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At Tech Future we discuss Tech News, Tesla News, Elon Musk's ambitious futuristic projects, and all the other tech that will lead humanity towards a great future. We do talk more news about Elon musk in our tech channel because of his humanitarian vision and amazing work with Tesla's Cybertruck, Camper, EVs, Spacex, space x's starship, Starlink, The Boring Company, neuralink and much more.

Elon Musk is the Founder of SpaceX and CEO and product architect of Tesla Inc. Tesla Was founded in 2003. The founders of the company saw the higher fuel efficiency of battery-electric cars as an opportunity to break the usual correlation with high performance and low fuel economy, they decided to create the company. Elon musk joined them as a VC and then took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design at a detailed level. From the beginning, Elon Musk consistently maintained that Tesla's long-term strategic goal was to create affordable mass-market electric vehicles "EVs". Tesla ad Elon musk surprised people with their best EV inventions like tesla autopilot, tesla coil, tesla's upcoming tabless 4680 battery that was a straight answer to Toyota's solid-state battery, tesla's nano and million-mile battery technology, and their upcoming tesla bot "tesla robot". Considering all that they even surprised people with the car models like tesla roadster, tesla model s, tesla model 3, tesla model x, tesla model y, tesla's cybertruck, and Elon Musk's very favorite tesla's semi truck. Including Elon Musk's futuristic battery technologies and other technologies these car models tesla roadster, tesla model s, tesla model 3, tesla model x, tesla model y, tesla's cybertruck and elon musk's very favourite tesla's semi truck did great in the EV market. That increased Tesla's stock price so high that it became 2nd fastest company in history to reach $1 Trillion in market cap making Elon Musk the Richest man in the history of mankind.

#elonmusk #tesla​ ​#cybertruck

Human brain cells in a dish learn to play Pong faster than an AI

Hundreds of thousands of brain cells in a dish are being taught to play Pong by responding to pulses of electricity – and can improve their performance more quickly than an AI can. 

Living brain cells in a dish can learn to play the video game Pong when they are placed in what researchers describe as a “virtual game world”. “We think it’s fair to call them cyborg brains,” says Brett Kagan, chief scientific officer of Cortical Labs, who leads the research.

Many teams around the world have been studying networks of neurons in dishes, often growing them into brain-like organoids. But this is the first time that mini-brains have been found to perform goal-directed tasks, says Kagan.

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Snap-freezing reveals a truer structure of brain connections

Scientists at EPFL (near Lausanne, Switzerland) have used a snap-freezing method to reveal the true structure of the connections that join neurons together in the adult brain.

Most synaptic connections in the adult brain are situated on dendritic spines; small, micrometer-long, protrusions extending from the neurons’ surface. The spines’ exact size and shape determine how well signals are passed from one neuron to another.

These details become very important when neuroscientists want to model brain circuits or understand how information is transmitted between neurons across the brain’s neuronal circuits. However, their small size and the difficulties in preserving brain tissue in its natural state have always left the question open as to what the true structure of the dendritic spine is.

Scientists from EPFL’s School of Life Sciences have now used a snap-freezing method of liquid nitrogen jets, combined with very high pressures, to instantaneously preserve small pieces of brain tissue. The researchers, from the labs of Graham Knott and Carl Petersen, then used high-resolution, 3D imaging with electron microscopes to reveal how the true dendritic spine structure was similar to that shown in previous studies, except for one important aspect: The instant freezing method showed dendritic spines with significantly thinner necks.

This finding validates a considerable body of theoretical and functional data going back many years, which shows that dendritic spines are chemical, as well as electrical, compartments isolated from the rest of the neuron by a thin and high-resistance neck. Variations in the neck diameter have an important impact on how a synapse influences the rest of the neuron.

“As well as revealing the true shape of these important brain structures, this work highlights the usefulness of rapid freezing methods and electron microscopy for obtaining a more detailed view of the architecture of cells and tissues,” says Graham Knott.

Smart interaction between proteins

19.08.2019 | News

By:  Santina Russo

Very little was known till now about DNA repair by homologous recombination, which is fundamental for human health. Now an ETH research group has for the first time isolated and studied all the key proteins involved in this process, laying the foundation for investigating many diseases.

Which proteins are essential for cell division? The biochemist Philipp Wild (left) and his colleagues Ilaria Piazza and Christian Dörig examine the results from the mass spectrometer. (Photograph: ETH Zurich / Adrian Henggeler)

Within our body, the process of cell division is constantly creating new cells to replace old or damaged ones. The genetic information is also duplicated and passed on to the new cells. Complex interaction of many different proteins ensures a smooth process. This is because these proteins immediately repair any errors that creep in during DNA duplication. However, the same protein machinery also performs another function: in germ cells that divide to from gametes – egg cells and sperm – it is responsible for mixing the genetic information of the original maternal and paternal side during cell division. The same mechanism therefore has to resolve two conflicting problems: in normal cell division, called mitosis, it ensures genetic preservation, while in the cell division to produce gametes, or meiosis, it ensures genetic diversity. 

The Fountain of Youth

Immortality, Bliss, Divinity

Alzheimer's, a dementia disease of the past?

The BACE1 inhibitor verubecestat (MK-8931) reduces CNS β-amyloid in animal models and in Alzheimer’s disease patients

The discovery of BACE1 inhibitors that reduce β-amyloid peptides in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients has been an encouraging development in the quest for a disease-modifying therapy. Kennedy and colleagues now report the discovery of verubecestat, a structurally unique, orally bioavailable small molecule that potently inhibits brain BACE1 activity resulting in a reduction in Aβ peptides in the cerebrospinal fluid of animals, healthy volunteers, and AD patients. No dose-limiting toxicities were observed in chronic animal toxicology studies or in phase 1 human studies, thus reducing safety concerns raised by previous reports of BACE inhibitors and BACE1 knockout mice.

