New "Wet Computer" To Mimic Neurons In the Brain

A new type of "wet computer" that mimics the actions of neurons in the brain is slated to be built thanks to a €1.8M EU emerging technologies program. The goal of the project is to explore new computing environments rather than to build a computer that surpasses current performance of conventional computers. "The group's approach hinges on two critical ideas. First, individual 'cells' are surrounded by a wall made up of so-called lipids that spontaneously encapsulate the liquid innards of the cell. Recent work has shown that when two such lipid layers encounter each other as the cells come into contact, a protein can form a passage between them, allowing chemical signaling molecules to pass. Second, the cells' interiors will play host to what is known as a Belousov-Zhabotinsky or B-Z chemical reaction. Simply put, reactions of this type can be initiated by changing the concentration of the element bromine by a certain threshold amount."

Comments

Re:If anything comes of this...

[pete-classic]

Wow, talk about carbon bias!

Can you cite a reason why silicon-based systems shouldn't be as capable carbon-based ones? Silicon-based have developed at a blistering pace as compared to the carbon. (Though I admit that they have the advantage of actually having intelligent designers . . .) I mean, life has a head start of a few billions of years!

-Peter

Simulating Neurons....

[jameskojiro]

Is a lot like building an abacus using 3-D software and then manipulating your 3-D abacus to add 1 plus 3 to get four while chewing away millions of computational cycles...

We need a better way to simulate the effect of a neuron without having to re-create everything down to the last protein and lipid in a nerve cell....