Sunday, April 02, 2006
Brain cells meet computer chips
Becoming unglued may soon take on new meaning...
Ker Than writes for LiveScience.com:
"The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed 'neuro-chips' in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together."
"The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons."
"To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size."
"They used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells, called neurons, onto the chip."