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Lamprey Cells Drive Robot
xmatt writes: "Eurekalert has a story posted from New Scientist about connecting neural material from a lamprey to light sensors and a cybernetic "body" made of two wheels and circuit board. Steve Grand, a expert in artificial life with Cyberlife Research in Somerset, describes the work as "laudably perverse" and likely to bring the world of cyborgs one step closer."
This is old news! It was up on GeekPress yesterday afternoon! Still, it is pretty cool, even if horribly outdated by about 36 hours.
-- Diana Hsieh
-- Diana Hsieh
GeekPress: The Weirder Side of Tech News
Most of you probably remember the robot insect that was made a few years ago now, it's actions were controlled by an artificial neural net.
This insect had been programmed with basic functions - and in reaction to certain stimuli, it would act in a particular way.
One thing it was programmed to do was to run away from light, and to hide in dark places. Without re-programming, it would ALWAYS run away from a light source...
Why does this new robot have 2 different reactions to light? In one instance, it runs away from the light, in another it follows it - to me, that's peculiar - and sounds more like programming than simple basic reactions to a stimuli....
I find this very interesting especially from the standpoint of the animal's reaction to increased abilities. It has long been shown that animals react differently when pulled out of their native habitat. Perhaps you could turn a non-agressive animal into an agressive one if it suddenly "realized" that it no longer had to be afraid of what once were it's natural enemies. Instincts run deep though.
I suppose the true reason for doing something like this is to augment the natural abilities of a naturally occuring animal. Are there any special abilities a Lamprey has that would be useful if augmented?
-Chuck
--
Quantum Linux Laboratories - Accelerating Business with Linux
* Education
* Integration
* Support
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
> When will people realise that only through accepting the love of Our Lord into their hearts can they be truly happy?
And what do lamprey-based cyborgs need to accept into their hearts to be truly happy? The Bubbles of Jaques Costeau's Aqualung?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You can mock us now! But we will have the last laugh when with the aid of our robotic lamprey servents, we take over the world!
How can these so-called "scientists" live with themselves after creating something that is this much of a blasphemy against God and nature?
Never mind that.
How about a Beowulf cluster of these?
(Dodges shower of debris.)
What I find interesting is the comment "[the robot] couldn't look less like a lamprey". A brain designed for controlling a fish was quite adequate for controlling wheels. Doesn't this suggest that virtually anything could be controlled like this? At last a neurally controlled TV so I don't have to lift one of those heavy remote controls!
Your mocking tone is understandable, you, like many others have been brainwashed by the atheistic cult that controls education, and their empty lies have been fed to you for many years. However, surely even you can see the truth of what I am saying?
---
Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
For all we know, the lamprey's Müller cells are firing frantically for no reason, and the scientists are studying nothing but behavior brought about by random, non-systematic firings of detached brain cells.
Sounds like a great idea there cheif.
Now really, by using a computer you are just a hypocryt. A computer is a device made from this same technology and science advancements as what you are saying is wrong with the world.
We need not people to tell everyone else that they are wrong, we need people to do what they want to do and shut up about it. If that's what people really want then they will join you. If not, don't waste your time trying to get people to see your point when they already had the chance and didn't want it.
The lord, so some say, gave us the freedom of choice. A gift, if you will, to make choices and decisions on our own. Some say that if you are given a gift from the lord that you should use it to it's fullest extent. For if you don't, you will be, for lack of a better term, in deep shit.
Well the idea that we wish to improve ourselves and research and design things, is in and of itself a way of useing this "gift" the lord has, supposedly, given to us.
So... you are not actually saying anything. Your words mean nothing.
What I'm wondering is how soon can I get a copy of the new Lego Mindstorms "Lamprey" kit, and will I have to supply my own fish nerves?
When this becomes availble for human use, I want it. Who cares about having a body? I just want to be put into a big computer. Of course it would be mounted in a hummer type vechicle so I could move about. Wireless internet. The whole shabang.
;)
I'll pay good money to rid myself of a body
http://www.xpurple.com
> you, like many others have been brainwashed by the atheistic cult that controls education
Actually, I went through a school system that was rife with prayers and other attempts to brainwash us toward an irrational system of beliefs.
> However, surely even you can see the truth of what I am saying?
Frankly, I think the truth is that you're trolling. (Yes, I've read the Trolls Guide to Slashdot, and your post follows the advice to a 't'.) But I'm always more than happy to go along with a troll for the sake of a joke.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Now we just need to add cells from bill gates and watch them asexually spawm demons from hell and take over the earth! Then again, we can just continue the cloning of Natalie Portman.
huh?
