Tales from the Test-tube
Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have discovered that the ability of one nostril to detect a smell can be passed on to the other nostril. The chemical androstenone can't be smelt by 30% of adults. So the team took 24 subjects unable to detect the scent and exposed one nostril to the smell for ten minutes a day while blocking the other nostril. After three weeks the subjects recognised the smell twice as well, regardless of the nostril doing the sniffing.
Researchers at the University of Rome La Sapienza have reported the first realization of a quantum computer. Conventional computers encode data using the single digits 1 and 0. Each 'bit' of information can be flipped either form 0 to 1 or vice versa by a logical NOT gate, this being one of the simplest computational operations. A quantum bit (qubit) can exist in both the 1 and 0 states simultaneously; therefore perfect flipping is prevented by the laws of quantum mechanics. However, De Martini and colleagues made possible a quantum approximation to the NOT operation, thus proving that quantum computers can be as logical as conventional ones.
Two patients suffering severe obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) have had their symptoms dramatically reduced by being treated for another condition, Parkinson's disease. The treatment involves electrical stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus in the brain by electrode implants. In Parkinson sufferers, the slower waves of nerve activity that are responsible for tremors are disrupted by the high frequency pulses. This technique is a potential alternative for other OCD treatments which involve burning away parts of the brain, however most OCD patients can be successfully treated with non-invasive cognitive behavioural therapy techniques.
31st Oct 2002