Neuroscience

If you're an avid science geek, chances of you keeping a track on all the latest scientific innovations are high. And we don't blame you, it is truly exciting to keep tabs on all the latest technological innovations since it opens up our eyes to the endless possibilities of the scientific world. And now RMIT researchers have come up with yet another device in optogenetics which replicates the way the brain stores and loses information. In case you're not already aware about what optogenetics is all about, it's a technique that allows scientists to explore the body's electrical system with utmost accuracy and precision. It makes use of light to manipulate neurons so that it can be turned on or off.

Elon Musk announced late Tuesday night that the final goal of Neuralink, his brain-machine interface startup, is to allow humans to "achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence," and that by "merging with AI," humans will be able to keep up with AI. Musk plans to begin human trials on an early version of Neuralink intended to treat brain injuries next year. "Ultimately we can do a full brain machine interface," Musk said in an announcement that was widely livestreamed. "This is going to sound pretty weird. Ultimately we can achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence. This is not a mandatory thing, this is something you can choose to have if you want. This is going to be really important at a civilization-level scale. Even in a benign AI scenario, we will be left behind. With a high-bandwidth brain machine interface we can go along for the ride and have the option of merging with AI." Musk has become famous for his moonshot projects, his lofty promises, his quick temper on Twitter, and his various plans for society that don't include input from the rest of us.

Elon Musk's Neuralink projects have been somewhat secretive since the company was first established. To that effect, all that's been known about the firm was that it was working on machine-brain interfaces. Well, the company has finally gone public with its first project and it turns out that it's an AI that can be inserted into a person's brain to allow them to connect to phones and computers. Machine/brain interface devices have been on the market in some form for over a decade, with people suffering from paralysis seeing many of the benefits of using these kinds of devices. For example, back in 2006, Matthew Nagle, who suffered from a spinal cord injury, was able to play Pong aided by the devices.

Elon Musk recently gave a presentation on Neuralink, his newest venture designed to create computer-brain interfaces. Founded in 2017, the company is experimenting with a minimally invasive brain implant that utilizes "threads" to reduce the amount of damage done to surrounding brain tissue compared to current implanted devices. Musk spoke on the unnecessary size of most current implants, saying that a smaller chip could be used in their place. Providing patients with a smaller, less obstructive brain implant is exactly what Neuralink is aiming to do with their product. In the presentation, Musk also said he sees Neuralink potentially bridging the gap between the human brain and artificial intelligence as well.

Neuralink, the Elon Musk-led startup that the multi-entrepreneur founded in 2017, is working on technology that's based around'threads' which it says can be implanted in human brains with much less potential impact to the surrounding brain tissue vs. what's currently used for today's brain-computer interfaces. "Most people don't realize, we can solve that with a chip," Musk said to kick off Neuralink's event, talking about some of the brain disorders and issues the company hopes to solve. Musk also said that long-term Neuralink really is about figuring out a way to "achieve a sort of symbiosis with artificial intelligence." "This is not a mandatory thing," he added. "This is something you can choose to have if you want."

An Elon Musk-backed startup looking to connect human brains to computers will make a major announcement on Tuesday, according to a recent tweet from the CEO. The mysterious announcement, which Musk chose not to elaborate on in his tweet, follows years of radio silence from the company and was foreshadowed by Musk -- the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX -- earlier this year. The event will take place in San Francisco and will presumably have something to with what the company's website calls an'ultra high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect humans and computers.' Elon Musk said his mysterious Neuralink startup will make an announcement tomorrow for the first time in two years. While many tech leaders push that AI will become invaluable to humanity, others argue it poses a threat to our species.

Scientists growing miniature brains in a lab have created neural networks that act like those in the human brain. They hope the discovery will enable cheaper and easier research into brain diseases and drug development. In recent years researchers have been working on creating small, three-dimensional human brains, or cerebral organoids. The hope is that they will eventually replace animal models, imaging techniques and autopsies as tools for understanding the brain. These simplified organoids have some of the architecture of the brain's cerebral cortex – which is responsible for many of the features that make us human, such as thinking, perceiving, memory and language.

Thanks to deep learning, the tricky business of making brain atlases just got a lot easier. Brain maps are all the rage these days. From rainbow-colored dots that highlight neurons or gene expression across the brain, to neon "brush strokes" that represent neural connections, every few months seem to welcome a new brain map. Without doubt, these maps are invaluable for connecting the macro (the brain's architecture) to the micro (genetic profiles, protein expression, neural networks) across space and time. Scientists can now compare brain images from their own experiments to a standard resource.

Whether it is the Irish backstop or English Channel, the issue of how the UK and Europe are controlling their borders has been thrust into the public consciousness. And as with many of the globe's conundrums, countries and private companies are turning to ever more futuristic, and often controversial, technologies in order to protect their borders. There are, of course, immediate issues for Britain's borders with quandaries such as the potential hard border in Northern Ireland following Brexit, with the nebulous'technology' promised by some politicians either still being developed or put under question. One such future proposal is a satellite system that registered mobile phones as they pass the border, while sensors buried in the ground or radars on flying drones could detect possible unlawful breaches of the boundaries. But that would still leave the question of invasive, even if largely invisible, checks that run against the Good Friday Agreement.

"Correlation does not imply causation" we all know this mantra from statistics. And we think that we fully understand it. Human (and not human) brains, being machines to find patterns, quickly understand that my coffee mug broke because it fell to the floor. One event (the falling) occurred just before the other (mug breaking) and without the first event, we would never see the second. So not only exists a correlation between mugs falling and mugs breaking there is also a causal relation (with lots of physics going on).