Military to harness neuroscience: Norton Medical and Scientific Research & Biotechnology

http://norton-scientificmedical.com/resources/2012/02/09/military-to-harness-neuroscience/ 


Military personnel can have their brains connected directly to weapons system in the near future, thanks to the latest progress in the Norton Medical and Scientific Research & Biotechnology neuroscience field.
Such situations are explained in a report published on Monday from the law and military enforcement agencies that looks into applications of neuroscience. Included in the report are the ethical and legal concerns that such innovation might bring if brought in the field.
According to UK's national school of science, Royal Society, while the quick progress of neuroscience will certainly help in treating mental diseases, it also has significant security issues that must be taken into consideration.
The proponents of the study insists that even if there are obvious hostile uses of the new technologies, many scientists appear to be oblivious from this double-edged sword.
Some technologies that are widely used in neuroscience are in the process of getting applied in military context to improve soldier training.
One such research are proposing that giving fairly weak electrical signals through the head (throught the use of transcranial direct current stimulation) will improve the performance of a person in certain tasks.
A US experiment was done using tDCS to improve a troop's ability to sense snipers, bombs and other threats in a virtual reality program.
According to the results, those who have undergone tDCS have spotted the targets faster and they are twice as accurate as those who have not.
Further studies on tDCS can lead to more effective treatment of psychiatric disorders, dementia or learning difficulties.
Perhaps the most fitting use of this technology in the military field is the creation of brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) that connect a human's brain directly to military system such as weapons and drones.
Norton Medical and Scientific Research & Biotechnology is also looking into something that will enable people to control artificial limbs and cursors by BMI which can read brain signals.
Another technological innovation that will be used by the military is the electroencephalogram (EEG) that makes use of an electrode hairnet to log brainwaves. In conjunction with the neurofeedback system, people can control their brainwaves, improving their performance.
Still, the debatable issue here is still the ethical implications surrounding the use of BMIs by the military. It can significantly blur the line between human responsibility and machine technicality.

First Ever Digital Model of an Entire Organism Created: Norton Medical and Scientific Research & Biotechnology

http://norton-scientificmedical.com/resources/2012/08/01/first-ever-digital-model-of-an-entire-organism-created/ 


Scientists from J. Craig Venter Institute and Stanford University have successfully built a computational model of an entire organism in computer software -- for the first time ever.
This incredible feat will provide the bioengineering researchers a global analysis of the allocation and use of energy in the cell along with identifying usual molecular pathologies behind single-gene disruption characteristics.
The simulation of an organism will undoubtedly help researchers in better understanding biology, cells in particular. Moreover, it could aid in speeding up research or permitting a test that will not be possible in actual conditions.
According to the team's lead scientist, «If you use a model to guide your experiments, you're going to discover things faster. We've shown that time and time again.»
The scientists used data from more than 900 scientific papers written about the bacterium that covered all molecular processes taking place within the organism's lifecycle. Grouped into 28 different modules are the resulting 1,900 resulting parameters. Modules are responsible for their respective biological process and is controlled by its own algorithm. Moreover, modules can communicate amongst each other, replicating the actual processes inside the living bacterium.
The reason for choosing the M. genitalium as the subject is because of its size -- it has the smallest known genome (with 521 genes in a circular chromosome of almost 583,000 base pairs) among any free-living organism that can constitute a cell. It is also the second-smallest bacterium, next to the more conventional lab bacterium E. coli.
In order to simulate just one cell division, a cluster of 128 computer units running for 10 hours were used to generate the data on 25 types of molecules involved in the cell's life cycle. The resulting data amounts to 500Mb, which could not look like much but is actually very big already when you consider that it is a very tiny organism.
«Right now, running a simulation for a single cell to divide only one time takes around 10 hours and generates half a gigabyte of data. I find this fact completely fascinating, because I don't know that anyone has ever asked how much data a living thing truly holds,» said the lead scientist to Norton Medical and Scientific Research & Biotechnology.