world's first molecular transistor

December 23, 2009
Full Article
http://www.physorg.com/news180785053.html



Engineers adjusted the voltage applied via gold contacts to a benzene molecule, allowing them to raise and lower the molecule’s energy states and demonstrate that it could be used exactly like a traditional transistor at the molecular level. Credit: Hyunwook Song and Takhee Lee
A group of scientists has succeeded in creating the first transistor made from a single molecule. The team, which includes researchers from Yale University and the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, published their findings in the December 24 issue of the journal Nature.
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The team, including Mark Reed, the Harold Hodgkinson Professor of Engineering & Applied Science at Yale, showed that a benzene molecule attached to gold contacts could behave just like a silicon transistor.
The researchers were able to manipulate the molecule's different energy states depending on the voltage they applied to it through the contacts. By manipulating the energy states, they were able to control the current passing through the molecule.
"It's like rolling a ball up and over a hill, where the ball represents electrical current and the height of the hill represents the molecule's different energy states," Reed said. "We were able to adjust the height of the hill, allowing current to get through when it was low, and stopping the current when it was high." In this way, the team was able to use the molecule in much the same way as regular transistors are used.
The work builds on previous research Reed did in the 1990s, which demonstrated that individual molecules could be trapped between electrical contacts. Since then, he and Takhee Lee, a former Yale postdoctoral associate and now a professor at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, developed additional techniques over the years that allowed them to "see" what was happening at the molecular level.
Being able to fabricate the electrical contacts on such small scales, identifying the ideal molecules to use, and figuring out where to place them and how to connect them to the contacts were also key components of the discovery. "There were a lot of technological advances and understanding we built up over many years to make this happen," Reed said.
There is a lot of interest in using molecules in computer circuits because traditional transistors are not feasible at such small scales. But Reed stressed that this is strictly a scientific breakthrough and that practical applications such as smaller and faster "molecular computers"—if possible at all—are many decades away.
"We're not about to create the next generation of integrated circuits," he said. "But after many years of work gearing up to this, we have fulfilled a decade-long quest and shown that molecules can act as transistors."
Provided by Yale University

A closer step into decoding the brains engrams

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http://www.physorg.com/news180780161.html


Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have made a major discovery in how the brain encodes memories. The finding, published in the December 24 issue of the journal Neuron, could eventually lead to the development of new drugs to aid memory.
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The team of scientists is the first to uncover a central process in encoding memories that occurs at the level of the synapse, where neurons connect with each other.
"When we learn new things, when we store memories, there are a number of things that have to happen," said senior author Kenneth S. Kosik, co-director and Harriman Chair in Neuroscience Research, at UCSB's Neuroscience Research Institute. Kosik is a leading researcher in the area of Alzheimer's disease.
"One of the most important processes is that the synapses -- which cement those memories into place -- have to be strengthened," said Kosik. "In strengthening a synapse you build a connection, and certain synapses are encoding a memory. Those synapses have to be strengthened so that memory is in place and stays there. Strengthening synapses is a very important part of learning. What we have found appears to be one part of how that happens."
Part of strengthening a synapse involves making new proteins. Those proteins build the synapse and make it stronger. Just like with exercise, when new proteins must build up muscle mass, synapses must also make more protein when recording memories. In this research, the regulation and control of that process was uncovered.
The production of new proteins can only occur when the RNA that will make the required proteins is turned on. Until then, the RNA is "locked up" by a silencing molecule, which is a micro RNA. The RNA and micro RNA are part of a package that includes several other proteins.
"When something comes into your brain -- a thought, some sort of stimulus, you see something interesting, you hear some music -- synapses get activated," said Kosik. "What happens next is really interesting, but to follow the pathway our experiments moved to cultured neurons. When synapses got activated, one of the proteins wrapped around that silencing complex gets degraded."
When the signal comes in, the wrapping protein degrades or gets fragmented. Then the RNA is suddenly free to synthesize a new protein.
"One reason why this is interesting is that scientists have been perplexed for some time as to why, when synapses are strengthened, you need to have proteins degrade and also make new proteins," said Kosik. "You have the degradation of proteins going on side by side with the synthesis of new proteins. So we have now resolved this paradox. We show that protein degradation and synthesis go hand in hand. The degradation permits the synthesis to occur. That's the elegant scientific finding that comes out of this."
The scientists were able to see some of the specific proteins that are involved in synthesis. Two of these -- CaM Kinase and Lypla -- are identified in the paper.
One of the approaches used by the scientists in the experiment was to take live neuron cells from rats and look at them under a high-resolution microscope. The team was able to see the synapses and the places where proteins are being made.
Provided by UC Santa Barbara

Brain controls the creation of bones

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http://www.physorg.com/news180708867.html





