Engineers put Tens of Thousands of Artificial Brain Synapses on a Single chip

The new chip (top left) is patterned with tens of thousands of artificial synapses, or “memristors,” made with a silver-copper alloy. When each memristor is stimulated with a specific voltage corresponding to a pixel and shade in a gray-scale image (in this case, a Captain America shield), the new chip reproduced the same crisp image, more reliably than chips fabricated with memristors of different materials.
Image courtesy of the researchers

The design could advance the development of small, portable AI devices. MIT engineers have designed a “brain-on-a-chip,” smaller than a piece of confetti, that is made from tens of thousands of artificial brain synapses known as memristors — silicon-based components that mimic the information-transmitting synapses in the human brain.

The res...

Read More

Presence of Airborne Dust could signify Increased Habitability of Distant Planets

A visualization of three computer simulations of terrestrial exoplanets, showing winds (arrows) and airborne dust (color scale), with an M-dwarf host star in the background. Created by Denis Sergeev, STFC funded postdoctoral researcher at the University of Exeter. CREDIT Denis Sergeev/ University of Exeter

Scientists have expanded our understanding of potentially habitable planets orbiting distant stars by including a critical climate component – the presence of airborne dust.

The researchers suggest that planets with significant airborne dust – similar to the world portrayed in the classic sci-fi Dune – could be habitable over a greater range of distances from their parent star, therefore increasing the window for planets capable of sustaining life.

The team from the University ...

Read More

Drug researcher develops ‘Fat Burning’ Molecule

Schematic showing key energy production pathways. Metabolites colour-coded by fold change of WD + BAM15 compared with WD, scale of twofold positive (red) to twofold negative (blue).

Scientists have recently identified a small mitochondrial uncoupler, named BAM15, that decreases the body fat mass of mice without affecting food intake and muscle mass or increasing body temperature.

Obesity affects more than 40 percent of adults in the United States and 13 percent of the global population. With obesity comes a variety of other interconnected diseases including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and fatty liver disease, which makes the disease one of the most difficult — and most crucial — to treat.

“Obesity is the biggest health problem in the United States...

Read More

Transparent Graphene Electrodes might lead to New Generation of Solar Cells

A new manufacturing process for graphene is based on using an intermediate carrier layer of material after the graphene is laid down through a vapor deposition process. The carrier allows the ultrathin graphene sheet, less than a nanometer (billionth of a meter) thick, to be easily lifted off from a substrate, allowing for rapid roll-to-roll manufacturing. These figures show this process for making graphene sheets, along with a photo of the proof-of-concept device used (b).
Courtesy of the researchers

Engineers have synthesized a tiny structure with high surface area and discovered how its unique architecture drives ions across interfaces to transport energy or information...

Read More