World's Fastest Computer Will Operate Like a Human Brain

A large group of scientists and researchers is working to develop the fastest computer known to man that would operate much like the human brain.

The Human Brain Project, which launched Monday at a conference in Switzerland, combines the brainpower of 135 science institutions and government entities to create the computer brain. The project will cost about $1.6 billion.

The human brain is the most complex machine in existence, so it seems almost natural that technology would want to replicate its powers. The computer in development would be 1,000 times faster than even the fastest ones we use today.Before you start picturing 2001: A Space Odyssey, know that these computers aren't HALs in the making.

The first phases of the project, which is expected to last about a decade, is meant to better understand the functions of the human brain. Next, the researchers are hoping to grasp how we learn, think, see and hear.

Currently, the hardware inside a computer reachesperformance speeds of one quadrillion operations per second. But Henry Markram, the director of the Human Brain Project, has his sights set even higher.

“Well-known manufacturers of supercomputers like IBM, Cray, Intel and Bull are committed to building the first exascale machines by approximately 2020," he told Fox News. "So we are confident we will have the machines we need."

These unbelievably fast computers will require new forms of memory and force scientists to develop new storage techniques.

The overarching goal of the project, as outlined on its website, is "to piece together our rapidly growing knowledge of the human brain." Simulating the human brain provides insights into the brain's inner workings and where our thoughts and emotions originate.

The implications reach beyond technology; such a simulation could help us learn how to heal the human brain, giving us a tangible model of its functions.

Sex kills for some male marsupials, research finds

Sydney - Mating is such an arduous and frenzied process for some male marsupials that it literally kills them, according to new Australian-led research.

Scientists had wondered for decades why some species of insect-eating marsupials dropped dead after sex, with speculation including that they died from fighting or to leave more food for their offspring.

But research published in the US-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences puts the "dying off" down to the animals' extreme efforts to ensure their sperm is successful in the short once-a-year window that females offer to mate.

"There's always a cost to reproducing - it's an energy expensive thing that animals do," lead researcher, mammal ecologist Diana Fisher from the University of Queensland, explained on Tuesday.

"But in this case they haven't spread out their effort over time, they do it all at once in a really short time. And they just die afterward."

Cascade effect

Organisms that mate once and then die are common among plants and some fish, but rarer among mammals.

Among the exceptions are some species of small marsupials including the mouse-like antechinus and the phascogales, which is more like a possum.

Fisher said the male marsupials that die are so intent on mating that their high testosterone levels trigger a cascade effect of stress hormones, which causes the animals' body tissue to break down and their immune systems to collapse.

"They mate for 12 or 14 hours at a time with lots of females, and they use up their muscle and their body tissues and they are using all of their energy to competitively mate, that's what they are doing. It's sexual selection," she said.

"They just kill themselves mating in this extreme way."

The study, which included researchers from the University of Sydney and the University of Tasmania, compared 52 species of marsupials in Australia, Papua New Guinea and South America - not all of which self-destructed after sex.

"We demonstrate that short mating seasons intensified reproductive competition between males, increasing male energy investment in copulations and reducing male post-mating survival," the paper said.

Fisher said, in the case of some of the marsupials, their life-and-death mating system seemed a shame.

"They have a nice temperament, they are very inquisitive little animals. They are quite interactive. It's a bit sad. But they don't know it's coming I suppose, it's just something that happens to them," she said.

Bee colony failure 'from pesticide stress'

7 October 2013 Last updated at 09:45 BST

New research has cast light on how pesticides can cause physiological stress in bees.

Research by the Royal Holloway University of London suggests that pesticide levels may be affecting the bee population indirectly.

Small reductions in performance at the individual level - for example changing the foraging behaviour - multiplied across many bees in the colony can have a large impact at the group level, the study found.

Dr Nigel Raine told the Today programme's John Humphrys that "the pesticides affect the normal behaviour of the individual bees.

"And that has a knock-on effect ultimately on the colony function," he added.

"What we are seeing is colony failure, which hasn't been shown in pesticide stress before."

Source:http://www.bbc.co.uk

Gene Activity In Thousands Of Cells Visualized For The First Time, Important For Understanding Cancer Tumors

For the first time, scientists will be able to visualize gene activity in thousands of cells all at once.

Biologists at the University of Zurich developed a new method using robots, an automated fluorescence microscope and a supercomputer where 1,000 human genes can be studied in 10,000 single cells. Details surrounding the new technique, published in the journal Nature Methods, may impact how cancer is treated.

"Our method will be of importance to basic research and the understanding of cancer tumors because it allows us to map the activity of genes within single tumor cells," Professor Lucas Pelkmans from the University of Zurich, said in a statement.

The technique revolves around transcript molecules -- particles that are created whenever cells activate genes. Transcript molecules in effect make the function of the gene available to the cell. While present methods allow scientists to determine gene activity by measuring the amount of transcript molecules, they are not able to measure thousands of them simultaneously.  

"When genes become active, specific transcript molecules are produced. We can stain them with the help of a robot," Thomas Stoeger of the University of Zurich said. Once stained, fluorescence microscope images of glowing transcript molecules are generated and then analyzed by the supercomputer. Not only can 1,000 human genes be studied in 10,000 single cells but, for the first time, the spatial organization of the transcript molecules of many genes can be observed.

The technique yielded a few surprises. It showed thact individual cells distinguish themselves from the activity in their genes. Plus, scientists were shocked to discover inconsistences in the spatial organization of transcript molecules within single cells and between multiple single cells.

"We realized that genes with a similar function also have a similar variability in the transcript patterns," Nico Battich said. "This similarity exceeds the variability in the amount of transcript molecules, and allows us to predict the function of individual genes."

Source:http://www.ibtimes.com