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Possible Superconductivity In the Brain? (springer.com)
"The unprecedented power of the brain suggests that it may process information quantum-mechanically," according to a new research paper. Long-time Slashdot reader time961 writes: Pavlo Mikheenko, a superconductivity researcher at the University of Oslo, has published a paper in the Journal of Superconductivity and Novel Magnetism (abstract only; arxiv pre-print here) suggesting that microtubule structures in pig neurons exhibit evidence of superconductivity that could represent a mechanism for quantum computing performed by the brain to achieve the brain's phenomenal information processing power. The observed effects (at room temperature and standard atmospheric pressure) are claimed to indicate a critical temperature of 2022 +/- 157 K, far higher than the 135 K achieved in other materials under similar conditions.
Interesting, if true.
Interesting, if true.
Twenty plus two equals too X where X is greater than zero
That should be the official slogan of the Trump PR machine when it spits out new bullshit to the herd.
Doesn't he already? Anyway, what you say is definitely interesting if it's true.
I'll believe this when these superconducting pigs levitate above magnets.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
IMHO, human brain quite possibly is a quantum computer (where neurons work as qubit/qutrit registers)!
For example, consider how we can switch from thought to thought, moment to moment, where each thought is instantly selected among (surely) astronomical number of different possibilities!
(Instantly making a choice (solution) from a huge number of possibilities is the main power of quantum computers!)
How about:
HULLO HUMAN
And I suggest that the brain has unprecedented power, because it connects to superpowers present in the Dark sector via the mechanism of kinetic mixing.
It is not science anymore, but a popularity and buzzword contest.
This Quantum Mind crap has been around since the 90s. It's just mysticism wrapped up in new jargon to sound all sciency to people who don't know what they're talking about.
No one's brain is more superconductive than mine, believe me. It superconducts thoughts directly from my tremendous anus, which is a 10, I bet you didn't know this, several former presidents have told me it's a 10, and even the president of the Boy Scouts called me up to say, "Mr. President, you have the most beautiful anus I've ever seen," and those thoughts come out of my mouth, because from the perspective of brains, it's very stable and superconductive, folks.
Quantum computers are about the size of a person: https://www.google.com/search?... While I agree all this brain stuff is nonsense; the size is kinda irrelevant.
I've been gathering peoples' reactions to this study in the comments sections of news articles for my paper, "Catchphrase Hokum: Assessing The Public's Willingness To Believe Anything That Uses Buzzwords And Was Published In A Journal With A Five-Year Impact Factor Less Than One", which has been accepted for publication in the journal Gullibility.
Musk needs a safer hobby than Twitter. Fire juggling? Cage fighting? Solo hot air balloon trips?
2,022K = 1,749C, iron is boiling (1,535C melted), and no magnetic / electric properties. :-) .
Well, some electric properties, but vice-versa of superconductive, let say super-restrictive
Basta!
I am a condensed matter physicist.
This paper measures normal nonlinear electrochemical effects and assumes they're superconducting. Further, there is a misunderstanding of what quantized conductance means, and how to demonstrate that quantized conductance is being measured.
There is no evidence presented of superconductivity, and no good argument for why it would be expected. It's a bit embarrassing that the author is a Physics professor.
Photosynthesis is suspected to use quantum tunneling. While skeptical, I wouldn’t be too surprised that water confined in micro tubuals could exhibit superconductivity. Researchers are just now looking into 1D structures for potentially creating superconductors not out of bulk materials, but emerging from materials + global structure. So, considering that evolution/biology operates on the level of single atoms it seems highly plausible a feature as interesting and potentially useful as superconductivity might be conserved, especially for signaling.
Think about it
You going to start actually criticizing that ?
I saw a Twitter tweet about how Neil A. backwards was alien. How about that?!
I tried to leave him a comment about this on his channel but my comment mysteriously disappeared 2 minutes after I posted it.
lol
I do not believe that we need superconductivity, nor quantum computation (so cute when physicists try to apply their world view to a new, unrelated field) to explain the information processing capacity of the brain. We need systems biology, and we're making really good progress on that, what with the connectome projects, which have had some immensely good luck at explaining the information processing in certain circuits, such as the olfactory lobes, and the retina.