How did I guess that something would post some bait !. Oh yeah, think about how many wars have NOT had major religious input. Tho shalt not kill, except anybody who's different. This means YOU.
Get a life get a motorbike !
It's one of the more sucessful trolls I've seen for a while.
Look at all those people biting!
Alas gallinaceas de urbe bovis volo
1. blasphemy is only valid for people believing in god, if god is no entity in your view of the world how can blasphemy ? 2. ai is no upcoming pseudo-science. lady ada herself has been thinking about thinking machines. and the results of ai are all around since more than 20 years .. prolog, fuzzy logic neural networks aso. 3. the place of "the lord" in our society has allready been taken by capitalism ... the lord itself has taken the place of a whole set of gods, these gods have taken the place of our ancestors and any authority takes the place of our parents, psychologically spoken. 4. generalizacions like THE SCIENTISTS and THE LIBERALS are a very good sign for discriminatory thinking and a need for authority ... personally i guess you need psychological help - but then a lot of people would ? 4. i don't know where you found the word DETEMINISTIC, i guess you mean DETERMINISTIC - and that's somthing introduced by religion/katholicism ... my advice: relax and read ...
Oh go on then, flame away. But there are millions of us "trolls" who care about animal cruelty, and if you want to maintain a freindly climate toward scientists, you'll need to respect us.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Not to be too evangelical about this; I don't for a moment believe that this is a Good Thing (tm). Just interesting to note that once again, A.C.C. manages to semi-predict the future.
As horrid as the thought is (to me anyway), I believe that it is a matter of time before we discard these bodies of flesh for "shining new homes of metal and plastic".
I, for one, am not religious, and quite frankly would rather not get caught up in any religious debates... so don't confuse me as being a religious zealot. Would you trust a machine with your brain? Not me.
This is a good topic for a discussion on ethics. Sure, a body better than the one I have would be nice for some things - but we're playing $DEITY in a big way here; I think that we have to be very careful what we do. Science, I feel, is becoming too advanced for it's own good.
My $0.02...
Intel Inside: The world's most commonly-used warning label.
When God and God's love have done something good? Hundreds of years wars, sorrow and pain. These religious and narrow-minded people have done so much foolish things that only few can imagine. So why should be afraid of this progress?
"...blah blah blah...cyborg...blah blah blah...commercially available module...blah blah blah...connecting electronic devices such as mobile phones directly into our brains..."
Ok, ok. Does somebody have a URL yet? My Visa card isn't holding up to the pressure.
Well, my sources indicate that certain individuals are planning on using cyborg lampreys to take over the world.
I think that's ample reason to be afraid.
HTH
That said, I think it's time I changed my
Cool! Telepathy!
But I don't think I'd like to see this through the current phone companies. "Your bill is 2 months overdue. Pain centers in brain are being activated now."
This message was brought to you by Cyberpreach 2.0
Well, my sources indicate that certain individuals are planning on using cyborg lampreys to take over the world.
Never fear. I am creating a super loyal race of genetically engineered guppies.
And I am recruiting an army of mutant baboons. One can never be too careful.
That said, I think it's time I changed my
I'm quite honestly at a loss of how to think of this one.
On the one hand you have to potentialy stagering possability for advances in the fields of artificial limbs, etc. that has a great potential to benifit humanity as a whole. The successes in creation of arificial replacment limbs has for all intents and purposes been stagnent for the last 100 years. The average artificial leg is little better then the wooden pegs used a century ago and even the state of the art is nothing more then a couple if hinges and springs. As for arms/hands there little better then a hook with the general high tech version having a closable "thumb" controlled be a cable running to a single muscle or tenden.
On the other hand you have the huge potential for abuse of a viable technology that could be derived from this research. How long until we have people getting "jacked up" in the style of Shadowrun or Johnny Mnomonic. Can you say "Super Soldier"?
--
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
-John Gilmore
Prophets of secularism, what the hell is that? I've only seen it in the Troll FAQ here on /., dunno what it is though.
Just too bad there's always some truth in every post, even yours.. Think about that.
I hardly think you can call computers deterministic though. Just install Micros~1 software, and your problems with determinism is over.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Sometimes I have faith in our society - when a right-wing religious zealot (whether a joke or not) is labeled 'Funny'.
... Good show!
