Understanding how the human brain represents the information picked up by the senses is a longstanding objective of neuroscience and psychology studies. Most past studies focusing on the visual cortex, the network of regions in the brain’s outer layer known to process visual information, have focused on the contribution of individual regions, as opposed to their collective representation of visual stimuli.
Researchers at Freie Universität Berlin recently carried out a study aimed at shedding new light on how regions across the human visual cortex collectively encode and process visual information, by simulating their contribution using computational models. Their findings, published in Nature Human Behaviour, highlight specific rules that could govern the relations between these different regions of the visual cortex.
“Most of us take seeing for granted, but the process is surprisingly complex,” Alessandro Gifford, first author of the paper, told Medical Xpress. “When we look at the world, it’s not just our eyes doing the work—it’s our brain, specifically an area at the back called the visual cortex. Think of the visual cortex as a team of specialists. Each member of the team (or brain region) handles a different aspect of what we see—one might focus on shapes, another on motion, another on faces.”
An international research team led by Forschungszentrum Jülich has succeeded in visualizing magnetism inside solids with unprecedented precision. Using a newly developed method, the scientists were able to image the finest building blocks of magnetism directly at the atomic level. They have published their findings in the journal Nature Materials.
Magnetism is an integral part of our everyday lives—it is found in electric motors, loudspeakers, and the storage media of modern computers. It is generated by the movement and spin of electrons. Previous techniques could only measure these properties to a limited extent and often only on the surface of materials. The team led by Dr. Hasan Ali and Prof. Rafal E. Dunin-Borkowski has now developed a new method using a state-of-the-art electron microscope to measure magnetic properties at a previously unattainable resolution.
“Our technique allows us to visualize the magnetic properties within a material with atomic precision,” explains Dr. Hasan Ali, first author of the study. “This enables us to observe how the movement and spin of electrons behave in the crystal lattice.”
Many displays found in smartphones and televisions rely on thin-film transistors (TFTs) made from indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) to control pixels. IGZO offers high transparency due to its large bandgap (the gap existing between the valence and conduction bands), high conductivity, and can operate even in an amorphous (non-crystalline) form, making it ideal for displays, flexible electronics, and solar cells.
However, IGZO-based devices face long-term stability issues, such as negative bias illumination stress, where prolonged exposure to light and electrical stress shifts the voltage required to activate pixels. These instabilities are believed to stem from structural imperfections, which create additional electronic states—known as subgap states—that trap charge carriers and disrupt current flow.
Until recently, most studies on subgap states focused on amorphous IGZO, as sufficiently large single-crystal IGZO (sc-IGZO) samples were not available for analysis. However, the disordered nature of amorphous IGZO has made it difficult to pinpoint the exact causes of electronic instability.
Quantum mechanics has a reputation that precedes it. Virtually everyone who has bumped up against the quantum realm, whether in a physics class, in the lab, or in popular science writing, is left thinking something like, “Now, that is really weird.” For some, this translates to weird and wonderful. For others it is more like weird and disturbing.
Chip Sebens, a professor of philosophy at Caltech who asks foundational questions about physics, is firmly in the latter camp. “Philosophers of physics generally get really frustrated when people just say, ‘OK, here’s quantum mechanics. It’s going to be weird. Don’t worry. You can make the right predictions with it. You don’t need to try to make too much sense out of it, just learn to use it.’ That kind of thing drives me up the wall,” Sebens says.
One particularly weird and disturbing area of physics for people like Sebens is quantum field theory. Quantum field theory goes beyond quantum mechanics, incorporating the special theory of relativity and allowing the number of particles to change over time (such as when an electron and positron annihilate each other and create two photons).
New optical chip enables ultra-fast computing and data processing. Built using silicon photonics for next-gen networks. The rise of the big data era presents major challenges for information processing, particularly in terms of handling large volumes of data and managing energy consumption. These
Microsoft has confirmed a widespread issue in Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) that prevents organizations from syncing with Microsoft Update and deploying the latest Windows updates.
Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) is a Microsoft product that allows businesses to manage and distribute Windows updates to computers within their network.
