21st Century Innovative Technologies and Developments as also discoveries, curiosity ( insolite)...

Artificial neurons that mimic the way our body's nerve cells transfer electrical signals could one day help patients with nerve damage.

Messengers: The neurons are built into small silicon chips (pictured above) and could be used to pass signals between nerve cells that may be damaged by disease or injury. Crucially, the chips only need one billionth the power of a standard microprocessor, meaning they could theoretically be used in medical implants to help treat chronic diseases like heart failure or Alzheimer’s.

How they were developed: The researchers used a simulation to model how two types of neurons in rats fire in response to stimuli: respiratory ones that are responsible for breathing and ones in the hippocampus. The models were translated to silicon chips in which replicas of biological ion channels (which transmit signals in the body) were created. The process was described in a paper in Nature Communications.

Stand-in: In theory, circuits of artificial neurons could replicate the healthy function of failing nerve cells and pass on electrical messages between different parts of the body. For example, when someone’s heart fails, neurons in the brain don’t respond properly to nervous system feedback, so the heart doesn’t pump as hard as it should. A chip containing artificial neurons could transmit the right signal to get it back on track.

In fact, some of the researchers are now developing smart pacemakers with these chips embedded. Tests in rats showed that this approach was more effective than just a standard pacemaker—although it’s still a long time before any such device is ready to be implanted in human patients.

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http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-innovative-technologies-and-developments/?tag=MIT

For years now, scientists have been working to make cells into computers. It’s a logical goal; cells store information in something roughly approximating memory, they behave due to the strict, rules-based expression of programming in response to stimuli, and they can carry out operations with astonishing speed. Each cell contains enough physical complexity to theoretically be quite a powerful computing unit all on its own, but each is also small enough to pack by the millions into tiny physical spaces. With a fully realized ability to program cell behavior as reliably as we do computer behavior, there’s no telling what biological computing could accomplish.

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http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-innovative-technologies-and-developments/?tag=MIT

Hier schwimmt ein Cyborg: US-Forscher haben einen Schwimmroboter gebaut, der von Muskelzellen bewegt wird. Gesteuert wird er mit Lichtpulsen.

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http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-innovative-technologies-and-developments/?tag=Robotics

On the grand scale of things, we know so very little about the brain.

The wireless, battery-less implantable sensors measure just 3mm long and 1mm wide...

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http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-innovative-technologies-and-developments/?tag=Bionics

http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-innovative-technologies-and-developments/?tag=Biometrics

Mimicking nature’s most elegant designs has become a popular method for creating equally elegant robots (close, anyway) — but using nature’s raw materials, too? That’s what researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute have done, creating a tiny light-controlled stingray with a solid gold skeleton that moves using reconstituted rat muscles. O brave new world!

The researchers, led by Harvard’s Sung-Jin Park and Kevin Kit Parker, started with the skeleton, working at ~1/10th scale of the batoid fishes (comprising skates and rays) on which it is based, and recreating a simplified version of the creatures’ actual anatomy.

They started with the skeleton: Gold is flexible and nonreactive, and they designed the spine and ribs to have a natural convexity. Around the ribs they cultured rat-derived cardiac muscle, genetically modified to respond to light instead of the usual electrical signals from the nervous system. The whole thing is encased in an elastomeric sheath very much in the shape of a small ray.

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http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-innovative-technologies-and-developments/?tag=Bionics

http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-innovative-technologies-and-developments/?tag=Research