A team of researchers at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Japan have come out with a technology that is allowing them to reconstruct images from inside a person's mind and display them on a computer monitor. They are indicating that in the non-so-distant future, they will be able to visualise people's dreams while they sleep. The idea behind this technology is nothing complex, and several similar experiments have been tried out in the past utilizing different machinery and sensors, but this is absolutely the first breakthrough of the sort, and an extremly promising one.

The technology utilized was the changes in the cerebral blood flow monitored by a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) Machine. The subjects were given tablets containing various images and texts (shown above and below) in tha 10 x 10 pixel matrix. 400 ot these tablents were shown to the subjects for a period of 12 seconds each, and whilst the fMRI monitored changes in brain activity, and a computer elaborated the data with each of the different designs presented. Then when the subjects were demonstrated the tablets with the words N-E-U-R-O-N, the computer was able to reconstruct the words based solely on the subjects' brain activity.

Even though at present the technology is able to reproduce only monochromatic images, Dr. Kang Cheng, a researcher from the RIKEN Brain Science Instititue, indicated that by improving measurement activity, it will be possible to reproduce images in colour. He also stated that in 10 years time, the advancements of the technology will allow us to read out a person's thoughts within a certain degree of accuracy.

But what are the applciations for such a technology? It would be possible to access quickly and easily images within artists' and designers' heads. The technology might also lead to a new approach in the treatment of some psychiatric disorders involving hallucinations, whereby doctors will be provided with a window on the mind of the patient.

That's more to it. According to the ATR chief researcher Yukiyasu Kamitani, the technology can be applied to other senses, making it possible in not such a so distant future to read feelings and complicated emotional states.

Doesn't this make the famous lie detector machine look absurdly absolete?

Nanotechnology is a branch of science that is expanding at an imporessive speed Technology as we know it today will recieve a radical change in the future, and we will start looking at life in a much different way. In this blog section, I will post all the relevant and informative topics on this hot science, and hopefully, other members in the site will follow course. As always, I'll try to make my blogs and articles easy to understand for the majoity of people, however, for this blog, a basic knowledge of physics and chemistry is required in order to understand the articles. Nonetheless, feel free to contact me if you have problems with grasping some facts. Do so via the comments section after each blog entry, so that other users will see your question and have access to my feedback. Enjoy.

In the first article dedicated to nanotechnology, I have decided to bring you one of the most promising functions of this technology - the nanocar. A group of researchers at the Faculty of Chemistry of the Rice University in Texas, leaded by Prof. James Tour (which thanks to this technology won the Feynman Prize for experimental nanotechnology this month), has constructed a nanocar, a fully operational car with a chassis, pivitong suspension system, rotating axles, 4 wheels and an engine powered by light or thermal energy, which is just 4 nanometers across. To put you in perspective ot this, if you had to park 20,000 of these nanocars side by side, they would occupy the same width as that of a human hair! As if this wasn't enough, the researchers have also built a nonotruck, capable of carrying payload, The reason for the development of such technology is simple - so that one day we can construct buildings and other large objects with molecular size vehicles.

It took the team 8 years to build the cars, and one of the most difficult parts was to attach the buckyballs (C₆₀ Fullerenes) to the vehicle. The research was time consuming because one of the targets is to have these nanovehicles capable of self assembly, and thus production in extremely high scale would be possible. The target is that within a few decades several of these vehicles' descendants (something like 10²³ or more vehicles) could be used to build skyscrapers from nanoparticles, all working in an orchestrated mode. This will work as with the same concept of the heam molecules in blood, wich each molecule carrying one Oxygen atom to the cell and a carbon dioxide atom back to the lungs. Several hundreds of billions of these atoms allow complex life forms like humans and at the extreme the blue whale, to be able to survive.

The way the nanomachines will be able to build complex structures is by mimicking the action of enzymes, which in their own way are nature's nanomachines, capable of building very complex proteins and molecules. The same principle will be utilized for complex assemblies required.

Another interesting point about the nanovehicles are that they can be powered by either heat or light. By just heating the surface that the nanocars where on, the team managed to make the nanocars move in a straight line untill they hit an object. The light motion works on the principle of photo activation. In both cases, a arm at the side of the nanocar rotates freely, pushing the nanocar forward with each revolution by using the surface as a fulcrum, sort of like a pedal hitting on a surface. Another form of motion is that of nanoworms, in which the molecules wiggle on the surface in a back and forth way when light is shone unto them.