This is much preferrable to running from said zealot as he tries to strap you to a poll and light you on fire, or throws rocks at you.
If you are a troll - Good job! If not
Now, what about about those RMS clones...?
:>
(feeling myself being moderated to oblivian, which is okay - one must have fun you know)
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
"More realistic, he says, is connecting electronic devices such as mobile phones directly into our brains."
I sure hope they get down the radiation from cellulars before then, and put up a heavy firewall so some script kiddie won't hack into my brain!
An even better commercial use is to put advertisement into our brain _unconsciously_! Then we wouldn't have to watch all those lengthy commercials anymore. We could live happily doing everything we want to do for free, sponsored by unconscious advertising!
Liff sure will be great in a few years! Can hardly wait..
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
If you want to find out more about Artificial Life, please visit http://alife.org, the central online resource for artificial life.
Grrrr. Troll or not, this is the kinda thing that really gets me going. I actually find this person's religious rantings quite offensive. If we're in the mood for expressing our views strongly, here's mine. Religion and belief in god is an irrational belief with no basis whatsoever, for weak minded people who can't accept (a) death (b) that their existence in the universe may well be a random coincidence and with no "purpose" or meaning. It is only people such as this who need a belief in god to be truly happy.
I believe that my existence is nothing but a random but inevitable event (the universe being so huge, the existence of life is pretty much inevitable, I'd have thought). I believe that when I die I will just die. Simple as that. Once you come to terms with these two rational premises, religion and god (irrational) are redundant.
IMHO, religion has no place in solving the world's problems (it certainly has something to do with creating them though), and certainly no place in government or education. The only true way forward is science. This research is the perfect example of the way we are trying to understand life and our existence by emulating it in technology. This is how we should rationalise our existence and make it worthwhile, by expanding our knowledge of ourselves and the universe in which we live. Not by simply inventing various deities and putting it down to themn. That's just a cop out.
--
"More realistic, he says, is connecting electronic devices such as mobile phones directly into our brains."
For god's sake lads... enough with the mobile phones! Playstations, Toasters, Fridges, watches. I have a mobile phone, but only because I am running from the phone company (long story) and it was the only phone I could get without an ID (hooray, that should generate some flames). And while it is handy, yes... It is also the bane of my existence. I have a friend who is obsessed with her phone who will actually talk to her boyfriend long distance on the way to the movie theater, totally ignoring anyone she is with, and almost getting hit by cars/other pedestrians in her little phone trance.
This is a bit of a ramble, yeah.. but does anyone else think the whole connectivity thing is going a bit far? I mean, would anyone actually want a frickin mobile phone in their head? Like I don't have enough distractions in my brain without suddenly sensing 'neural rhythms inspired by the uk's top dj's'
IMHO, a mobile phone should be just that... a mobile phone that I can ignore/turn off/leave home/smash into a million pieces if I want to. If someone called you and you didn't want to talk to them and it was like wired into your brain, you couldn't exactly tell them 'oh sorry.. didn't get your call, my phone was dead'
I believe that my existence is nothing but a random but inevitable event (the universe being so huge, the existence of life is pretty much inevitable, I'd have thought). I believe that when I die I will just die. Simple as that. Once you come to terms with these two rational premises, religion and god (irrational) are redundant.
Aah, so you believe that the ethics that comes from being a decent Christian are "redundant"? Indeed, by the tone of your post it seems that you believe that humanity has "evolved" past such abstract and obviously useless concepts.
Now your attitude is typical of the atheistic zealot, someone who for some reason cannot abide the thought of their being any kind of religious truth. Instead of accepting that other viewpoints may be just as valid as your scientific paradigm, you instantly flame away at someone who expresses the fact that they believe in a higher power, something your precious "scientists" cannot rule out.
Please, next time think before you post such flamebait. Unless you are the one trying to troll?
---
Jon E. Erikson
Jon Erikson, IT guru
Neither insightful nor funny, I just couldn't help but share a feeling of wonder. I never expected to see this in my lifetime. That's all.
You come to slashdot to raise hell about technology. You post an anti-geek comment on a geek site. A clockwork world? A clockwork world!? Where do you think the clock came from? The moon? Last time I checked: 24 hour day = rotation of earth. I hate to be the one to tell you, but the universe is smitten with math and clockwork. It's the only way things operate. I certainly wouldn't want to run OpinionOS that decides based on mood whether it wants to write my file table correctly when I'm saving my 40-page papers. If you don't dig science, you don't dig tomorrow.
