Lifeboat Foundation

A new study by theoretical physicists has made progress toward identifying how particles and cells give rise to large-scale dynamics that we experience as the passage of time.

A central feature of how we experience the world is the flow of time from the past to the future. But it is a mystery precisely how this phenomenon, known as the arrow of time, arises from the microscopic interactions among particles and cells. Researchers at the CUNY Graduate Center Initiative for the Theoretical Sciences (ITS) are helping to unravel this enigma with the publication of a new paper in the journal Physical Review Letters. The findings could have important implications in a wide range of disciplines, including physics, neuroscience, and biology.

Fundamentally, the arrow of time emerges from the second law of thermodynamics. This is the principle that microscopic arrangements of physical systems tend to increase in randomness, moving from order to disorder. The more disordered a system becomes, the more difficult it is for it to find its way back to an ordered state, and the stronger the arrow of time. In short, the universe’s propensity toward disorder is the fundamental reason why we experience time flowing in one direction.

Circa 2018 face_with_colon_three

A paper published in 2017 appeared to show a limited quantum effect in bacteria. Now scientists argue that something much weirder happened.

With the launch of NASA’s Artemis I mission to the Moon just days away, Emma the Space Gardener has put together a guide covering the highlights of the mission for space gardeners. Learn about the space biology experiments on their way to their Moon, the seeds stashed away in the Orion capsule, and more!

Engineers at MIT have devised a flexible “electronic skin” that communicates wirelessly—without a single chip in sight.

Its Biosentinel mission will launch aboard Artemis I.

NASA’s sending living cells to deep space for the first time. The BioSentinel mission will be the first long-duration biology experiment in deep space, a NASA post.

BioSentinel will monitor the growth and activity of yeast cells as they get bombarded by high-energy radiation particles in deep space and beam the data back to NASA researchers on Earth to help safeguard astronaut heath.

Continue reading “Artemis I to Launch First-of-a-Kind Deep Space Biology Mission” »

Certain tasks—such as recognizing patterns and language—are performed highly efficiently by a human brain, requiring only about one ten-thousandth of the energy of a conventional, so-called “von Neumann” computer. One of the reasons lies in the structural differences: In a von Neumann architecture, there is a clear separation between memory and processor, which requires constant moving of large amounts of data. This is time-and energy-consuming—the so-called von Neumann bottleneck. In the brain, the computational operation takes place directly in the data memory and the biological synapses perform the tasks of memory and processor at the same time.

In Forschungszentrum Jülich, scientists have been working for more than 15 years on special data storage devices and components that can have similar properties to the synapses in the human brain. So-called memristive memory devices, also known as memristors, are considered to be extremely fast and energy-saving, and can be miniaturized very well down to the nanometer range. The functioning of memristive cells is based on a very special effect: Their electrical resistance is not constant, but can be changed and reset again by applying an external voltage, theoretically continuously. The change in resistance is controlled by the movement of oxygen ions. If these move out of the semiconducting metal oxide layer, the material becomes more conductive and the electrical resistance drops. This change in resistance can be used to store information.

The processes that can occur in cells are complex and vary depending on the material system. Three researchers from the Jülich Peter Grünberg Institute—Prof. Regina Dittmann, Dr. Stephan Menzel, and Prof. Rainer Waser—have therefore compiled their research results in a detailed review article, “Nanoionic memristive phenomena in metal oxides: the valence change mechanism.” They explain in detail the various physical and chemical effects in memristors and shed light on the influence of these effects on the switching properties of memristive cells and their reliability.

00:00 Intro.
01:12 Elon Musk on psychedelics/ MDMA
01:58 Tim Urban on brain-machine interfaces.
02:46 Domino’s mind ordering app.
04:48 Elon tweet: digital vs biological.
05:47 Head Neurosurgeon, Dr. Matthew MacDougall.
08:02 Shivon Zilis & Elon Musk twins!!
09:05 Neuralink founder, Paul Merolla departs.
11:17 https://neuralink.com/careers/
11:35 DeepMind Documentary: https://youtu.be/kFlLzFuslfQ

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/neurapod/

Continue reading “Neuralink Update — August 2022” »

Biological advancement is changing everything—from old age and heartache to childish hope.

Advances in artificial-intelligence-based technologies have led to an astronomical increase in the amounts of data available for processing by computers. Existing computing methods often process data sequentially and therefore have large time and power requirements for processing massive quantities of information. Hence, a transition to a new computing paradigm is required to solve such challenging issues. Researchers are currently working towards developing energy-efficient neuromorphic computing technologies and hardware that are capable of processing massive amounts of information by mimicking the structure and mechanisms of the human brain.

The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) has reported that a research team led by Dr. Jung ah Lim and Dr. Hyunsu Ju of the Center for Opto-electronic Materials and Devices has successfully developed organic neurofiber transistors with an architecture and functions similar to those of neurons in the human brain, which can be used as a neural network. Research on devices that can function as neurons and synapses is needed so that large-scale computations can be performed in a manner similar to data processing in the human brain. Unlike previously developed devices that act as either neurons or synapses, the artificial neurofiber transistors developed at KIST can mimic the behaviors of both neurons and synapses. By connecting the transistors in arrays, one can easily create a structure similar to a neural network.

Biological neurons have fibrous branches that can receive multiple stimuli simultaneously, and signal transmissions are mediated by ion migrations stimulated by electrical signals. The KIST researchers developed the aforementioned artificial neurofibers using fibrous transistors previously developed by them in 2019. They devised memory transistors that remember the strengths of the applied electrical signals, similar to synapses, and transmit them via redox reactions between the semiconductor channels and ions within the insulators upon receiving the electrical stimuli from the neurofiber transistors. These artificial neurofibers also mimic the signal summation functionality of neurons.