Researchers at the University of Southern California have shown that the right amount of noise can enable carbon nanotube transistors to detect weak electrical signals, making nanotubes useful as microscopic antennas in communications devices, including cell phones.

This is the same effect — stochastic resonance — that neurons use to communicate in biological brains.

Possible uses include secure spread-spectrum communications, processing pixel-based image data, sensing chemical and biological substances, neural networks, and detecting nerve signal spikes in damaged neural tissue.