US scientists have developed the world's first 'biological computer' composed entirely of DNA molecules constructed on a gold-coated chip, which can accept as many as one billion programs and can decipher images encrypted on DNA chips.
The Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) and a team from Scripps Research Institute in California have developed the biological computer. In the research, when suitable software was applied to the biological computer, the scientists found that it could decrypt, separately, fluorescent images of Scripps Research Institute and Technion logos. This is the first experimental demonstration of a molecular cryptosystem of images based on DNA computing, say the scientists led by Prof Ehud Keinan.
"In contrast to electronic computers, there are computing machines in which all four components are nothing but molecules," says Keinan. "For example, all biological systems, and even entire living organisms, are such computers. Every one of us is a bio-molecular computer, that is, a machine in which all four components are molecules "talking" to one another in a logical manner."
The world's first biological computer integrates complex biological molecules in form of hardware and software in these devices. These biological molecules activate one another to carry out some predetermined chemical work, says Keinan. The computer uses molecules for both input and output. For input, a molecule undergoes specific, predetermined changes, following a specific set of rules (software); the output of this chemical computation process is another well-defined molecule.
The biological computer is "built" by combining chemical components into a solution in a tube. Various small DNA molecules are mixed in solution with selected DNA enzymes and ATP. The latter is used as the energy source of the device, reports TOI.
The results are published this week in the Journal of the American Chemical Society by Prof. Ehud Keinan. "An equally significant breakthrough is the incorporation of chips as an integral part of the computer," he says.
Clicking high resolution pictures in dim light will soon become a reality with an upgrade in present CMOS technology by Fraunhofer University.
Fraunhofer University has brought a technology that removes the the drawbacks of Pinned Photodiodes using pixel size 10 µm or above and helps the cameras capture images in dim light. Scientists have developed the lateral drift field photodetector (LDPD) that helps in boosting the speed of traditional CMOS sensors.
Keeping in mind the changing trends in electronics goods, manufacturers have to make CMOS circuits compatible with the smaller and thinner devices. With the reduced size, it is difficult to capture better quality images many-a-times. The problem is more seen if someone is clicking pictures in dim or no light situations like that in astronomy. Usually bigger size pixels are used opdevelop devices that can amount to faster conversion of light to electrical signal.
Scientists from Fraunhofer hence introduced an upgrade for the the present CMOS sensors. The speed of conversion in these CMOS sensors has been improved for about 100 times that the initial.
According to a report, the optoelectronic device developed by the team is a lateral drift field photodetector (LDPD) which does not let the generated current to diffuse and sends it at an unprecedented speed to the reading device. The scientists have got the technology patented and the team is now awaiting approval for a series production of the device.
A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has invented a new way of shrinking circuit structures in semiconductors, which is certainly an advancement of the Moore's law. Moore’s law is the standard that defines the growth in semiconductors. The law named after Intel co-founder, Gordon E Moore, states that the number of components in integrated circuits had doubled every year from the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958 until 1965. His prediction proved to be accurate and the law is still practised in the semiconductor industry for long-term planning and to set targets for research and development, said a report.
The chip manufacturing industry resorts to photolithography techniques, which means producing chip features that are larger than the wavelength of the light applied. MIT researchers have developed a new process that can create complex chip structures, which would be 1/8th the size of the wavelength of the light used. It is a process that is described in the paper as "Breaking the Far-Field Diffraction Limit in Optical Nanopatterning via Repeated Photochemical and Electrochemical Transitions in Photochromic Molecules", published in Physical Review Letters.
The researchers term it as an effect called Stimulated Emission Depletion imaging (STED), which enabled them to go beyond the current limitations of photolithography. Scientists make use of the fluorescent characteristics of materials to emit light when targeted by a laser beam in STED. The power of light emitted can be controlled by the intensity of the laser beam. If the power falls enough, it causes a 'dark patch' that is smaller than the wavelength of the laser light itself. These dark patches can be used as masks, which can be applied to a surface, said a Toms Hardware report.
The MIT Researchers opine that this invention can help in constructing semiconductors with much finer structures than what is possible today. MIT said that there could also be an opportunity to apply this technology in photonic devices.
Can you imagine a solar cell taking energy from water? If you think its weird, you need to think again. Phil Pauley, a British industrial designer, has already done this. Pauley has designed Marine Solar Cells, which are capable of taking energy from both the sun and the sea water on which it floats.
