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who have shown how networks of artificial neurons containing two Josephson junctions would outpace more traditional computer-simulated brains by many orders of magnitude. Studying such junction-based systems could improve our understanding of long-term learning and memory along with factors that may contribute to disorders like epilepsy.

The existing design does not permit learning since the weighting of connections between synapses cannot be changed over time, but Segall believes that if this feature can be added then their neurons might allow a lifetime's worth of learning to be simulated in five or ten minutes. This, he adds, should help us to understand how learning changes with age and might give us clues as to how long-term disorders like Parkinson's disease develops.

Most of these devices have been able to identify and distinguish only between specific odors they've previously been trained to recognize, however, says neuroscientist Rafi Haddad of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. If an artificial nose is ever to replace the real thing, he says, it will have to be able to classify odors it has never encountered before.

In recent years, researchers have created early versions of "invisibility cloaks" and advanced optical fibers by manipulating light using structures composed of tiny, repeating units. In the 9 April Physical Review Letters, a team proposes a different way to make an artificial optical material--from a network of light-guiding filaments. If such structures are practical, they could open new ways to control light in technologies ranging from high-speed telecommunication to high-resolution imaging.