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Upgrade Your Brain: Liquid Hard Drive Implants Could Increase Intellect
Researchers have discovered a novel way of storing data in liquid, potentially paving the way for biocompatible brain implants.
Storing photos, documents and other files in brain-implantable liquid could one day be a reality after researchers discovered a new method of storing data in microscopic particles suspended in a solution.
Scientists at the University of Michigan realised that digital information could be stored on colloidal clusters after observing them switch between two states - such as the 0s and 1s of traditional bits - when placed in a liquid.
A research paper detailing the team's findings, entitled Digital Colloids: Reconfigurable Clusters as High Information Density Elements, was recently published in the journal Soft Matter.
"We wanted to demonstrate that it would be possible to store information in a new way that's different to traditional silicon chips by using nanoparticles," Sharon Glotzer, a chemical engineer at the University of Michigan who led the research, tells IBTimes UK.
Glotzer uses the analogy of a Rubik's cube to describe how the storage works. If you imagine nanoparticles like the colours of the cube, all are attached to a central sphere that could twist and turn in different ways in order to arrange all of them.
"If we could enumerate all of those different patterns - or states - and understand how you can go from one state to another, then it would be possible to encode information," says Glotzer. "The more colours you can have, the more states you can have, and the more states you can have, the more information you can store."
In theory, a spoonful of water containing these nanoparticles could store up to a terabytes worth of data.
Brain implants
This novel type of data storage, referred to by Glotzer as "wet computing", is able to make use of biocompatible nanoparticles that could be used within - and in tandem with - the human body.
One practical application could be simply as a sensor. Nanoparticle clusters could be introduced into the bloodstream to detect, for example, glucose levels in order to assist diabetes sufferers.
Another implementation, which could potentially be realised within a few years, would be as "passive sensors". These could replace use-by-dates on food wrappers by signaling when food is spoiled by changing colour.
"This field of wet computing is so nascent, it's really at the very beginning and so this digital coloid idea is really just the first tiny step in a new direction and a new approach to computing and high density information storage," Glotzer says. "It could make it possible for having different kinds of human computer interfaces or biologically friendly neural implants."
Although Glotzer acknowledges that such ideas are purely speculative for the moment, these neural implants could potentially be used to assist the human brain in accessing additional information or calculating computational tasks without needing to touch a calculator. This would allow individuals to learn and absorb information at unprecedented rates.
"Of course, that would take all the fun out of reading books and working things out yourself," says Glotzer. "But you could learn stuff super fast."
Source: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/upgrade-your-brain-liquid-hard-drive-implants-could-increase-intellect-1458374
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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