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Robotic Arm Controlled By Monkey Thoughts

Posted by Zonk on from the next-step-is-cyber-monkeys dept.

mallumax writes "The BBC reports that Pittsburgh University scientists have succeeded in creating a robotic arm, controlled by probes inserted into the brain of monkeys. The probes interpret signals from individual nerve cells in the motor cortex. Monkeys were able to grasp and hold food with the robotic arm. Since the number of nerve signals for even small movements is huge the scientists used an averaging algorithm to obtain the movement signals."

16 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. That's not my hand on your ass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's my monkey controlled robot arm's hand on your ass.

  2. Tool use? by wind+river · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wouldn't this also be a sign that monkeys are capable of fairly sophisticated tool use?

    1. Re:Tool use? by Richie1984 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      That's not the impression I got. It seems more like the monkey was moving the tool as if it were it's own limb, i.e. the moneky tried to move its hand and the tool moved instead. If this is the case, all it shows is that monkeys can control their own limbs.

      --
      I'm not stressed. I'm just terribly, terribly alert.
    2. Re:Tool use? by glowimperial · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would think that there is plenty of non-robotic evidence that monkeys use and make simple tools, are skilled and knowledgable in their use and pass tool knowledge from individual to individual already in the wild. Monkeys have been trained to operate tools and devices before this, both in and out of laboratory settings. I wouldn't consider this a breakthrough or in any way revealing about monkeys, I would consider it more of a robotic/hapic/man-machine interface breakthrough.

    3. Re:Tool use? by daddymac · · Score: 4, Informative
      lack of opposable thumbs.
      Uhhh, except that some monkey do have opposable thumbs, so it can't be the "only" thing. Read the faq (number 23):
      http://www.primates.com/faq/index.html
      --
      If something I said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, I meant the other one.
  3. Nipple Fettish by BlurredWeasel · · Score: 5, Funny

    As long as the monkey doesn't have a nipple fetish I think we'll be fine.

  4. Sealab quote by Chairboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is there such thing as an obligatory Sealab 2021 quote yet?

    News Anchor: Scientists have successfully transplanted little Jango's brain into a robot monkey body. on a sad note, however, Jambo died late last night after drinking his own urine.

    Sparks: Hey, Skip. What do you think about all this robot stuff?

    Murphy: Why? Are we under attack?!

    Sparks: No..but that robot monkey on the news..

    Murphy: You're kidding! That guy's a robot monkey?

  5. University of Pittsburgh NOT Pittsburgh University by rueba · · Score: 4, Informative

    See here:
    http://www.cnbc.cmu.edu/faculty/schwartz.sh tml

    It seems he does joint work with CMU but his official position is at UPitt(as we sometimes call it).

    --
    The only reason all cover-ups appear to fail is that you never hear about the ones that succeed.
  6. Wired has a better story by garbletext · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65468, 00.html?tw=wn_story_related

  7. Re:Acceptable question now... by Richie1984 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That raises the question "is animal reseach acceptable if it benefits a larger number of humans?", which is a debate beyond the scope of this article, in my opinion. There's no indication that any animals were harmed in the process, and there's no mention whether there is any lasting damage, or if the proceedure is reversable. But, if I were going to use the technology, I personally would like the answers to those questions beforehand.

    --
    I'm not stressed. I'm just terribly, terribly alert.
  8. Re:And for the next version... by Stanistani · · Score: 5, Funny

    From the article:
    "Our biggest problem is durability of the probes. Typically they last for about six months."

    I'd say a bigger problem is that to make this work, you have to stick friggin' needles into the brain!

    How about some sort of non-invasive sensor cap as the "next step."

    --
    You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
  9. I imagine it can hurl by saddino · · Score: 4, Funny

    shit at blindingly fast speeds. Ex-cellent.

  10. Now we can make new arms for monkeys... by bcmm · · Score: 4, Funny

    we can teach them to type!
    This will do wonders for the quality of discussion on Slashdot. CmdrTaco, if your reading this, please give extra mod points to non-human /.ers.

    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
  11. Old adage proven true by mdxi · · Score: 4, Funny

    The article says the team's biggest problem is that after about 6 months tissue grown begins to interfere with transmission of signals to the probe.

    This will no doubt limit the adoption of monkey cyborgs in RTOS and embedded spaces, and proves the old adage, "Always mount a scratch monkey".

    --
    Posted with Mozilla
  12. And... by ZeroConcept · · Score: 5, Funny

    When given pen and paper, it wrote down:

    "Developers, developers, developers!!!!"

  13. Birds Make and Use Tools by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think I saw an article here sometime ago about raven's fashioning tools out of paperclips in order to snag food.

    A quick search on google turns up an entire site devoted to tool use in birds.