Doing such experiments on a life form as high as a lamprey is unjustifiable
They should use much lower life forms for such early experiments.
A Microsoft Lawyer would be appropriate.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
...we can't use "Lamprey-brain" as a description of a follow road-user any more.
Extracting a brain and spinal cord from a living creature (even if it's "only" a lamprey) in order to harvest a few cells for an experiment bothers me more than I'd like it to. It's a fascinating study in robotics, and an interesting experiment, but what about when they start trying this with mammals? Mice, chimps, dogs, cats - it's easy to start drawing that line ever closer to humans or your own pet.
Mind you, I'm not some PETA fanatic who only wears Naugahide for leather (who cares about a few Naugas?), and I'm not inherently opposed to animal experimentation, but I think I wouldn't perform an experiment like this, regardless of how useful the information is. I wouldn't test cosmetics on animals, either - though there are definitely appropriate uses for testing drugs and other things.
Then again, I'm just not completely sure - am I way off base in being disturbed by this?
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
That would be brill! We are obviously sole mates. Let's get together and have a whale of a time creating powerful new trouters, then relax by diving for perls in the C. That is, until M*crosoft mussel in and we become mere prawns of big business. Others may carp, but we'll plaice our hope in innovation.
Bream me up, Soctty!
Put the blame on meme
I think that as long as the research in cybernetics is done in the interests of medicine - like prosthetics, to aid the physically handicapped, and etc., then I think it is good work.
However, if this eventually leads to the creation of human cyborgs or other cyborgs - then I would regard that as a threat to the human race.
I know this is going to sound REAL lame - but you've seen the movies - we might eventually have something like the "Terminator" situation occur. Laugh all you want, but the more dependance that we place on computers, and the more we attempt to make them like us or fuse them into us, the weaker we become. What are we going to do once we've created machines that can think like us, but have superior physical abilities? If our curiousity goes so far as to see if we can create something that can think faster than us - then whoa! Don't like it at all. We're endangering ourselves. Are we as a human race going to still be able to have control over the cyborgs?
Maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. But I think that it would be worthwhile to make a pact with other nations that the creation of cyborgs for is strictly prohibited.
Just my opinion.
-Chris
Hooray, looks like my dream of living in an episode of Dr. Who will soon come true.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
"But sir, how can you make a
hamster pull such an immense load"?!?!?
"With whips!"
[No hamsters were injured in the creation
of this post]
Whereas the ph of the tanks used for
electrical eels have to be adjusted every
few hours it is clear that the real targets
are our beloved hamsters & their treadmills.
Their boxes only need tending once every
other day, an obvious advantage.
The thought of an army of chipmunks
straped into their titanium energy frams
in an effort to re animate Walt Disney,
fills me with the most mixed of emotions.
Certainly a cause worthy of
consideration but at what cost to our
humanity.
Alternatively I'm sure the same equiptment
would work on a cheap pair of plastic sandals
& a deep pile carpet.
Yes, but we didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition...
Put the blame on meme
Have a soma and deal with it.
-- yawn. --
What is life?
Is it being able to think? breath? touch? When you move your personality into silver and silicon will you loose the ability to smell? Will a digital nose be as good as the real thing? Will you be able to experience the beating of your heart when you fall in love? No, because you won't have a heart, you'll have a small motor circulating your oxygen rich nano enhanced fluid.
Life is much more than a feeling, more than a personality. It is everything we experience and without our bodies how will we experience anything?
I love feeling my pulse race as I close the visor to my helmet and look out the door at 3 miles of air. Ready-Set-Go!, the rush of 120mph wind and the opening shock of my canopy, the taste of adreneline. That is life, experience the world you live in with the senses you were born with.
I want to experience the world before I die. I don't want to live forever. I'll enjoy the 70 or so years I have and not look back with regret. I won't be searching for a way I can live longer just because I failed to live when I had the chance.
Step back from your computer, open your window, listen to the wind, feel the rain, smell the air. Life is not silicon, it *is* flesh and blood.
"Now, I hope and pray that I will, but, today I am still just a bill"
Now I hope and pray that I will But today I am still, just a bill
Stop living in a phone trance, connected to everything and everybody except the people you can reach out and touch. Don't worry about wether you can ICQ your friend on the other side of the world when you ignore the people standing right next to you. look out the window and watch the trees move and the kids play. Work isn't that important that you can't take a couple minutes on your drive home to just RELAX.