The designer was successful in doing this with the help of a web of energy generators. With the web of energy generators, he made it possible to capture energy off-shore, as he cleverly combined floating photovoltaics and natural buoyancy displacement.
According to an Ubergizmo report, the reflective nature of water enables the solar component’s efficiency to be increased by another 20 per cent or so compared to having it remain stationary on land. An even more interesting fact is that the Marine Solar Cells can be manufactured by recycled materials. Because of its connection with underwater mooring, the marine solar cells can be placed just about anywhere off-shore. This can result in subsea batteries or power plants. This technology is presently in its conceptual stage.
Scientists at Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich have created a nano-ear which can trap sound waves much below the human ear can hear. With this technology, scientists have added an entirely new dimension to the domains of acoustics and biology. This nano-ear studies sound waves emitted by micro-organisms.
A team of German engineers including Jochen Feldmann and Andrey Lutich have achieved the breakthrough. After working on the principle of sensing sound waves at nano level, the two scientists have come to the conclusion that if gold nano particles are used along with lasers, an instrument which has sensitivity 6 magnitudes less than human ears can be created.
The duo used a beam of laser at specific point in this experiment. They created an electric field with the network of lasers. According to a report, this makes the electric dipole moment attract nearest nano particle in the Web so created.
The frequency of the sound waves making vibrations in nano-particles is sensed and related to sound waves of a particular frequency. The engineers claim that with this nano-ear, one can hear sense sound as low as -60dB.
Undergraduate students are encouraged to participate in the development of gravitational-wave astronomy through the LIGO Project. This intensive summer program takes place each year at Caltech, funded in part through the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program of the National Science Foundation. Undergraduate students from all institutions (both U.S. and foreign) are invited to apply to the LIGO Summer Undergraduate Research Program. Research awards include a summer stipend and some funding for travel to Caltech as needed.
The LIGO Project is an NSF-supported endeavor to design, build, and operate an astrophysical observatory for the detection and study of gravitational radiation. The observatory includes two sites (Hanford, Washington and Livingston Parish, Louisiana) with laser interferometric detector systems. (More information on LIGO can be found on the LIGO home page, and from "LIGO: The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory," A. Abramovici, et al., Science, 256, 325, 1992.) The aim of the LIGO Summer Undergraduate Research Program is to organize the participation of undergraduate students in research associated with the LIGO Project.
LIGO research projects may cover many areas of science and engineering related to the detection of gravitational radiation, including:
Laboratory projects in mechanical, laser, optical, and electronic systems
Modeling and analysis of optomechanical systems
Software development projects
Modeling of astrophysical sources of gravitational radiation
The LIGO Summer Program runs from approximately June 18 through August 24, 2012 (exact dates are not yet known, but will be posted here shortly). These dates are somewhat flexible, depending on a student's particular circumstances. It is also possible to work longer than the standard 10 weeks of the program (for more pay), if this is arranged in advance.
Tegra 3 comes with DIDIM technology which optimises the energy use per pixel, per frame and hence the end result in battery saving is huge.
If you're waiting for Transformer Prime, HTC Quattro or other Tegra 3 devices, you'd already be thinking about how the quad core would impact battery life. Most users think quad core would use every possible bit of battery life available faster than dual core devices do, but Tegra 3 is going to be different.
Chief executive officer of Nvidia, Jen Hsun, said, "We save as much power in the backlight without changing the visual fidelity at all to save, essentially, the entire power used by our chip."
The touchscreen uses much of the phone's power. Tegra 3 comes with DIDIM technology which optimises the energy use per pixel, per frame and hence the end result in battery saving is huge.
The technology adjusts the backlight of images on the screen to save battery. When the processor is fully active, it consumes only 1-2 Watt. The display consumes 3-6 Watt as per brightness, so the DIDIM technology saves more power than the Tegra 3 CPU uses.
Can you think of dipping your mobile phone in water? No. But now, you can use water to charge your cell phone. A Swedish company MyFC will be launching a device at the Consumer Electronics Show 2012 that converts hydrogen into electricity. The device PowerTrekk is a fuel-cell charger that uses plain tap water to charge mobile devices.
The PowerTrekk is said to be the world's first portable fuel cell. It can be used as a portable battery pack as well as a fuel cell. As a portable battery pack, it can be used as a ready source of power or storage buffer for the fuel cell. While as a fuel cell it enables instant charging from a depleted battery state. A user just has to add water to the fuel tray after inserting a fuel pack. Users can connect devices like mobile phones, cameras and GPS devices to the PowerTrekk via a USB port.
