New research suggests that intelligence is largely inherited. By using a brain-imaging scanner scientists show that intelligence is strongly influenced by the quality of the brain’s axons, or wiring that sends signals throughout the brain. 

Given that the integrity of the brain’s wiring is influenced by genes, the researchers suggest that the inheritance of genes might be more important than previously thought.

(via technologyreview.com)

Scientist are building a “neural” computer that will work similar to the brain, but at a smaller scale.

The first effort is a network of 300 artificial neurons and half a million “synapses” on a single chip.

Even though the human brain is often compared to a computer, it differs in three very important ways: it consumes very little power, it works well even if components fail, and it seems to work without any software. So how does it do it?

(via physorg.com) 

Navigation is a daunting challenge for robots. In general, robots scan the territory they are in and map it, but have trouble recognising a location they have previously seen, because of minor changes, like more cars parking. 

Now researchers have come up with a way for mapping robots to “ignore” such negligible variables by having it assign identifiers, in the form of words, as it moves around. The robot can assign up to a thousand words every two seconds to a location as it moves, with related words linked together as a “bag of words” so that if it revisits a location and sees a bicycle seat and a bicycle wheel, it identifies this bag of word as one item, preventing it from attaching too much significance to several missing items.

(via NewScientist) 

When you hear the word “jaguar”, do think of the car or of the animal? 

Research has shown that words are stored in our memories not as isolated entities but as part of a network of related words. But it is still not clear, how this word association network functions.

Quantum theory might provide an explanation: Words can become entangled in the human mental lexicon.

According to the quantum mind theory of Hameroff-Penrose (wikipedia.org) there might be quantum processes in the human brain. What do you think? 

(via physorg.com)