People work too damn hard, miss out on living and regret it when they are on their death beds. Throw your cell phone in the toilet and go walk in the grass with your shoes off. Tell your boss to pound sand and take a long lunch. The work will still be there when you get back. It doesn't really matter if it gets done anyway.
No, I'm not the unibomber.
"Now, I hope and pray that I will, but, today I am still just a bill"
Now I hope and pray that I will But today I am still, just a bill
I think that we already are a world of cyborgs. (Many of us that is) Most of us are perhaps not connected directly to a computer, but I'm really never that far from one. I could live without my electronic extensions, but it wouldn't be the same. It would be interesting to see what our alien neighbors would think, upon observing us for the first time.
forth ?love if honk then
Spooky- I JUST finished reading METROPHAGE too (they used lampreys to rebuild nerve tissue)
Just another case of reality following cyber-fiction.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
"...such a Luddite attitude is actually pretty insulting ..."
it's also insulting at times to see technology "break new barriers" without a second thought as to how it affects [human] life. "science" is not a perfect machine, especially with us at the helm.
i choose life as well, but with alot less preservatives. -m-
However,
Have you seen the teeth on those buggers? Ouch!
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Maybe the ultimate purpose of these experiments is really to create sentient lampreys capable of adopting religion?... ;)
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
For a fascinating extrapolation on this (since we're already talking about sci-fi), you really should check out a series of books called "Chung Kuo" by David Wingrove. The series is based on the premise that the Chinese conquer the world sometime in the 21st century, build a giant city that covers the land mass of the planet, and impose a state of Confucian changelessness. The books follow the actions of those who then seek to bring about Change - they're either revolutionaries or terrorists, depending on your perspective.
Warning: you probably won't enjoy these books unless you're OK with a Red/Green/Blue Mars level of political infighting throughout the story. I've only finished the first five of eight novels so far, so I'm hoping that the end of the series is as good as the beginning.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I'm going to do something that helps people: buy a whole room of monkeys and have them re-enact the civil war!
(But that doesn't help anybody...)
I'm not saying mindless cruelty to animals is in any way condonable, but our only natural defense against our predators is our brain. It makes sense that we should use it. Not to would amount to opting out of evolution, in which case we deserve to be extinct.
Oh wait, Governments have for millennia tried countless times to suppress information and prohibit the advancement of knowledge, all for naught and causing much suffering in the process. The lesson to be learned is that we're much better off preparing for what will happen when such knowledge is inevitably acquired.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
I fully believe in God and his creatures....but.... I feel that God would not have given us our intelligence if He had not meant for us to use it. If God had wanted all of society to be good and perfect, He should have given us all IQ's of 50 and had the 10 Commandments set down in front of us. No, instead He gave us a gift. A gift of intelligence and creativity. A scientific creation by any human, whether good or bad, I feel, benifits us all. If its a good invention, well...That's good! If its a bad invention, we learn what not to do in our quest for a better world. -Codo
The lamprey's neural material is being used more for it's signal transmission properties and to demonstrate the interfaces than for any Cyborgean dream project. Lamprey's are pretty simple and have comparitively large neuronal complexes which can be easily gathered and manipulated. Besides, very few people complain for lamprey rights. When the neural material can be kept alive for long periods and can learn new processes then we might consider this more than the smallest of steps towards cyborgs.
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Just make sure the phone doesn't support auto-execution of VBScript!!! :-)
--
not plane, nor bird, nor even frog...
Yes, absolutely. In Kansas, the locally elected representatives quite correctly decided to stop having evolution as a compulsory part of the syllabus, and allowed parents the choice. Meanwhile, a group of unelected self-styled "defenders of truth" demanded that every single pupil in Kansas be indoctrinated in their belief system. What part of "we the people" do you have a problem with?
-- the most controversial site on the Web
"More realistic, he says, is connecting electronic devices such as mobile phones directly into our brains."
Hello, McFly, anybody in there? Why the hell do we need to connect cell phones directly to our brains. Is the cancer NOT enough? Man. Oh well, I guess whenever they do it I'll be the first to make some picoJava WAP application...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Sounds like a rip off of John Christopher's The White Mountains from tweny years earlier. If it isn't, then Clarke failed to exercise good sense in choosing an original name for the apparatus.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
And unless you live a life of total luddism, I might point out that the science you detest has made it possible to live to a ripe old age without having to fear a death by smallpox or the black death or any of a number of diseases that plagued humanity up until just recently.
