Taiwanese scientists have developed the world’s first ultra-high-speed four-dimensional microscope in a breakthrough that enables the observation of electric activity in living neurons.
A multidisciplinary group of researchers from National Taiwan University (NTU) and National Tsing Hua University created the technology and published a study on it with a government grant, the team told a news conference at the National Science and Technology Council yesterday.
The device is thousands of times faster than traditional microscopes and uses artificial intelligence (AI) to increase the image resolution by 10 times, study coauthor and NTU physics professor Chu Shi-wei (朱士維) said.
Photo courtesy of the National Science and Technology Council
The technology represents a leap forward in speed, resolution and image range enabling neural signal transmission to be observed with great detail in real time, compared with existing electronic microscopes that can observe only nonliving specimens, he said.
Using the novel microscope, the team monitored the brain activity of mice to discover that neurons governing motor functions were distributed in parallel, he said.
The arrangement implied that neurons can function independently or be combined to create motor movement patterns, similar to graphics processing units in computers, he said.
That means transmitting a similar signal to different neural networks would lead to distinct results in the cellular body, Chu said.
The microscope’s unprecedented capability can potentially be applied to the observation of electric signals in the human brain to benefit researchers working in neurobiology and AI-related fields, he said.
The human brain’s remarkable energy efficiency would be of interest to chipmakers to reduce the power consumption in servers, he said.
NTU professor of pharmacology Pan Ming-kai (潘明楷) said the human brain uses as little as the equivalent of 12 watts of electricity compared with generative AI, which requires up to 2 megawatts.
The microscope could additionally be used in the study of epilepsy, tremors or dementia, he added.
The study was published last month in the journal Advanced Science.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
Japan and the Philippines yesterday signed a defense pact that would allow the tax-free provision of ammunition, fuel, food and other necessities when their forces stage joint training to boost deterrence against China’s growing aggression in the region and to bolster their preparation for natural disasters. Japan has faced increasing political, trade and security tensions with China, which was angered by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remark that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a survival-threatening situation for Japan, triggering a military response. Japan and the Philippines have also had separate territorial conflicts with Beijing in the East and South China
RSS