A new AI passes the smell test almost 100% of the time
Our remarkable olfactory senses are modeled in a new research chip.
- Two researchers have created an algorithm that can accurately identify 10 different smells.
- The AI algorithm runs on an Intel chip that has 130,000 silicon "neurons."
- The natural mammalian olfactory bulb grows new neurons even in adults.
- Asian elephants often leave protected areas to feed and come into conflict with humans.
- The elephants, it turns out, can recognize the largest quantities of food by smell.
- This insight could lead to keeping Asian elephants out of harm's way via redirection using olfactory cues.
Too much Christmas music can damage your mental health
Did you know? Looped music has been used a means of torture.
- It's that time of year again, when we start hearing Christmas music at every store we go to.
- Studies show that hearing Christmas songs too many times increases stress.
- Maybe wait a few weeks before you start playing "Frosty The Snowman" everywhere you go, if you value your sanity.
People with superior sense of smell are better navigators, study reveals
Follow your nose all the way home.
- It has to do with two parts of the brain, both of which are thicker in those with better smell and spacial recognition.
- Your nose can detect about 1 trillion smells.
- While your nose isn't a full GPS, it can help you pick out a general direction.
How Sound and Smell Cues Can Enhance Learning While You Sleep
Neuroscientists are now starting to put TMR to work.
My mother is one of five children, so she has plenty of stories about her and her siblings’ misadventures. One of my favourites revolves around my ‘weird’ Uncle Dorsey and his early scientific endeavours. When my mom was about eight years old, her older brother slipped a tape player under her bed every night to quietly play a reading of the poem ‘The Raven’ (1845) by Edgar Allan Poe. Night after night, he would play the tape, trying to test whether she would spontaneously recite the poem from all her exposure. The way she tells it, she woke up every time the recording started to play. Sure, she can still recite the first few lines, but only because she was awakened by the poem night after night.