"PowerTrekk has a competitive edge over traditional portable chargers. Fuel-cell power is generated immediately and charging is not impacted by weather or the position of the sun, as for solar panels. Compared with battery-powered travel chargers, PowerTrekk offers reliable charging as the fuel packs do not deplete as batteries do," said Björn Westerholm, CEO, MyFC.
The company has not yet announced the pricing of PowerTrekk which will be demonstrated at the CES this month.
Ears are really a great part of our body.When you are relaxed or bored, the ears lie flat, when you are concentrating or focused they perk up, and even wiggle if you are amused.
The "Necomimi", which means "cat's ears" in Japanese, were launched in May but are set to go on sale at the end of the year, and were picked byTimemagazine as one of the year's 50 best inventions.
The invention's goals are simple - it has two brain-wave sensors that can detect and interpret what you are thinking, and show it through four movements.
"We were exploring new ways of communicating and we thought it would be interesting to use brainwaves," Kana Nakano of Neurowear told Agence France-Press this year."Because the sensors must be attached to the head, we tried to come up with something cute and catchy."
While having brainwave sensors attached to a pair of fluffy ears may seem frivolous, it is one example of the increasing accessibility of such technology, and how it can be used not just for high-end medical equipment, but also for children's toys and games.
The catch, though, is that accurately reading EEG (encephalogram) signals, which these technologies are attempting to do, can be difficult because of the amount of "noise" a brain generates.
Associate Professor Ross Cunnington of the Queensland Brain Institute, who is developing brain computer interfaces for communication, said the industry was moving in two streams.
"We're really going to have this split - the gimmicky toys and games that will get just more reliable and the medical-type applications, which is more challenging because they will never be used until they are entirely reliable."At the moment, that's entirely within a research field. But what's coming out of the research field is driving a lot of the commercial applications in gaming and toys."
Associate Professor Cunnington said the key to improving the technology was data. The more data is fed into these systems, the more accurate they become in reading EEG signals, he said, adding that the main costs were associated with the development of signal processing.
"The technology really relies on the computer learning. What is the pattern that represents happy? What is a pattern that represents sad? And those patterns are going to differ a lot between individual people."One of the big applications currently is detecting drowsiness or fatigue in people driving, especially truck drivers. That's also proved incredibly difficult to work reliably enough that the driver will wear it and use it.
"In a toy or a game, not having 100 per cent reliability is not a problem ... In situations where there is safety involved, it's really important that it works."
This year, German scientists announced they were working on a system that harnesses a driver's brainwaves to control their car's emergency braking system.
In Japan, developers from car manufacturer Nissan and Swiss University Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne are using technology developed for disabled people to manipulate their wheelchairs to create a car that can be driven with just the mind.
And in Australia, Emotiv Systems has for some time been selling a wireless headset for people to play computer games using their thoughts alone.
For all music lovers here is something you will definitely like to purchase : A T-Shirt With Built-In Electronic Drum
ThinkGeek has come up with a unique t-shirt featuring a built-in electronic drum machine. The t-shirt, known as the Electronic Drum Machine Shirt, works with the help of a drum machine, looper and nine different drum kits with seven professional grade sounds each. These sounds include labelled Rock Drums, Retro 808, Discotek, Techno Punk, Classic Jazz, Bass Invaders, Chiptune, Zapf Dingbeats and Scratchy.
According to a report by The Inquisitr, anyone who wears the shirt can loop sounds together and then build and layer beats over an unlimited number of tracks up to three minutes in length. The users can enjoy the ability to produce sounds from all seven pads at once if they choose or while pressing any combination of multiple pads at one time with the polyphonic capabilities of the t-shirt.
It comes with a mini amp and an analogue audio output jack to play back music in real time. The shirt requires four AA batteries. Users can remove the drumpads to wash the t-shirt. It is priced at $30.
Solar power is gaining much power. A study conducted by International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) says that solar power may be deployed in space but it will take at least three decades to do so. It is believed to help overcome the drawbacks of the power sector that we face today, while accepting solar energy as sustainable and reliable source of energy.
The study conducted on ten nations in three years revealed that a space based solar power plant is such a solution, which is technically and economically feasible. The satellites would be established in particular orbits, which can harvest the solar energy in space. This energy will then be converted into electricity in the satellite itself and transmitted to earth via LASERS or large microwave transmitting antennas, said a report.
