The concept of extra dimensions, dismissed as nonsense even by one of its earliest proponents nearly nine decades ago, may soon help solve seemingly unrelated problems in particle physics, cosmology and gravitational physics, according to a panel of experts who spoke Feb. 15 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Denver.

"It doesn't happen often that you get a confluence of ideas and experiments that come together and it's something that obviously would change your whole way of looking at the universe," said one of the panelists, Joseph Lykken, Professor in Physics at the University of Chicago and a scientist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Researchers at Infineon Technologies AG in Germany have developed new semiconductor technology that will allow scientists to read electrical signals in living nerve cells, the company said on Tuesday.

Being able to read and record the signals, with the aid of computers, will help scientists better understand how the brain works and could eventually lead to treatments for neurological diseases, like Alzheimer's, said Roland Thewes, senior director in corporate research at Munich-based Infineon.

"For example, you could put slices from brain nerve cells on the chip, apply drugs and see how the nerve signals" and cells react to a particular drug, he said in an interview.

Infineon researchers worked with scientists at the Max Planck Institute, located outside Munich, on the new biosensor chip, dubbed the "Neuro-Chip."

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Two thousand years from now future generations may be studying everything about your daily life — from your choice of breakfast cereal to the naughty Web sites you perused today.

A new Microsoft research project, called MyLifeBits, is designed to record every aspect of a person's life to a hard drive — from photos and home videos to phone calls made, e-mail sent, and Web pages visited.

"This is a journey that we're taking. It became really a quest to essentially cyberize everything," says Gordon Bell, a pioneer in the field of personal computers who is heading up MyLifeBits. "I want to ... essentially use it as my surrogate memory."

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