We’re stumbling through a science fiction wonderland of not just high-flying communications software and tools but of the basic building blocks for the devices we use to do that communicating. The latest contender for radically-improved memory in a computer? Blood.
Researchers in Gujarat, India have created a “memristor” — a portmanteau of memory and resistor — made of human blood. A resistor is the part of a computer chip that regulates the flow of electricity. Unlike most resistors, a memristor remembers previous levels of voltage and allows for a repeat of that flow.
According to i09‘s Esther Inglis-Arkell, the memristors “can be used in logic circuits and signal processing” to improve efficiency and processing time.
HP Labs created the first functioning memristor in 2008. What was it lacking? Human blood. It was plasma-deficient in the extreme, and that was a situation that the Education Campus Changa team could not abide.
But why? WHY?! Well, according to R&D, in addition to improving speed, such an advance brings us a step closer to being able to merge the computer with the human body, and thereby to repair nervous system damage, blindness and other effects of injuries and illness.
It might also assist in the development of computer interfaces that leverage the unique capabilities of human brains. As we’ve reported elsewhere, the brain beats the stuffings out of any computer when it comes to pattern recognition, especially in quickly identifying exceptions.
The team, which consists of S.P. Kosta, Y.P. Kosta, Mukta Bhatele, Y.M. Dubey, Avinash Gaur, Shakti Kosta, Jyoti Gupta, Amit Patel and Bhavin Pat aren’t stopping with bloody resistors either. Oh, no. According to Inglis-Arkell, they are working on other projects that combine human bodily fluids with electronics. Of course that’s just the sort of thing that someone with a clearly Transylvanian surname would say, isn’t it?
Nosferatu photo by Brocco Lee | Castle photo by Fabio Venni