But by all means, lets stop the science now. Never mind the potential to eventually cure paralysis, AIDS and potentially even grasp immortality. The lampreys are too important for that.
Paid for by the committee to save the endangered malaria mosquito.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Whichever moderators moderated him (correctly) as 'funny' will likely get slammed in meta-moderation.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Religion and belief in god is an irrational belief with no basis whatsoever, for weak minded people...
Yes! Another Jesse "The Mind" Ventura devotee. But seriously, the question of religion, in my mind, is not whether the tenets of the church are literally true (as almost all assuredly aren't [assonance]), but rather whether religion may lead to a fortuitous and consistent worldview. (This condition is rather complicated since the meaning of "fortuitous" would be derived in part from this worldview, making for a nonlinear problem). To take Christianity as an example, even if I knew with certainty that the Jesus myth were untrue, would I be derelict in using the Christian credo as a basis for my moral system? This is a much more difficult question to answer, and it is more signifiant than whether a Jesus existed as a historical figure.
Many smart folk have questioned whether science alone can serve as the basis of a worldview; a large fraction have argued that it cannot. For example, Friedrich Nietzsche claimed that while science can make a decent stab at telling us how the world works, it doesn't explain anything of importance. He wrote that science was best used as a tool for acquiring power over the world, and not a system for deriving meaning from the world. His counterchallenge for science was to develop an instrument to measure the quality of musical composition.
While I agree that science is darned cool (I myself am a physicist), alone it is ill-suited to answering questions of meaning and substance. One must either step outside the system to consider morality, or else one embraces nihilism de facto. Perhaps you should consider following some of Nietzsche's work since the two of you agree on much: He, like you, believed "God is dead" and that irrespective of the veracity of the Christian myth, Christian morality is itself a heinous evil in part because it mandates subjugation of the spirit. (I find he walks too close to radical relativism for my palate, though. Your milage may vary).
Fit yourself for a perspectivist hat, Doug Neal. They are quite fashionable this year, especially with pumps and earthtones.
I'm only 33, and I can already tell you that I wouldn't want to live forever. As you get older, you begin to lose the highs and lows. It's not that I hate life, it's just that there isn't as much excitement when you have enough experience to know the outcome of a set of action.
Let's take a for instance. I have a young friend who is all tore up over his on-again/off-again relationship with a girlfriend. There is a lot of turmoil and excitement in his life over this relationship. My view on it is that he is being foolish and should just move on. I don't have any hope of the relationship working (she's too stupid). From my experience, I can see that all he's doing is riding a roller coaster. There's a lot of ups and downs, but no real chance of being seriously injured. The worst that will happen is that he'll feel a little nauseated at the end.
The thing that keeps life interesting is the idea that it will someday end. For me, it adds urgency. I've got to do what I've got to do, NOW.
Living a cyborg existence in a tin bucket for a million year would just have to suck. Besides, what would you do once Alzheimer's set in?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
This particular story has a massive impact on me and my family.
:) ) All of the technological pieces seem to be in place to build such a prosthetic.
My wife has no arms or legs. Her physical condition is a direct result of the anti-nausia drug Thalitimide. As such, her limbs never grew normally.
My question is, and always has been, if the technology exists today to record a sampling of the neural stimuli output by the brain, and likewise a sampling of the signals returned by the fingertip and muscle neurons, why has a solution not been created for a mechanical prosthetic controllable completely by the brain? (please excuse the run-on sentence
It isn't necessary to connect the device directly to the human bran (which is excessively risky.) Such a device could be connected (networked) to a nerual uplink which turned bio-electrical signals into digital pulses. These pulses could then be run through a specialized processor to control the actuation of servos and/or synthetic muscles. Feedback could likewise be tranlated by this or another processor and fed back to the uplink for conversion into a signal which matches the neural stimuli of the average human body. The total number of connections for the first prototype would not have to be more than 1 per synthetic muscle 5 for the finger tips, and 2 or 3 for each surface covering. This model could then be improved upon for each subsequent generation of the prosthesis. Don't misunderstand, I know that robotics hardly has a solution for the power generation necessary for such a device, but my wife drives an electric wheelchair which should certainly carry enough current to provider her with mechanical arms.
The only problem I face once this product is built is how do you argue with a woman who's arms can snap your spine like a kit-kat(tm).