By default, WSUS synchronizes with Microsoft Update servers once a day, when it downloads the latest metadata on available Windows updates. Admins can change the frequency if they wish in the settings.
The graphite found in your favorite pencil could have instead been the diamond your mother always wears. What made the difference? Researchers are finding out.
How molten carbon crystallizes into either graphite or diamond is relevant to planetary science, materials manufacturing and nuclear fusion research. However, this moment of crystallization is difficult to study experimentally because it happens very rapidly and under extreme conditions.
In a new study published July 9 in Nature Communications, researchers from the University of California, Davis and George Washington University use computer simulations to study how molten carbon crystallizes into either graphite or diamond at temperatures and pressures similar to Earth’s interior. The team’s findings challenge conventional understanding of diamond formation and reveal why experimental results studying carbon’s phase behavior have been so inconsistent.
Around the world, technology is slowly becoming a part of our bodies. What was once shown only in science fiction movies is now becoming real. For example, in Sweden, thousands of people already have small chips inside their hands. These chips help them open doors, unlock cars, and enter offices—without using keys or cards. These tiny chips make daily life easier and smoother. Now imagine—what if a chip could not only make life easy but also help people with disabilities? This is what Neuralink, a company started by Elon Musk in 2016, is trying to do. Neuralink’s dream is to connect the human brain directly with a computer using a very small chip. Their main aim is to help people who have serious spinal injuries and cannot move. In early trials, Neuralink showed positive results. Some people with paralysis could move a computer cursor or play a chess game—just by thinking. This has given hope to many people who cannot move. But recently, Elon Musk made a new and bold statement that caught the world’s attention. In a post on social media platform X (earlier called Twitter), Musk said that Neuralink’s brain chip could help deaf people hear—even those who were born deaf. He explained that this chip would directly send signals to the part of the brain that understands sound. So, even if a person’s ears do not work, they might still be able to hear. This is different from cochlear implants, which help some deaf people by sending signals to the hearing nerve. Neuralink’s chip would go even deeper—straight to the brain’s hearing area. If successful, this chip could help those who cannot use cochlear implants and give them a new way to experience sound. Elon Musk even said that in the future, such chips might give humans “super-hearing”—allowing them to hear sounds that normal ears cannot hear. However, this is still just an idea. The chip is still being tested. Many technical, safety, and ethical questions are yet to be answered. Also, many Deaf people and experts have said that deafness is not a problem to be “fixed.” For many, deafness is an identity, a language, and a culture. They want to be respected for who they are—not forced to change. At ISH News, we agree with this view. We do not believe that deafness must be “cured.” We also do not support the idea of putting chips inside the body through surgery. But as a news platform made for the Deaf community, we believe it is important to share such news. We want to keep our viewers informed so they can think and talk about these big topics. We are here to provide both sides of the story—the big promises of this new technology, and the serious questions it raises. This way, our community can decide what they think for themselves. The world is now watching to see what Neuralink does next—and whether this brain chip can really change the way people live.
ISH News broadcasts the Daily News and Entertainment online in Deaf-friendly accessible formats which are in Indian Sign Language (ISL), visual images with titles, voice-over and closed-captions. This ensures that we provide equal access to every individual, whilst promoting awareness.
When the Empire State Building was constructed, its 102 stories rose above midtown one piece at a time, with each individual element combining to become, for 40 years, the world’s tallest building. Uptown at Columbia, Oleg Gang and his chemical engineering lab aren’t building Art Deco architecture; their landmarks are incredibly small devices built from nanoscopic building blocks that arrange themselves.
“We can now build the complexly prescribed 3D organizations from self-assembled nanocomponents, a kind of nanoscale version of the Empire State Building,” said Gang, professor of chemical engineering and of applied physics and materials science at Columbia Engineering and leader of the Center for Functional Nanomaterials’ Soft and Bio Nanomaterials Group at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
“The capabilities to manufacture 3D nanoscale materials by design are critical for many emerging applications, ranging from light manipulation to neuromorphic computing, and from catalytic materials to biomolecular scaffolds and reactors,” said Gang.