Now, in the retina, there are actually quantum effects during the capture of photons by the retinal pigment epithelium, and we pretty well understand how that works. We also have identified essentially every single cell type in the retina, and have a nearly complete wiring diagram.
In the motor cortex, we've begun to understand some of the irregularities that were previously considered noise, and are now understood to be signals, encoding in a higher-dimensional space than can be represented by single cells. We understand that it is the activity in ensembles of neurons that is important.
This shouldn't be so surprising. The activity of a single transistor in a CPU isn't important; it's the representation of information as encoded among a large circuit of transistors that's important.
But the information processing within a single neuron is actually pretty well understood. Heck, we even understand what happens during sleep, at the molecular level (and, yes, it is a clearing out of cruft -- metabolic waste -- that accumulates during conscious activity).
Superconductivity with a critical temperature in the thousands of degrees? Color me skeptical. Superconductivity to support a heretofore unobserved quantum computation in the brain to explain its "phenomenal information processing power"? Someone hasn't studied the neuroscience that's been done over the previous 100 years which has enjoyed an incredible run of explaining almost everything that's been discovered thus far. The only reason neuroscientists still have jobs at this point is that we still have terra incognita to explore.
From the same crackerjack shipment I got my quantum decoder ring from! :-D
I don't know about super conductivity, however simple electrical conductivity in the brain seems to be a factor in mental health. An existing test, called a Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis can reveal your base reaction to stressors be it flight, fight, fawn or freeze when your Amygdala takes control. People with personality disorders can affect the mineral balance of the brain by taxing those resources with their behaviors and abusive techniques.
After discovering that I made a effort to make sure that the mineral balance of my brain was attended to. For me that was ensuring magnesium intake was adequate whilst balancing Zinc and potassium intake, YMMV. From that sleep improved, I felt less stressed and other people's emotional states had less of an effect on mine. I was doing a lot of other work as well however all of that in conjunction has led to a much more relaxed and clear thinking version of myself. Well worth the effort.
I haven't read the paper yet so my apologies if this is OT.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I remember microtubule structures in the brain making the news around 20 years ago. At the time there was some speculation that they might provide some other mechanism in which information transfer could occur, and if I remember correctly, it was through sympathetic resonance.
Better known as 318230.
Full stop.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Egg egg bike flower pizza poet Riemann wine forest tent
How do you expect it to process everything simultaneously? It may be superconductivity, it may not. But it definitely approximates a quantum computer far better than anything we've ever come up with.
... then my money is on DNA expression regulation having a role in neuronal memory. This is a kind of thing, to me, that might require the kind of time scales involved in sleep to program. It could make a really simple and "low-churn" way to enable/disable connections once they've been established.
It feels to me like that sort of thing would open more degrees of freedom in neuron evolution, possibly be able to reuse some existing regulation mechanisms, and isn't a completely ridiculous stretch.
If evolution has shown anything, it's that the slighter the adaptation and the more benefit, the faster it will be adopted.
Neil Armstrong written backwards is "Gnorts, Mr Alien"
TFA>_ are claimed to indicate a critical temperature of 2022 +/- 157 K
Really? Isn't it a bit too hot?
I am a condensed matter physicist.
This paper measures normal nonlinear electrochemical effects and assumes they're superconducting. Further, there is a misunderstanding of what quantized conductance means, and how to demonstrate that quantized conductance is being measured.
There is no evidence presented of superconductivity, and no good argument for why it would be expected. It's a bit embarrassing that the author is a Physics professor.
If it reads like shit and people are talking shit about it, it must be shit
Believe? LOOK at the paper. Debate FINDINGS.
Assume for the moment that our memories are stored in superconducting qubits, and the critical temperature really is 2000K, what is the critical field required to erase someone's memories completely at body temperature(310k)? Surely this is a simple matter for someone good at physics to figure out.
The /. post right above this one posits that the looming end of Moore's Law (the seeming endless improvements in computational throw) will spell the end of AI improvements so that we will never see "self-improving" AI.
I think both premises are premature. Once computation moves into the quantum realm -- including biological computing -- AI will find a fertile playground and will quickly outstrip human limits.
Good luck with all that, everyone.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Quick, calculate a huge prime.