Excellent news for fans of computer technology, neuroscience, and people who think that us telling the machines what to do is totally backwards.  We reported on the attempts of the Swiss Mind Brain Institute to simulate the neocortical column of the rat last May, and they've recently announced success of the first phase of their project.

They've successfully simulated the neocortical column of a rat – only afraction of a full brain, but they proved that you don't get to doworld-shattering...