Scientists have built a tiny, long-term memory cell that can both store and process information at the same time, just like the human brain. This is one of the first multi-state electronic memory cells, and it represents a crucial step towards building a bionic brain. 

Not only does this new cell - which is 10,000 times thinner than a human hair - open up the potential to store and process way more data than ever before, scientists are even more excited about the fact that it has 'memristive' abilities. This means that it's able to retain remember and be influenced by information that has previously been stored on it - something that our current storage devices aren't capable of.

Scientists have built a tiny, long-term memory cell that can both store and process information at the same time, just like the human brain. This is one of the first multi-state electronic memory cells, and it represents a crucial step towards building a bionic brain. 

Not only does this new cell - which is 10,000 times thinner than a human hair - open up the potential to store and process way more data than ever before, scientists are even more excited about the fact that it has 'memristive' abilities. This means that it's able to retain remember and be influenced by information that has previously been stored on it - something that our current storage devices aren't capable of.

"This is the closest we have come to creating a brain-like system with memory that learns and stores analog information and is quick at retrieving this stored information," project leader Sharath Sriram, from RMIT University in Australia said in a press release.