Author: María Girbés Mínguez is a doctoral student at Center for Molecular Neurobiology Hamburg (ZMNH) / UKE (University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf) A recent study published in the journal Cell Systems uncovered that bacterial communities (biofilms) can store complex patterns of information through membrane potentials at the cellular level, in a similar way to neurons. But […]
Chronic pain is one of the most common problems of advanced age. Even though the combination of physical therapy and analgesics such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs is effective in chronic pain treatments, it only confers short-term benefits. On the other hand, it could be quite expensive and may have significant adverse side effects. Effective, lasting […]
Finding patterns in a text could be very useful. It could reveal if the text has been written by a certain person or not, for example. Going a step further, finding sentiments in a text or a speech can also be very handy. These skills usually appear in procedural and spy movies and TV series […]
Man does not live by hardware alone. Indeed, great material and conceptual improvements in the machinery of optical microscopes have occurred in recent decades. The examples are numerous (some example here; https://mappingignorance.org/2013/12/23/bessel-beam-plane-illumination-microscopy-another-smart-solution-for-an-old-challenge/). However, what is being achieved only with software and computing power seems a matter of magic. It is not only that programs and […]
Computer science • Mathematics • Mechanical Engineering • Robotics
One thing is designing an object in a computer, and another, quite different, is producing it as a real 3D object. All other things being equal, in general the more curves the designed object has, the more difficult it is to produce. Mathematics can be very helpful in this task. The geometric modeling of a […]
The computer metaphor draws an analogy between the mind as software and the brain as hardware. In this metaphor, the focus of discussions is usually on the software part, taking for granted that the brain, or the whole nervous system, is a computer of sorts. But this is something that needs to be proved first […]
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is persistent narrowing (blocking, or obstruction) of the airways occurring with emphysema, chronic obstructive bronchitis, or both disorders. Worldwide, the number of people with COPD is increasing. Factors contributing to COPD include an increase in smoking in many developing countries and, throughout the world, exposure to toxins in biomass fuels […]
Biology • Biomedicine • Computer science • Nanotechnology • Neuroscience • Physics
In 1873, the microscopist Ernst Abbe stipulated a physical limit for the maximum resolution of traditional optical microscopy: 0.2 micrometers, or 200 nanometers (the shortest wavelength for visible light, the extreme limit of violet). This meant that scientists could distinguish whole cells, as well as some parts of the cell called organelles. However, they would […]
Quantum computing is the future. Or the present, if you believe that some real quantum computers are commercially available already. Because it is hard to admit that any computer system whose design and theoretical basis depend on quantum effects for their operation may be on the market today, even though IBM says otherwise. The trick […]
Several researchers in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) are warning about an AI winter, which means that scientists might lose the interest on the discipline, institutions reduce drastically the funding towards its research and lose presence in the public debate. It wouldn’t be the first AI winter though. The last two decades have been […]
