"This model is inspired by the brain," is another red-flag to me.

as were "more powerful than a Turing Machine" and "2^aleph_null possible behaviours" for me

Why? Biologically inspired ANNs have been around since the 50s. What's the problem with trying to model neural computation?

Because it's such a buzzword and also the things that are used in practice are barely near modeling actual neural computation in the Drosophilia brain, let alone the human one (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=brain-in-a-...).

I agree and it's a shame that writers feel like they need to use a hook to attract readers. However the reason I decided to post the article is because I was hoping that the users of hacker news could provide more input concerning the concepts discussed. As I would like to get more involved in AI, this article seem to be presenting a new method to look at it (At least I think it's new).

As scott_s pointed out, the reporters have merely published what the university gave them: http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/newsreleases/articles/149986...