April 2020 – GerbilJail.com

2020-02-17 Martijn van Wezel

The SNNs bio-inspired neural networks are different from conventional neural networks due that the conventional neural networks communicate with numbers. Instead, SNNs communicate through spikes. … Having multiple spikes in a short period can stimulate the neuron to fire. However, if the time periods are to big between spikes, the neuron lose interest, and goes to sleep again.

… one major benefit of a Spiking Neural Networks is the power consumption. A ‘normal’ neural network uses big GPUs or CPUs that draw hundreds of Watts of power. SNN only uses for the same network size just a few nano Watts.

https://martijnvwezel.com/blogs/spiking_neural_networks/

2020-03-20 Pall Thordarson

Alcohol-based disinfectants are also effective, but soap is a highly efficient way of killing the virus when it’s on your skin

… Health authorities have been giving us two messages: once you have the virus there are no drugs that can kill it or help you get rid of it. But also, wash your hands to stop the virus spreading. This seems odd. You can’t, even for a million dollars, get a drug for the coronavirus – but your grandmother’s bar of soap kills the virus.

So why does soap work so well on the Sars-CoV-2, the coronavirus and indeed most viruses? The short story: because the virus is a self-assembled nanoparticle in which the weakest link is the lipid (fatty) bilayer. Soap dissolves the fat membrane and the virus falls apart like a house of cards and dies – or rather, we should say it becomes inactive as viruses aren’t really alive.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/12/science-soap-kills-coronavirus-alcohol-based-disinfectants

Month: April 2020

Spiking Neural Networks

The science of soap – here’s how it kills the coronavirus