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
It wasn't Balmer who said that. Quote: "There's the possibility of losing a centralized Windows standard and replacing it with something similar to Linux," said Simon Moores, chairman of The Microsoft Forum, which represents about 3,500 corporate IT managers in the UK.
This sentence no verb.
It would be more like a Grendel cluster, wouldn't it?
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Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
Two points:
... 3) increase locomotive speed, 4) augment human strength, and 5) leap extraordinary heights and/or distances.''
In my early 20's (ca 1982), I did a lot of private work on improved artifical limbs - until a worried friend (a lawyer) did a search of the case law to show me what a liability minefield it was. [1]
However, if cybernetic augmentaion really rocks your boat, you need to keep up on the DARPA and other government RFPs.
First up on the sci-fi drooler's hit parade is: "Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation"-- a current active DARPA RFP, but if you miss the deadline, don't worry, there's similar RFPs every funding cycle.
I only wish they hadn't said ``DARPA is soliciting devices and machines that accomplish one or more of the following:
In other words... faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound...
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[1] In her somewhat irreverent words: "People who lost limbs as adults (due to the nature of the interface I used) and can afford to pay for an experimental limb? Er - sounds like someone who just won multimillion dollar lawsuit, to me. Don't mess with them, they already have a legal team!"
The case law seemed to bear her out.
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
I have no problem with technology. I love it, I embrace it... when I feel it performs it's function in a positive way (feel free to define positive yourself... I'll define it below to my terms).
;-) ), to discuss some of the IMPLICATIONS of new technology before we blindly leap forward.
Let's not innovate ONLY because we can. Let us take one step back for a moment and evaluate those technologies that may have the effect of changing our future forever - our ecosystem, planet, our 3rd world neighbours, etc.
How bout being a little forward thinking for once and getting a committee of the best and brightest (ahem.. us on Slashdot
Just because we can, doesn't mean we should.
Genetically modified foods follows very quickly to genetically modified people.... and we all know from Sci-fi where that leads us. But does it have to end in unfair unjust class structures, the haves vs. the have-nots? Why even go there? What is the purpose of most of these technologies? You know it.... CASH baby! Big buisness has made its mind up... now its up to us, the people to say we can't live with the possible concequences!
What things are important to you? Really... be honest. Do you think that living forever is a fair goal? What about your children's children who will live on a planet unable to sustain them and their grandparents who are now 190?
So, I may be opening a can of worms here, but I think it's important to define goals for our society, as well as limits to certain technologies that MAY cause problems in the future.
This particualar issue of using cells from eels to drive circuits on robots is interesting ot a very low level. Its cool man. But where does it lead to? Why couldn't we have some time to talk about that first?
How about using aborted fetuses from pigs to do the same thing? How about 28 week human fetuses? How about criminals we execute? Where do we draw the line? Who draws the line?
My christian background helps me sort through a lot of these issues, and my world view and my scientific background helps me evalute a lot of these issues.
My fear is that the people making the important decisions with regards to policies may not have the required skills to make the decisions OR EVEN WORSE... NOBODY EVEN THINGS ABOUT IT.
Too much information. Too big a topic! But that doesn't mean we can't use those big brains of ours and just ignore it and hope it goes away.
How can these so-called "scientists" live with themselves after creating something that is this much of a blasphemy against God and nature?
Yes, the ability to read is SUCH a curse...
Genesis 1:28
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. {moveth: the Heb. is more like 'creepeth'}
There are roughly half a dozen similar passages in the OT and NT, and don't even get me started on the Koran and the various Talmuds -- they make the Christian Bible seem positively Luddite.
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
One can think of animal-based biomedical and bioengineering research as a subset of general carnivorousness, with the point being feeding the hunger for information rather than just energy.
Lampreys have a very simple system for keeping themselves vertical in the water, consisting of of a pair of sensors, a pair of neurons and a pair of muscles. In the beast, you can stimulate one of the sensors and activate the muscle on the other side. The lamprey uses the differential signal between sensors on left&right side to control activation of the muscles on the left & right side. Mussa-Ivaldi's group have plucked out the spinal cord, replaced the biological sensors with photodiodes and the biological muscles with motors, so this is a physical demonstration of totally normal neural control.
From the article: When the robot was presented with a number of light stimuli, its lamprey brain responded with a variety of behaviours, such as following the light, avoiding the light and moving in a circle.
Could you ask for clearer evidence that the lamprey brain was really responding to the light? Why, it followed the light, and it avoided the light! At this rate, there will be a cyborg dog retrieving my paper before the year's out.
