Future is now: Bionic arm

By akie

Not photoshopped! Check the video.

Future is now: IBM building human brain

By akie

IBM has completed a test setup that models 4.5% of the neurons in the human cortex. It used 147,456 CPUs and 144 Terabytes of RAM to accomplish this, but alas. A 100% simulation coverage is expected around the year 2019. This is not a joke. Academic paper here.

Terminator, anyone?

Future is now: 3D printer makes human tissue and organs

By akie

”Scientists and engineers can use the 3-D bio printers to enable placing cells of almost any type into a desired pattern in 3-D,” said Murphy. “Researchers can place liver cells on a preformed scaffold, support kidney cells with a co-printed scaffold, or form adjacent layers of epithelial and stromal soft tissue that grow into a mature tooth. Ultimately the idea would be for surgeons to have tissue on demand for various uses, and the best way to do that is get a number of bio-printers into the hands of researchers and give them the ability to make three dimensional tissues on demand.”

Link

Future is now: Scientists write memories directly into fly brains

By akie

“Researchers have devised a way to write memories onto the brains of flies, revealing which brain cells are involved in making bad memories.”

Link

Future is now: growing mice out of skin cells

By akie

From the Wall Street Journal:

“Two teams of Chinese researchers working separately have reprogrammed mature skin cells of mice to an embryonic-like state and used the resulting cells to create live mouse offspring.”

Link

Future is now: longer living through chemistry

By akie

A new drug extends the life span of middle-aged mice by 14%. If the same holds for humans, this means an extension of the average life span of approximately 10 years…

Link (from a credible source)

Future is now: mind reading

By akie

I’ve seen a lot of technology lately that seem to come right out of science fiction stories.
Exhibit 1: Japanese researchers can read your mind.

I will blog more examples as I come across them.