• Question: Did you invent something really interesing???

    Asked by bieberarmy to Chris, Emily, Martin, Natalie, Tamsin on 24 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Martin Coath

      Martin Coath answered on 24 Mar 2010:

      We are working on some really cool stuff!

      The guys we work with in Cyprus, and Switzerland, have special silicon-chips which they can use to build computers that work like real brains! Unfortunately it is not clear how they should be wired up or how we are going to teach them anything 🙂

      Normal computers (like the one I am using now) work NOTHING LIKE real brains but we think that we can change that.

      The work I do is going to help us understand our brain (bits of it anyway) so that our friends with the fancy electronics can build electronics that is “brain-like” (we like to use the word “neuromorphic”).

      These machines will be thousands of times faster, much smarter, learn things for themselves, and run for six months on two AA batteries 😀

      As a bonus we get to learn lots of new stuff about the brain.

      I think that is interesting – do you?

    • Photo: Chris Cooper

      Chris Cooper answered on 24 Mar 2010:

      My molecular biology colleagues should some of the credit, but we did invent a mutated red protein that might be a safe artificial blood substitute. I found that interesting, but it is early days yet as to whether it will be useful.

      So maybe counts as 50% of an invention so far. Now I just need the 10 million pounds to test it out …….

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