One of the key functions of our skeletons is to provide mechanical support. In order to fulfil this role, bone tissue is modified throughout our lives, in response to changing activity levels and body weight. Bone mass increases as we gain weight and decreases as we lose it.
The new findings show that bone formation, far from being a straightforward mechanical process dependent on body weight, is delicately orchestrated by the brain, which sends and receives signals through the body's neural and hormone systems.
It is now clear that the neural network which controls appetite and energy also alters bone density. When we are starving, our brains don't allow us to waste energy by reproducing, making fat or creating new bone. When we are eating too much, on the other hand, our brains make it easier to reproduce, store fat and create bone.
Dr Paul Baldock, a neuroscientist from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research, has demonstrated in mice that the neurotransmitter Neuropeptide Y (NPY) directly controls osteoblasts, the cells that make bone. His findings are now published in the international online journal Public Library of Science ONE (PLoS ONE).
"It has always been thought that changes in bone mass are purely mechanical - you get heavier and your bones get denser to support the increased load," said Baldock.
"While that's true to some extent, our findings show a sophisticated central surveillance system at work. It's as if the brain, as boss, sends out a global memo saying 'make more bone'."
"Bone-making cells at local level appear to have the ability to fine-tune this directive, like office workers saying 'we're not going to waste time putting on bone here when it's needed more over there'."
"So what happens in practice is that places exposed to more load put on more bone, while those exposed to less load put on less bone."
All the intricate central processing takes place in the hypothalamus, a small yet complex region of the brain that links the nervous and hormone systems.
According to Baldock, the NPY system in the brain evolved to allow survival of humans during very lean times as well as plenty. "In evolutionary terms, people are kept alive so that they can reproduce, and body systems are all integrated to preserve that function."
"I have no doubt that osteoporosis treatments of the future will find a safe way to block NPY receptors on osteoblasts," said Baldock.
"Obviously, the development of such treatments would have to take account of all the processes affected by the NPY system - including appetite and mood. You'd need something that increased bone mass without also making people fat, skinny, sad or angry at the same time."
As a first step, Baldock is showing the orthopaedic relevance of his findings at the Children's hospital at Westmead, where he is collaborating with an orthopaedic surgeon, Associate Professor David Little.

2010 the year we make life

Waiting for Synthia - that has been the script for enthusiasts of synthetic life for the past two years, ever since genomics pioneer Craig Venter promised to unveil a living bacterial cell carrying a genome made from scratch in the lab. 2010 is the year for him to deliver.

Synthia is the popular name for a species containing a lab-built set of genetic instructions that are close to the minimum necessary to support bacterial life - based on the DNA of a microbe called Mycoplasma genitalium.

When Venter announced the creation of a synthetic M. genitalium genome in January 2008, Synthia's birth was thought to be imminent. Just months before, his team had demonstrated the technology for smuggling the DNA into a living bacterial cell, by performing a "genome transplant" between two different Mycoplasma species.

But perfecting the method so that Synthia's DNA will "boot up" inside a bacterial cell stripped of its own genome has proved harder than Venter anticipated. His team has had to battle various problems, including host-cell enzymes that seek and destroy alien DNA.

Elsewhere, other researchers are working on the component parts of an entirely synthetic cell. George Church of Harvard University has already announced that his team has made a self-assembling ribosome - the cellular factory responsible for making proteins. He expects the next step - to get synthetic ribosomes to self-replicate - to happen in 2010.

A completely synthetic cell remains a distant goal, however. So let's hope "Waiting for Synthia" gets a new final act sometime soon. Venter has shown that he can handle being criticised for playing God. But for someone with his reputation for achievement, playing Godot can't be so much fun.

Travel Log @ Tula

Made this video with my DROID cell phone
reconnecting to the ancient technology of the great atlanteans
the master builders of TULA!!!

Travel Log @ Xochicalco Site

i made this video using my motorola droid while visiting the ancient religious site of Xochicalco

Winter Solstice Ceremony

Augemented Reality the new Horizon

Ancient Technology

Amazing Spiral portal over norway

This is beyond words... The skies over Norway were stunned by a giant spiral that seems like a giant black hole...

Living in a Holographic Universe

We are currently living in a simulation..
We have build our entire life based on a reality subject to electrical impulses being decoded by the human brain.. The system we use our 5 senses are nothing but a grid of electrodes that shape our reality..

Human Version 2.0 BBC HORIZON

This is one of my favorite Transhuman documentary trying to understand and unlock the secret code of the human brain. intercepting and downloading and reconstructing dreams and thoughts which will become possible in the upcoming singularity of 2029..

Watch it!!

Henry Markram Download your thoughts....

What we are living now is the beginning of the future, Henry Markram says the mysteries of the mind can be solved -- soon. Mental illness, memory, perception: they're made of neurons and electric signals, and he plans to find them with a supercomputer that models all the brain's 100,000,000,000,000 synapses.

Neuroscientist Henry Markram Speaking on Cognitive Computing

IBM Research's Almaden Institute Conference on Cognitive Computing. Markram discusses microcolumns in the brain, and shows several video animations of computer models of neurons communicating in a microcolumn. His model includes 10,000 neurons, which is a *very* large number of neurons to model.