The present solar energy harvesting systems are not reliable. The report cites the variation in intensity of sun depending upon place, time and season as a major reason for this. The power from satellites can be used 24X7 without interruption and will remove unreliability.
Researchers will have to struggle for this project of space based power plants. The initial funding could be an issue. The governments in India and U.S. have shown interest in this project, which may solve this issue along with funds from the private sector. The exact figures of funding is however, not disclosed.
If the space based solar plants become a reality, it will be able to generate twice the amount of energy as generated using earth based power-plants.
Your favourite animation is about to become reality...at least for Gundam. A Japanese research firm is currently developing a 13-foot working, wearable Gundam tribute robot. Hajime Sakamoto, president, Hajime Research Institute is working to make a dream Gundam robot dedicated to the anime fans.
Development on the 13-foot mobile robot suit began in 2010, though the company has been manufacturing humanoid robots since 2002. As far as the size goes, the robots are getting larger. In 2007, Hajime Robot 25 was three feet tall, in 2009 robot 33 was seven feet tall and so on. The giant humanoid robot from the firm is the largest in the world and will be able to do bipedal walking.
The company is currently looking for sponsors who can provide an assisting hand in the project. The 13-foot Gundam tribute may seem amazing enough, but Hajime Sakamoto has bigger plans for the future. Hajime, being a devout fan of Gundam, aims to make a working version of the now-disassembled, 59-foot giant mecha in Shizuoka, which was created as part of the anime series’ 30th anniversary. He plans on creating a 26-foot robot to lead up to the final giant Gundam suit, which the company president hopes to complete in eight years, just in time for the Gundam series’ 40th anniversary.
A demonstration from the Sony company shows off a much more useful product - battery that can 'digest' waste paper and turn it into energy.
As we know In 2007, Sony demonstrated a Walkman that used a similar bio battery that generated electricity by "digesting" food, just like humans do.
But a new demonstration at Eco-Products 2011 in Tokyo shows off a much more useful product, the Daily Mail reported.
The prototype - on show at Eco-Products 2011 in Tokyo, shows how it could be possible to use enzymes to 'break down' waste paper into a fuel we can use. The prototype generates enough energy to power a (very) small fan.
The process is unlike conventional batteries - and initially at least, much more like the action of a digestive system. A digestive enzyme, cellulase, 'breaks down' the cellulose in paper into glucose, a sugar that Sony's 'bio batteries' can use as fuel. The company claims that the paper-powered battery can generate electricity up to 18wh which is enough to power a (very) small fan. The process is much more like the action of a digestive system, said Chisato Kitsukawa, a public relations manager at Sony. "This is the same mechanism with which termites eat wood to get energy," Kitsukawa was quoted as saying.
The company's bio batteries are now so advanced that the company showed off one thin enough to fit inside a greetings card alongside the paper-digesting battery.
It uses fruit juice for fuel, and can generate enough power to play a melody from inside the car.
As it stands, though, the 'paper-eating' battery can only generate a very small amount of power.
Although Kitsukawa said. It is currently sufficient to run digital music players but not powerful enough to replace commonly used batteries, he added.
Have you ever heard about a Camera that can even capture the photons at a very fast rate of Trillion-Frame-Per-Second ? Yes, you heard it right. Now we can capture the video of the fastest known particle in the universe, the photons.This virtual slow motion camera captures the video of photons traversing through space. This high-speed camera is more than enough to produce a slow motion video of light travelling through objects.
Engineers at MIT have built a camera that captures one trillion exposures per second. The camera is capable of capturing the movement of light beam through a one litre bottle. Andreas Velten, one of the developers of this new camera system, terms the innovation as the 'ultimate' in slow motion capture. He says that there's nothing in our Universe that looks fast to this camera.
The camera consists of an array of 500 sensors, which are triggered at almost trillions of a second delay. Titanium sapphire laser is used as the light source in this camera. The works upon an innovative technology called the streak camera.
According to the details available on the MIT website, "The system relies on streak camera, deployed in a totally unexpected way. The aperture of the streak camera is a narrow slit. Particles of light--photons--enter the camera through the slit and pass through an electric field that deflects them in a direction perpendicular to the slit. Because the electric field is changing very rapidly, it deflects late-arriving photons more than it does early-arriving ones. The image produced by the camera is thus two-dimensional, but only one of the dimensions--the one corresponding to the direction of the slit--is spatial. The other dimension, corresponding to the degree of deflection, is time. The image thus represents the time of arrival of photons passing through a one-dimensional slice of space."
