Researchers Grow a Brain In a Dish

Hugh Pickens writes "Dr. Jeffrey H. Toney writes that a team of biomedical engineers at the University of Pittsburgh led by Henry Zeringue have managed to grow an active brain in a dish, complete with memories by culturing brain cells capable of forming networks, complete with biological signals. To produce the models, the Pitt team stamped adhesive proteins onto silicon discs. Once the proteins were cultured and dried, cultured hippocampus cells from embryonic rats were fused to the proteins and then given time to grow and connect to form a natural network. The researchers disabled the cells' inhibitory response and excited the neurons with an electrical pulse which were then able to sustain the resulting burst of network activity for up to what in neuronal time is 12 long seconds compared to the natural duration of .25 seconds. The ability of the brain to hold information 'online' long after an initiating stimulus is a hallmark of brain areas such as the prefrontal cortex. The team will next work to understand the underlying factors that govern network communication and stimulation, such as the various electrical pathways between cells and the genetic makeup of individual cells. 'This is amazing,' writes Toney. 'I wonder what the "memory" could be — could be a good subject for a science fiction story.'"

Comments

Keyboard Garage

[Dimwit]

The original Amiga had a keyboard garage: the machine itself was raise a little off the desk, just enough for the keyboard to slide underneath it.

I loved every single thing about that computer. The Amiga 1200 was fine too. The Amiga 500 was great, but Commodore made their first big design snafu there - they put the Zorro expansion slot on the wrong side of the computer and upside down, so you couldn't use Amiga 1000 peripherals without also flipping them upside down.

(Still not as bad as the "PCMCIA" slot on the A600.)

Other things I miss: TUIs like Project Oberon and Symbolics Lisp. Hell, Lisp in general is now such a niche it's sad. "Real" Unix - lots of little programs that do one thing and do them well. cat -n considered harmful and all that.