 

According to the World Health Organization over 36 million people world-wide are affected by dementia, of which the majority have Alzheimer’s. This number is forecast to double by 2030 and triple by 2050 if no treatment is discovered. So great hopes are placed on verubecestat. 

 

http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/8/363/363ra150.full

New frontiers in bioscience

In laboratories around the world, some of the brightest scientists—well-established and those early in their careers—are conceiving novel theories at the very forefront of knowledge. In tissue regeneration, multilevel function, multiscale modeling, longevity, and other cutting-edge fields, breakthrough research will soon enable us to improve human health and perhaps even reveal the deepest mechanisms of life itself.

Paul G. Allen is the cofounder of Microsoft, the chief executive officer of Vulcan Inc., a recipient of the 2015 Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, and the founder of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, Institute for Cell Science, and Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

 

In his article Allen explains how "...the complexity of biology is a fascinating challenge, and I am keen to see the field deconstruct its mysteries, establish reliable and predictive models, and put that knowledge to work."

Allen further believes ".....we should also be working more aggressively to break down scientific silos by backing more collaborative, interdisciplinary teams that include experts in bioscience, mathematics, computer science, medicine, engineering, and other fields. For example, the Human Genome Project succeeded because of the convergence of massive computing power, new algorithms, expertise in laboratory biology, and broad support from the public and private sectors."

Click for the complete article published in Science

Human Brain Project's Research Platforms Released

Public Release of Platforms Will Help Advance Collaborative Research in Neuroscience, Medicine, and Computing

 

The Human Brain Project (HBP) is pleased to announce the release of initial versions of its six Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Platforms to users outside the Project. These Platforms are designed to help the scientific community to accelerate progress in neuroscience, medicine, and computing.

 

The Platforms released today consist of prototype hardware, software tools, databases and programming interfaces, which will be refined and expanded in a collaborative approach with users, and integrated within the framework of a European Research Infrastructure. The public release of the Platforms represents the end of the Ramp-Up Phase of the HBP and the beginning of the Operational Phase.

 

Karlheinz Meier, Co-leader of the Neuromorphic Platform, said, “The HBP invites scientists everywhere to work with our prototype Platforms and give us their feedback. This will help us improve their functionality and ease of use, and hence their value to society”.

 

Neuronal Feedback Could Change What We "See"

Study from Carnegie Mellon Neuroscientists Could Explain Mechanism Behind Optical Illusions

By Jocelyn Duffy / 412-268-9982 / jhduffy@andrew.cmu.edu

Ever see something that isn't really there? Could your mind be playing tricks on you? The "tricks" might be your brain reacting to feedback between neurons in different parts of the visual system, according to a study published in The Journal of Neuroscience by Carnegie Mellon University Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Sandra J. Kuhlman and colleagues.
 



 

Understanding this feedback system could provide new insight into the visual system's neuronal circuitry and could have further implications for understanding how the brain interprets and understands sensory stimuli.

 

Many optical illusions make you see something that's not there. Take the Kanizsa triangle: when you place three Pac-Man-like wedges in the right spot, you see a triangle, even though the edges of the triangle aren't drawn. 

 

"We see with both our brain and our eyes. Your brain is making inferences that allow you to see the triangle. It's connecting the dots between the corners of the wedges," said Kuhlman, who is a member of Carnegie Mellon's BrainHub neuroscience initiative and the joint Carnegie Mellon/University of Pittsburgh Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC). "Optical illusions illustrate some of the amazing things our visual system can do."

Brain's Memory Capacity is 10 Times Greater Than Previously Thought

Scientists have discovered that the brain’s capacity for memory storage is far greater than previously hypothesized. How much greater? Well, the Salk Institute research would increase conservative estimates by a factor of 10, up to at least a petabyte, putting the brain’s capacity on par with the World Wide Web

The researchers recently published their work in eLife.

 

Memories and thoughts result from electrical and chemical activity in the brain. Information flows between neurons via synapses as chemicals called neurotransmitters.

Synapse dysfunction can lead to a myriad of neurological disorders. But synapses exhibit varying levels of plasticity, which dictates how influential one neuron is over a neuron it’s connected to. According to the researchers, a signal traveling form one neuron to another only activates the second neuron between 10 and 20 % of the time.

 

Neuroscientists Now Can Read the Mind of a Fly

New technique could yield knowledge useful to understanding the human brain

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Northwestern University neuroscientists now can read the mind of a fly. They have developed a clever new tool that lights up active conversations between neurons during a behavior or sensory experience, such as smelling a banana. Mapping the pattern of individual neural connections could provide insights into the computational processes that underlie the workings of the human brain. 

 

In a study focused on three of the fruit fly’s sensory systems, the researchers used fluorescent molecules of different colors to tag neurons in the brain to see which connections were active during a sensory experience that happened hours earlier. 

 

Synapses are points of communication where neurons exchange information. The fluorescent labeling technique is the first to allow scientists to identify individual synapses that are active during a complex behavior, such as avoiding heat. Better yet, the fluorescent signal persists for hours after the communication event, allowing researchers to study the brain’s activity after the fact, under a microscope.
 

A Robot for Analyzing Single Cells in the Living Brain

Researchers at Georgia Tech and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT have developed a way to automate the process of finding and recording information from neurons in the living brain.

The researchers have shown that a robotic arm guided by a cell-detecting computer algorithm can identify and record from neurons in the living mouse brain with better accuracy and speed than a human experimenter.  Using this technique, scientists could classify the thousands of different types of cells in the brain, map how they connect to each other, and figure out how diseased cells differ from normal cells.

Animation courtesy of Ed Boyden, Sputnik Animation, and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT.