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Scientists Probe the Use of the Tongue
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that in the military's continuing search for better sensory input they have started looking at the tongue as a 'superior transmitter'. From the article: 'A narrow strip of red plastic connects the Brain Port to the tongue where 144 microelectrodes transmit information through nerve fibers to the brain. Instead of holding and looking at compasses and bluky-hand-held sonar devices, the divers can processes the information through their tongues, said Dr. Anil Raj, the project's lead scientist.'"
Sounds like there's a lot more tongue-probing in science than IT. I'm switching fields.
he's a real cunning linguist.
What?
"We've got incoming bogeys, due vanilla by vanilla-strawberry. And either that was some damn strong cofee this morning, or there's at least twenty of em'!"
I can see it now: --MarkusQ
Why is your girlfriend so caring about your ability to test 9 volt batteries to see if they're still live?
OK, seriously. If I had a name that could in any way be mispronounced as something like "Anal Rage," I'd seriously consider changing it before attempting to do anything noteworthy.
:P
That said, this is cool tech. I wonder if it could eventually be implemented as a chip implanted in the tongue, communicating wirelessly with a small computer? 15 years from now, instead of our kids getting tongue piercings, they'll all be getting "tongue implants."
Formerly GNU/Anonymous Coward. This message has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
I Taste.. Danger. Kif bring me the mouth wash.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I had the pleasure of trying it about 6 years ago in Dr. Bach-y-Rita's lab. I did not try the tongue--I tried a test rig using a finger. It is totally unlike anything I could imagine. It took about 5 minutes to get the hang of it. I was amazed at how fast I could figure it out.
The nice thing about the tongue is that is is so *fast* in its connection to the brain, unlike the eyes or ears understanding information.
There are so many applications for something like this.
why when someone says wife, it never gets a second look. but the minute the word girlfriend comes into play, it gets jumped on.
The word "girlfriend" implies that you are getting some, which is obviously a lie. "Wife" has no such implication.
Come on; this is Slashdot. We tend not to believe any statements that contain the words "my girlfriend", nor care to hear about what you do in your [imaginary] sexual pasttime.
(It should be noted that our position on this subject is ENTIRELY reversed if YOU are also female.)
Karma: NaN
To actually experience this, yes, you need to try it. But try this experiment: I'd wager that if you try moving your tounge about your teeth, and really pay attention, you'll notice a surprising amount of detail about their surface: where there are gaps, ridges, smoothed, pitted, etc. When you happen to find a particularly interesting spot, take a look in the mirror at what you've pinpointed with your tounge. You'll be surprised to see how tiny and insignificant the detail is when visually inspected. If you really focus, you can actually visualize what your mouth looks like just from your tounge. This shows you a simple but surprising fact about your tounge: you can perceive increadible detail with it. I could imagine how a sensitive electrode grid could easily simulate images directly on the tounge after trying that experiment. This is quite an amazing idea!
This will lead to some interesting Post-Traumatic Stress disorders in the future. Some poor army guy will take one bite of his eggplant parmesan and dive under the table, all, "INCOMING! AAIEE!"
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I showed this to my girlfriend and my wife's girlfriend and they both agreed you may be onto something.