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Babies’ poor vision may help organize visual brain pathways

Incoming information from the retina is channeled into two pathways in the brain’s visual system: one that’s responsible for processing color and fine spatial detail, and another that’s involved in spatial localization and detecting high temporal frequencies. A new study from MIT provides an account for how these two pathways may be shaped by developmental factors.

Newborns typically have poor visual acuity and poor vision because their retinal cone cells are not well-developed at birth. This means that early in life, they are seeing blurry, color-reduced imagery. The MIT team proposes that such blurry, color-limited vision may result in some specializing in low spatial frequencies and low color tuning, corresponding to the so-called magnocellular system. Later, with improved vision, cells may tune to finer details and richer color, consistent with the other pathway, known as the parvocellular system.

To test their hypothesis, the researchers trained computational models of vision on a trajectory of input similar to what human babies receive early in life—low-quality images early on, followed by full-color, sharper images later. They found that these models developed processing units with receptive fields exhibiting some similarity to the division of magnocellular and parvocellular pathways in the human visual system. Vision models trained on only high-quality images did not develop such distinct characteristics.

“There is only one interpretation of quantum mechanics” | David Deutsch FULL INTERVIEW

David Deutsch, known as the ‘father of quantum computing’, explains how accepting the reality of quantum mechanics means accepting the multiverse.

How are the branches of a multiverse different from each other?

With a free trial, you can watch David Deutsch debate infinity with George Ellis and Sara Walker at https://iai.tv/video/the-edge-of-the-universe?utm_source=You…of-reality.

The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics says that all possible outcomes of quantum measurements are physically realised in different worlds. These many worlds have proved extremely contentious, with critics arguing that they are mere fantasy. In this exclusive interview, leading physicist David Deutsch explains the philosophy behind the many-worlds interpretation and argues that not only is it the best interpretation of quantum mechanics – it is the only interpretation.

#quantum #quantummechanics #quantumphysics #quantumcomputing.

David Deutsch is a theoretical physicist best known as the founding father of quantum computation and as a key figure and advocate for the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Deutsch is a Visiting Professor of physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation and the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford University. Interviewed by Charlie Barnett, Senior Producer at the IAI.

MIT creates a pocket-sized 3D printer that prints objects in seconds

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States have created a tiny 3D printer chip-sized device that forms the necessary objects using light in a matter of seconds.

A team of researchers led by Professor Elena Nataros has created a 3D printer that emits a reconfigurable beam of light into resin to create solid forms. This tiny printer fits in the palm of your hand. It is expected that users will be able to quickly create customized, low-cost objects.

According to the developers, the system consists of a single photonic chip measuring a few millimeters, without any additional moving parts. It emits visible light into the resin, allowing for non-mechanical 3D printing.

Researchers develop two-layer neural model that matches complex visual processing in the brain

Neuroscientists want to understand how individual neurons encode information that allows us to distinguish objects, like telling a leaf apart from a rock. But they have struggled to build computational models that are simple enough to allow them to understand what individual neurons are doing.

To address this challenge, researchers in the Stringer and Pachitariu labs at Janelia set out to create a simpler model to explain what’s going on in the —the first stop in the brain for . Their paper is published in the journal Nature Communications.

“We are trying to build a model that can predict the visual responses of each individual neuron,” says Fengtong Du, a graduate student in the Stringer Lab who led the new research.

New imaging technique captures every twist of polarized light

EPFL scientists have developed a new technique that lets researchers watch, with unprecedented sensitivity, how materials emit polarized light over time.

Light isn’t just bright or dim, colored or plain. Its waves can also twist and turn, in a phenomenon called . Think about the glasses you wear at a 3D movie, which use light polarization to make each eye see a slightly different image, creating the illusion of depth.

Polarization is key for future technologies, from quantum computers to secure communication and holographic displays. Many materials emit light in ways that encode information in its polarization, as if we were using the direction of light waves to send a message. Among these phenomena is a form known as circularly polarized luminescence (CPL), a special type of light emission produced by chiral materials where light waves spiral either left or right as they travel.

DNA as a perfect quantum computer based on the quantum physics principles

I believe that dna will be able to answer just about all our genetic coding questions so much that it will lead to even better breakthroughs in the future and use hardly any energy. I believe also that the master algorithm can eventually be derived from DNA as dna seems already a perfect master algorithm for human beings where human beings are the key to all future progress. I say this as quantum computing is still not stable but we already know that dna computers seem already a masterpiece already especially even organoids of the human brain. Really it becomes really quite simple as even the quantum realm is unstable but dna computers that are quantum would stabilize this currently unstable realm.


Riera Aroche, R., Ortiz García, Y.M., Martínez Arellano, M.A. et al. DNA as a perfect quantum computer based on the quantum physics principles. Sci Rep 14, 11,636 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-62539-5

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