The Raelian Movement
for those who are not afraid of the future : http://www.rael.org
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Neurons: Faster Than Thought and Able to Multiply
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100910093215.htm
ScienceDaily (Sep. 10, 2010) — Using computer simulations of
brain-like networks, researchers from Germany and Japan have
discovered why nerve cells transmit information through small
electrical pulses. The process not only allows the brain to process
information much faster than previously thought, but also single
neurons are already able to multiply, opening the door to more complex
forms of computing.
When nerve cells communicate with each other, they do so through
electrical pulses -- so-called action potentials. For decades, the
accepted idea was that they simply sum up the tiny potentials
generated by the incoming pulses and emit an action potential
themselves when a threshold is reached. For the first time, Moritz
Helias and Markus Diesmann from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute
(Japan) and Moritz Deger and Stefan Rotter from the Bernstein Center
Freiburg (Germany) now explain what exactly happens right before a
nerve cell emits a pulse.
The research appears online in PLoS Computational Biology, published
by the Public Library of Science.
The scientists made their discovery through simulations on high
performance computers, but found the perfect image for their research
subject in the tranquility of Japanese gardens: the 'shishi odoshi', a
reed of bamboo, open on one end, which tilts when a certain amount of
rainwater has accumulated inside. Just as one tiny raindrop ultimately
causes the device to tilt and spill the water, one small electric
pulse will cause a neuron to produce an impulse of its own.
Although the neurons in the brain would correspond to a huge forest of
bamboo, and the activity sent between them to a thunderstorm of
raindrops, Helias and colleagues found a precise mathematical theory
that needs to consider the detailed course of events only at the time
when a neuron is about to release an action potential.
Not only does this theory explain why nerve cells process information
much faster than previously thought. It also became clear that neurons
do more than just add up pulses: In the decisive moments, they
actually multiply. The availability of this mathematical operation,
write the scientists, finally explains how the brain is able to
execute complex computations. These insights in the basic processes of
the brain will in turn inspire more powerful processor architectures
in the future.
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by
ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, via AlphaGalileo.
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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
Rael
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