To: Jeffre E stein 'eevacation©gmail.com] From: Sent: hur 11/1 / 010 :26:07 PM Subject: do you think this is true? i don't.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20023112-247.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

.. Researchers at the <u>Stanford University School of Medicine</u> have spent the past few years engineering a new imaging model, which they call <u>array tomograohv,</u> in conjunction with novel computational software, to stitch together image slices into a three-dimensional image that can be rotated, penetrated and navigated. Their work appears <u>in the journal Neuron</u> this week.

To test their model, the team took tissue samples from a mouse whose brain had been bioengineered to make larger neurons in the cerebral cortex express a fluorescent protein (found in jellyfish), making them glow yellow-green. Because of this glow, the researchers were able to see synapses against the background of neurons.

They found that the brain's complexity is beyond anything they'd imagined, almost to the point of being beyond belief, says Stephen Smith, a professor of molecular and cellular physiology and senior author of the paper describing the study:

One synapse, by itself, is more like a microprocessor--with both memory-storage and information-processing elements--than a mere on/off switch. In fact, one synapse may contain on the order of 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A single human brain has more switches than all the computers and routers and Internet connections on Earth.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20023112-247.html#ixzz15akC5VMh