Since the basics of consumer photography depends on lighting effects, photographers have faced a lot of difficulties setting expensive and sophisticated light sources at the correct angles. This device can ease these problems as it can capture photons that are moving through space, and analyze its movement. This helps the photographer to develop better photos, rather than the ones that were caught with lighting effects, by installing expensive light sources. By using this camera, we can analyze how light will scatter inside the human body.
The camera can be used in laboratories where the motion of light needs to be captured. But there is a serious drawback in the camera. The statement says, "To produce their super-slow-mo videos, Velten, Media Lab Associate Professor Ramesh Raskar and Moungi Bawendi, the Lester Wolfe Professor of Chemistry, must perform the same experiment--such as passing a light pulse through a bottle--over and over, continually repositioning the streak camera to gradually build up a two-dimensional image. Synchronising the camera and the laser that generates the pulse, so that the timing of every exposure is the same, requires a battery of sophisticated optical equipment and exquisite mechanical control. It takes only a nanosecond--a billionth of a second--for light to scatter through a bottle, but it takes about an hour to collect all the data necessary for the final video. For that reason, Raskar calls the new system the world's slowest fastest camera."
OnceCalifornian biologist Andrew Hessel said, 'Cells are living computers and DNA is a programming language,' but warns that this could lead to viruses and bacteria used to 'hack' human minds.
The field of 'synthetic biology' is in its infancy. We can 'tweak' the genetics of life forms - but billionaire entrepreneur Craig Venter only created 'artificial life' for the first time last year, christening his life form 'Synthia'.
But experts working within the field believe that our expertise is out-accelerating natural evolution by a factor of millions of years - and some warn that synthetic biology could spin out of control.
It could lead, says Andrew Hessel of Singularity University, on Nasa's research campus, to a world where hackers could engineer viruses or bacteria to control human minds.
Hessel believes that genetic engineering is the next frontier of computing.
'This is one of the most powerful technologies in the world,' says Hessel 'Synthetic biology - the writing of life.'
'I advocate that cells are living computers and DNA is a programming language.'
'I want to see life programmed and used to solve global challenges so that humanity can achieve a sustainable relationship within the biosphere,' he says.It's growing fast. It will grow faster than computer technologies.'
He predicts a world where we can 'print' DNA, and even 'decode' it. But he warned, in a speech at technology conference TXM, that viruses and bacteria send chemicals into human brains - and could be used to influence, or even 'control' their host.
A literal virus - injected into a 'host' in the guise of a vaccine, say - could be used to control behaviour.
Hessel warns that we 'may have to learn how to counterattack' against such weapons.
Security expert Marc Goodman said, 'Synthetic biology will lead to new forms of bioterrorism,' and said, 'Bio-crime today is akin to computer crime in the early Eighties, Few initially recognised the problem - but it grew exponentially.'
When billionaire entrepreneur Craig Venter 'created life' last year by adding synthetic DNA to a bacteria cell, Professor Julian Savulescu, an Oxford University ethicist, said: 'Venter is creaking open the most profound door in humanity's history, potentially peeking into its destiny.This could be used in the future to make the most powerful bioweapons imaginable. The challenge is to eat the fruit without the worm.'
Hessel, however, is generally optimistic about the future of synthetic biology.
The scientist - who had a vasectomy because he 'never trusted the process' of natural reproduction, says, 'We are going to make synthetic genomes - human genomes. It will make cloning look organic. It will make human reproduction look quaint.'
Computer World blogger Darlene Storm says, 'I know people who can't even keep their computers protected, updated and patched - I wonder if they would be more security minded when the hacking could be lethal?'
Have you ever imagined a Flash Chip that can store up to 128-GigaBit of data but of size even less than our fingertip?
If you haven't then you must know thatIntel and Micron Technology have launched what is claimed to be the world's first 20 nanometre (nm), 128 gigabit (Gb), multilevel-cell (MLC) device. The companies also announced mass production of their 64Gb 20nm NAND. The new 20nm monolithic 128Gb device is said to be the first in the industry to enable a terabit (Tb) of data storage in a fingertip-size package by using just eight die.
It has been developed through Intel and Micron's joint-development venture, IM Flash Technologies (IMFT).
