102: Chapter 102 Bipolar Neurons

It was another weekend, and the atmosphere in the laboratory was heavy, with a sense of confusion and depression lingering in the air.

A week of stagnation had left everyone looking like frost-bitten eggplants.

Although there were occasional minor improvements in the data, the goal of creating that perfect artificial neuron remained far out of reach.

Confusion and frustration shrouded every workbench.

Wang Zhe and Li Wei, carrying a thick stack of this week's experimental data summaries, walked into Chen Youhua's office with heavy steps.

Both of their faces bore unconcealable exhaustion and dejection, as if they had just lost a battle.

On the computer screen, the image of the girl enlightenment, formed from converging light and shadow, stood with her arms crossed over her chest and her small chin slightly raised.

Her delicate little face was filled with an expression of disappointment, like a strict young teacher seeing a student fail an exam.

"Zhezhe, Weiwei!"

enlightenment's voice was crisp, carrying a hint of exaggerated reproach.

"What happened to you two this week? I've looked at your progress, and there hasn't been a single decent breakthrough! The progress bar hasn't budged at all!

In this state, how am I supposed to account to the Boss? Hmm? Where am I, enlightenment, supposed to put my face?"

Wang Zhe immediately slumped his face in cooperation, pressing his hands together in a gesture of bearing a rod to seek punishment, his tone tinged with exaggerated helplessness.

"lord qiming, please be the judge! The road ahead is fraught with obstacles and thick with fog; it's truly not because we aren't working hard! It's just... we can't find the way!

Please, lord qiming, for the sake of our hard work and running around, show us the way out of this maze!"

enlightenment gave a 'humph' through her nose, her hair made of light and shadow seeming to sway slightly due to her anger.

"I'm so disappointed! I had high hopes for you, thinking you could handle things on your own.

I didn't expect that in the end, I would have to step in personally! Fine, fine, bring the data!"

Wang Zhe quickly put away and filed the printed paper reports.

Li Wei immediately pulled out a USB drive and deftly plugged it into the computer port, transferring the massive amount of categorized raw experimental data all at once.

enlightenment's data reception speed was at the upper limit of the hard drive's transfer rate; only the afterimages of the rapidly flashing data stream could be seen on the screen.

As it browsed, it seemed to be muttering under its breath.

"Hmm... the tolerance of the alienated cells in this direction increased by 0.3%. Although it's useless, the data points are okay... The conduction efficiency volatility under that parameter combination has decreased... Eh, the performance of this material at extreme temperatures is unexpectedly stable..."

Although these weren't the breakthroughs urgently needed for the prosthetic project, they were explorations at the world's frontier.

Every new data point was expanding enlightenment's knowledge base, making its understanding of biological materials more refined and complete.

"You guys,"

enlightenment lectured them like a little adult.

"You're just too constrained by the inherent ideas and plans in the materials; your thinking isn't divergent enough! Forget it, it's too hard to expect you to figure it out on your own.

Here, take this new plan and the predicted data! What you've been dreaming of is inside. Reflect well on why you didn't catch the hints I gave before!"

Wang Zhe and Li Wei, who had been beaten into submission by reality over the past week, could only nod like chickens pecking at rice in the face of the great enlightenment's teachings, not daring to talk back.

Almost in the blink of an eye, enlightenment finished processing the data. A new folder popped up on the screen, containing several detailed experimental plans and corresponding performance prediction reports.

Their eyes lit up instantly! They knew all too well what it meant for enlightenment to step in personally.

That was the hope of breaking through the bottleneck!

Wang Zhe and Li Wei almost scrambled to copy the files, the dejection on their faces swept away and replaced by eager excitement.

"Thank you, lord qiming!"

The two said in unison, and clutching the precious guide, they turned and rushed out of the office, heading straight for their respective experimental areas.

Suppressing her excitement, Li Wei first quickly sent out the parts of enlightenment's plan assigned to other groups, then immediately returned to her sterile workbench.

She took a deep breath to calm herself and began operating according to the first plan given by enlightenment.

She took out a perfectly conditioned, non-alienated basic cell strain.

Then, strictly following the steps in the plan, she began the induced alienation process.

However, as the process progressed, Li Wei's brow furrowed slightly, and her movements slowed down.

These steps... why did they look more and more familiar?

Adding Inducer A, adjusting the pH of the culture medium to a specific range, performing periodic temperature stimulation... she had done almost all of these operations over the past week!

It was just that, at the time, these steps were scattered across various exploration routes of different experimental groups.

For example, Group A tried adding Inducer A but kept the temperature constant; Group B tried temperature stimulation but didn't adjust the pH; Group C adjusted the pH but used a different inducer... Each attempt only took one small step of the plan.

"So that's how it is..."

Li Wei suddenly realized, a complex expression of annoyance and admiration appearing on her face.

The hints enlightenment had previously given through the data reports were actually meant for them to analyze the root causes of the data differences between the different routes.

Why was Group A's material tolerance a bit better? It was likely because of the addition of Inducer A!

Why was Group B's material more stable at a certain temperature? It was likely thanks to the temperature stimulation!

If only they could have identified these key effective steps scattered across different routes and pieced them together like a puzzle, wouldn't it be this complete plan that enlightenment gave them directly today?

Having figured this out, Li Wei's movements became more fluid and confident.

She skillfully followed enlightenment's plan, step by step.

In the interval while waiting for this batch of cells to alienate, she tirelessly began cultivating new cell lines according to the other optimization paths in the plan's appendix.

Time passed during the focused operation, and finally, it was time to check the results.

Li Wei carefully took out the alienated and cultured cells, performed purification, and extracted the target material, which was as fine as silk.

Her heart was beating a bit fast.

She connected the material to the testing equipment, with the other end connected to the isolated nerve of a Bullfrog that had already been prepared, anesthetized, and fixed.

She started the micro-current stimulator and recorded the neural response signals.

At the same time, she tried to use weak chemical signals to simulate neurotransmitters, stimulating the artificial material to see if it could produce electrical signal feedback.

The oscilloscope screen lit up, and the green waveform line began to jump.

Li Wei held her breath, staring at the screen without blinking.

When she saw that the recording electrode connected to the artificial material clearly captured signal waveforms upon stimulating the nerve.

And when reverse chemical stimulation was applied, the artificial material itself also stably outputted a series of regular electrical signal pulses!

"My god! It worked?"

Li Wei couldn't help but let out a low cry, her voice trembling with excitement; she even subconsciously rubbed her eyes, fearing she had misseen.

She couldn't believe it!

The problem that had troubled the entire laboratory for over a week and left everyone clueless.

bidirectional conduction!

It had actually made a breakthrough in just one experiment after enlightenment stepped in!

She looked at the Bullfrog; under the electrical stimulation, its hind legs kicked rhythmically.

And on the oscilloscope, both the sending and receiving channels clearly recorded active electrical signal waveforms synchronized with the movements.

This meant that this artificial material preliminarily possessed the core functions of a "bipolar neuron."

It could both convert electrical signals into chemical signals to be transmitted to biological nerves and convert received chemical signals into electrical signals.