Funding for the project is being requested by NASA to the US Congress during this year to become effective for the 1999 budget. The Microprocessor Laboratory contribution to the collaborations is its pioneering work done in the development of gamma-ray telescopes using silicon strip technology. Medusa is in its third and last year of funding. We plan to continue asking funds from INFN to develop a chip to implement a novel parallel sorting algorithm invented at the Laboratory. This chip is needed to collect all the events registered asynchronously in different places of the telescope and at different times.
Many fluorescent dyes attach to biological components such as cellular membranes.
It is possible to observe the signal of these dyes by shinning light into the sample and observing at 90o the fluorescence light. Some of these dyes change their property of absorbing or emitting light at a certain frequency if a strong electric field is applied to the molecule. Such a strong electric field exists between the two sides of a neurone when a potential pulse passes by. Although the potential drop between the two sides is in the mV range, when divided by the thickness of the wall it gives a strong electric field. Hence, it is natural to think that it is possible to see potential pulses going through the length of, for example, and axon by observing blobs darker or lighter than the quiescent state of fluorescence of the membrane.