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Emerging Nanotechnology Is It Live or Is It Memorex?
Imagine if brain cells could be enticed to perform like cells in a computer network. Thanks to a new breakthrough, that may not be far off. Dr. Yael Hanein of Tel Aviv University in Israel and his team have been able to get rat neurons to distribute themselves in regular patterns. As reported in the Journal of Neural Engineering, it relies on a phenomenon of equal distribution known as nanodots. These carbon nanodots are placed on a quartz surface. The rat neurons are then distributed randomly. They have no attraction to the quartz but bind to the nanodots, thereby themselves becoming orderly. Once “assembled,” they extend fibers to each other allowing communication. **********Last Chance Offer********** Only 11 Hours Remain… Here is your last chance to be part of the biggest technological revolution since the mid-1800s… To get your $500 and six free months of the best venture capital opportunities we will ever offer, check out this report by midnight tonight… After that, it’s gone forever… ***************************************** Scientists foresee the technology allowing new kinds of sensor devices that might help with security and military purposes, as well as industrial situations where great sensitivity is required. Specifically, this new type of device would monitor the reaction of the network of neurons in the presence of a compound. Since many neurotoxins are deadly or crippling in tiny quantities, yet exhibit unique signatures of neuronal activity, this represents an ideal way to identify them quickly. Not only will the neurons communicate with each other, but also with the carbon nanodots to which they attach serve as monitoring stations. The nanodots are electrical conductors, meaning they can instantly identify which neurons are firing and in what pattern. The new approach assures not only that the neurons start out cleanly organized, but that they stay that way. They cannot grow into a random pattern later. The test cells last for up to 11 weeks, making them suitably long-lived for many applications. Currently, they are structured as clusters of cells — 20 to 100 per carbon nanodot. Scientists are seeking ways to make the structures from single neurons. What other applications might be possible? Imagine this as the first prototype of a new kind of machine. It's a kind of "living/artificial hybrid." While it may not seem terribly impressive to put groups of neurons in such orderly clusters, it does have larger possibilities. Researchers in artificial intelligence have stated that it will be possible to replicate various functions of brains, including higher-order functions, by closely duplicating the arrangements of neurons in brain structures. Here we’re talking about a kind of microscopic scaffolding. If the scaffolding can be structured not just on a single flat surface but on a huge number of microscopically thin layers — with microscopic holes in the layers to allow communication between them — it becomes possible to envision something that looks like an organic brain. ***************************************** Wall Street's Most Profitable Stock Strings Revealed At Last... Inside: Exclusive details about four penny stocks set to rise a possible eight times over or more in the next year. If we don't deliver gains, we'll give you DOUBLE your money back. ***************************************** While this is a considerable stretch from the researchers’ accomplishment, consider the silicon wafer. If you were to look at a modern computer chip under a microscope, you would be dazzled as I have been by the many incredibly intricate arrays of channels, structures and pathways. It resembles nothing so much as a microscopic city. The complexity of these chips is staggering, with some of them housing billions of different logic array items. Could these hybrid neuron/nanodot chips eventually approach that kind of complexity? Who knows — but I'll bet that the computer scientists who were first building with vacuum tubes would be overawed to see what their modest beginnings have wrought. To your profitable future, P.S.: There is one $4 company that is set to take advantage of the coming high-speed Internet revolution in rural America. That’s the technology that I really wanted to tell you about today, but it just wouldn’t be fair to my Emerging Capital Report readers. So, my publisher decided to let you just try my newsletter out for six months. That way you can get the name of this company, along with the many others I tell my readers about. And you can let me just prove to you that you should keep it. Unfortunately, he put a caveat on the offer, which stipulates that it will expire before too many people sign up. Well, the time has come for that… It’s over at midnight tonight… So that means you only have 11 hours to check it out. So I’d strongly suggest you do so as soon as possible. It’s all right here… |
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Jonathan Kolber is a noted technology analyst and entrepreneur and has co-founded the company behind the disposable DVD movies offered by Disney and other studios... <click here for full bio> |
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