest that the slugs may use the photosynthetic ability of chloroplasts they incorporate from the algae in their diet to survive long enough for regeneration.

“We were surprised to see the head moving just after autotomy,” said Sayaka Mitoh of Nara Women’s University in Japan. “We thought that it would die soon without a heart and other important organs, but we were surprised again to find that it regenerated the whole body.”

Continue reading “These sea slugs sever their own heads and regenerate brand-new bodies” »