The 128Gb device provides twice the storage capacity and performance of the companies' existing 20nm 64Gb NAND device. It meets the ONFI 3.0 specification to achieve speeds of 333 megatransfers per second (MT/s). With these features, the chip provides customers with a cost-effective solid-state storage solution for today's slim, sleek product designs.
"As portable devices get smaller and sleeker, and server demands increase, our customers look to Micron for innovative new storage technologies and system solutions that meet these challenges," said Glen Hawk, vice president of Micron's NAND Solutions Group. "Our collaboration with Intel continues to deliver leading NAND technologies and expertise that are critical to building those systems."
The companies revealed that their 20nm NAND uses a planar cell structure which allows individual memory cells to scale much smaller than before. It breaks the scaling constraints of the standard NAND floating gate cell by integrating the first Hi-K/metal gate stack on NAND production.
Imagine tapping into the mind of a coma patient, or watching one’s own dream on YouTube. With a cutting-edge blend of brain imaging and computer simulation, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are bringing these futuristic scenarios within reach.
Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational models, UC Berkeley researchers have succeeded in decoding and reconstructing people’s dynamic visual experiences – in this case, watching Hollywood movie trailers.
As yet, the technology can only reconstruct movie clips people have already viewed. However, the breakthrough paves the way for reproducing the movies inside our heads that no one else sees, such as dreams and memories, according to researchers.
“This is a major leap toward reconstructing internal imagery,” said Professor Jack Gallant, a UC Berkeley neuroscientist and coauthor of the study published online today (Sept. 22) in the journal Current Biology. “We are opening a window into the movies in our minds.”
Eventually, practical applications of the technology could include a better understanding of what goes on in the minds of people who cannot communicate verbally, such as stroke victims, coma patients and people with neurodegenerative diseases.
It may also lay the groundwork for brain-machine interface so that people with cerebral palsy or paralysis, for example, can guide computers with their minds.
However, researchers point out that the technology is decades from allowing users to read others’ thoughts and intentions, as portrayed in such sci-fi classics as “Brainstorm,” in which scientists recorded a person’s sensations so that others could experience them.
Previously, Gallant and fellow researchers recorded brain activity in the visual cortex while a subject viewed black-and-white photographs. They then built a computational model that enabled them to predict with overwhelming accuracy which picture the subject was looking at.
In their latest experiment, researchers say they have solved a much more difficult problem by actually decoding brain signals generated by moving pictures.
“Our natural visual experience is like watching a movie,” said Shinji Nishimoto, lead author of the study and a post-doctoral researcher in Gallant’s lab. “In order for this technology to have wide applicability, we must understand how the brain processes these dynamic visual experiences.”
Nishimoto and two other research team members served as subjects for the experiment, because the procedure requires volunteers to remain still inside the MRI scanner for hours at a time.
They watched two separate sets of Hollywood movie trailers, while fMRI was used to measure blood flow through the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes visual information. On the computer, the brain was divided into small, three-dimensional cubes known as volumetric pixels, or “voxels.”
“We built a model for each voxel that describes how shape and motion information in the movie is mapped into brain activity,” Nishimoto said.
The brain activity recorded while subjects viewed the first set of clips was fed into a computer program that learned, second by second, to associate visual patterns in the movie with the corresponding brain activity.
Brain activity evoked by the second set of clips was used to test the movie reconstruction algorithm. This was done by feeding 18 million seconds of random YouTube videos into the computer program so that it could predict the brain activity that each film clip would most likely evoke in each subject.
Finally, the 100 clips that the computer program decided were most similar to the clip that the subject had probably seen were merged to produce a blurry yet continuous reconstruction of the original movie.
Reconstructing movies using brain scans has been challenging because the blood flow signals measured using fMRI change much more slowly than the neural signals that encode dynamic information in movies, researchers said. For this reason, most previous attempts to decode brain activity have focused on static images.
“We addressed this problem by developing a two-stage model that separately describes the underlying neural population and blood flow signals,” Nishimoto said.
Ultimately, Nishimoto said, scientists need to understand how the brain processes dynamic visual events that we experience in everyday life.
“We need to know how the brain works in naturalistic conditions,” he said. “For that, we need to first understand how the brain works while we are watching movies.”
Other coauthors of the study are Thomas Naselaris with UC Berkeley’s Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute; An T. Vu with UC Berkeley’s Joint Graduate Group in Bioengineering; and Yuval Benjamini and Professor Bin Yu with the UC Berkeley Department of Statistics.
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