The heart has reasons that reason does not understand. - Jacques Bènigne Bossuet
So you think that just because this MIGHT not happen like you think, we shouldn't try to prevent it?
/.'ers dumping on scientists.
I don't know what you are talking about
I'm glad that some scientists find their research exciting. But just because you can do it, doesn't mean it's right. Look at the atom bomb. That was a devasting creation. Sorry - don't think we needed that.
Look, I'm not trying to harp on you or scientists specifically, because neuroscience and genetics and etc. - they're all very important fields of research. However, I would like to make sure that no one has any ideas on using the research to produce a race of superhumans. Don't tell me that it can't be done either.
The article this whole thread is about is still interesting to me, and I find that it holds great MEDICAL value, but I am concerned that it holds great WAR value as well. To think otherwise is ignorant.
Plan ahead.
Chris
Very good points.
I would say that you are, because a lamprey itself survives by cutting up a living fish and sucking out it's body fluids. A parsitic activity that often kills the fish.
I'm no fan of experimentation on animals, but I like to think we have come a long way since Louis Pasteur did his research by performing vivisections (live disections) of dogs without anasthetic. But now that I think about it, wouldn't a lion do the same thing if it encountered a dog and was sufficiently hungry?
I used to go "Science Club" at our local museum. It was a natural science museum, so they had many specimens of animals. One night they gave us a very serious and long discussion on specimen preserving methods. They made sure that we understood death was death, and it shouldn't be taken lightly, and we shouldn't forget that an animal is actually dying. Which I think most respectable researchers realize nowadays.
I have no problem with the "Ethical" (which of course is very hard to define) use of animals for scientific gain.
over eighty years ago, it was written:
"Man will, in time, manage to implant the death-forces in man, related
to electrical and magnetic forces, with external machines. He will
then be able to direct his intentions, his thoughts into the machine."
(Rudolf Steiner, "Individuelle Geistwesen und einheitlicher Weltengrund", especially November 25, 1917, Dornach)
just thought that was interesting, since it was written BEFORE computers, and only nine years after the first vacuum tube.
for an interesting article on the subject:
http://www.gottfried.no/articles/it_eng.htm
Granted, blindly pushing the progress of science may have been acceptable 500 years ago in Western Europe. The establishment (organized religion) had a vested interest in stopping the progress of scientific research and wasn't even interested in a rational debate.
Technology in this day and age has exceedingly more reach and speed of progression. As this increases, so do the chances of our inability to control it. At the very least, we need to open more discourse about where we're going with all of this as science and technology are rapidly accelerating to destinations that we are completely unaware of.
To me, it's like getting on the freeway, closing your eyes, and punching on the accelerator, putting faith in technology to get you where you'd like to go. Some of us just don't have that much faith.
tree in the forest....with.... a herring!!
Sorry, had to...
Remove the NOSPAM to spam me...
Back in the 1920's, a species of lamprey invaded the Great Lakes following the construction of a canal. The lamprey population exploded, destroying populations of other fish, especially trout (Which they feed on by sucking on to like leeches). Since then, they've been brought under control by use of chemical lampricides and other means such as special dams or releases of sterile males.
For some more info and pictures of Lampreys, see this page at Fish of the Great Lakes.
I guess there really is a sucker borne every minute.
As with every other technical wonder, this concept has it's good and bad points. ;-D *
* Please note that I am a religious person by choice and after much heavy analysis, so please no flames or even mild discussions trying to punch holes in how I see reality. I won't destroy your world if you leave mine alone
Good points:
Bad points:
I'm left to wonder when people are going to realize that just because you can do something, it doesn't mean that you should. Honestly, I could easilt build a bomb large enough to level a 10 mile radious with just the equipment in my house, but you won't find me trying to. Contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of the world still keeps some form of religious belief. How are these scientists going to convince this majority of the ethicality and morality of the implications of this upcomming technology? I get left with the impression that this technology will hit the same wall that cloning hit.
"Only fools walk where angels fear to tread."
"Oh no! The lamprey is no longer responding to the mind control! AIEEEEEEEEEEE!"
BTW, I think the dead parrot skit made it into Bartlett's some time ago- sign of the Impending Apocalypse, or harbinger of the Millenial Age?
To have a wetwire! I wanna be the first kid on my block to be wired to my car...
Also, Aibo could be a lot more interesting...
Eh...
I stand corrected
Damn! now I have to change my sig
Thanks
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!