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Mixing brain cells and nanodots
Roland Piquepaille writes "It's not the first time that animal brain cells have been used in conjunction with nanoparticles. But now, a team of Israeli researchers have grown self-organizing networks of rat brain cells by binding them to carbon nanotubes. In a short article, New Scientist reports that these neural networks are remarkably stable, surviving for almost three months in the lab. These hybrid networks could be used in future biological sensors. For example, they could identify a poison by measuring its effect on such a network of brain cells."
I see the summary and article mention nanotubes but no nanodots, and I've never heard of nanodots before. Wikipedia doesn't have an article about them. What are they?
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"For example, they could identify a poison by measuring its effect on such a network of brain cells"
proc DetectPoison ()
{
global $NeuralActivity;
if($NeuralActivity == 0) return true;
return false;
}
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
int DetectPoison()
{
extern int NeuralActivity;
return !NeuralActivity;
}
Simpler code.
Runs faster.
The next logical step: implant the carbon nanotubes into a rat embryo and let it develop into an adult rat. Think of the applications! We could know what rats are thinking at all times!
"Mmmm...cheese."
Then it's just a quick leap to remote controlled rats. That would be fun.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Brain cells are one of the places we know become feeling and even conscious beings. So... is it ethical for us to set them in products?
I'm aware that we already do all kinds of unholy things to animals for research, but this seems different.
Also, there's the always the chance of these things becoming a self-aware SkyRatNet. Who wants to risk that?
Tweet, tweet.
I for one welcome our nanodot overloads!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/05/05 01_020501_roborats.html
0 03Oct12?language=printer
Couple this with:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17434-2
and you get monkeys that can control rats with their mind!
I for one welcome our new monkey overlords and their army of mind controlled rats...
Awesome ! The last batch of Microdots I got only lasted about 7 hours.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Yes, Pinky and The Brain
One is a genius
The other's insane.
They're laboratory mice
Their genes have been spliced
They're dinky
They're Pinky and The Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain
Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain
Brain.
Before each night is done
Their plan will be unfurled
By the dawning of the sun
They'll take over the world.
"New Scientist reports that these neural networks are remarkably stable, surviving for almost three months in the lab." NS must run Windows... only thing that can explain that remark.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
"For example, they could identify a poison by measuring its effect on such a network of brain cells."
The 60's called. They want their sensor back.
Stem cells might be a neat buzzword to get funding, but as a parent of a child with serious brain damage, I can tell you that this is more likely a politically motivated stunt to grease the slippery slope of stem cell research, than something that will generate measurable results. After all, nobody wants to hurt brain damaged children.
The reason I'm so cynical is that babies are very resilient, and for the most part they are like stem cell factories on their own. As they grow, they produce new brain and nerve material, which adults cannot do. It is adult disease and injury (and greed) that fuels the stem cell craze, since our adult bodies cannot heal like young children can.
My daughter had a stroke two months before she was born. This stroke wiped out 85% of the left hemisphere of her brain, replacing it with a fluid filled cyst. When she was three months old, she had an operation to add a drainage passage to this cyst, as it was filling with cerebral spinal fluid and had expanded to fill the entire left half of her cranium cavity. This operation cut through parts of her brain, leaving her completely blind.
At nine months of age, the drainage passage had collapsed, and the cyst had enlarged to block all drainage of cerebral spinal fluid from her brain. Her head swelled with a condition know as hydrocephalus, and she almost died. That night, the CAT scans showed that 75% of the volume that should have been occupied by her brain was filled with fluid. She had an emergency operation to install an artificial drainage valve (a shunt). This event was catastrophic, and was like having her "reset" switch activated, she had to re-learn everything.
Now, the good news. She is eighteen months old now, and has recovered remarkably. Her last CAT scan showed that the original cyst had been reduced to only 25% of the left half of her brain, and the right half is completely restored. The original passage that was cut, that caused her blindness, has healed shut. Her vision is steadily improving and she shows signs that she may be functional without the use of a cane someday. Sure, she's a little behind developmentally, but she is showing lots of promise. All of her healing was without the use of any stem cell treatment, because babies are stem cell factories. Her same injuries would have killed an adult, several times over.
"Frankenstein" is a Jewish name.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I for one welcome our rat brain overlords....
This is interesting development in light of the advances of the hardware methods for neural networks. There seems to be two routes to mimic AI / biology; Hardware simulation of neurons, and biological embedding of neurons on chips.
The article says its to "identify a compound" which is achieved by embedding the olfactory/taste/heat etc neurons on chips and monitoring the signals generated. These neurons have special proteins in their membranes to identify the compounds, but this could very easily be extended to AI networks, and opens up alot more possibility.
Robotic control algorithms brached in the 50's-60's into serial control and neurological control. The processing limitations in earlier days inhibited the latter development path, but there have been a number of interesting developments like this one recently showing progression of the neural paths - eg Sony Robodog a few days earlier.
http://frankenstein.monstrous.com/frankenstein_ori gins.htm
from Castle Frankenstein in Germany
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Call me a skeptic, but I fail to see the correlation between coaxing neurons to connect up in an organized way and building a sensor that is of practical for solving a particular problem. Most neuroscientists would probably agree that the apparent intelligence, or problem solving capability of columns in cortex is due to the interplay between groups of neurons that have been connected up in a very special way through, for example, pairwise co-occurrence of stimuli.
Think about it, Borg nano-bots. Be afraid.
We are the Borg...
-- Accelerando
American congress was poisoned 50 years ago, effects still strong..
When reading the parent comment, I thought it was a little bit odd that it was talking about stem cells when the article has nothing to do with stem cells. After a quick google search, it turns out that the parent comment is actually a verbatim copy of a comment by someone else on a story last year:
4 &cid=14316980
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=17190
In fact, just about all the prior comments by "janet-on" seem to be verbatim copies of comments made by other people. The trick seems to work rather well, considering that the previous three comments all got modded to a score of 5, and the current comment is now at score 4.
Personally, I'm guessing that "janet-on" is a bot someone made to try to accumulate karma, to allow them to moderate comments.
Wouldn't it react by, dying? And couldn't you just use any living tissue for that?
1. I for one welcome our new beowlf cluster of rodent-neuron-based overlords 2. Compare to ghost in the Shell 3. ??? 4. Profit!
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
It is from Israeli, so God sends "his" blessings.
There are many poisons that effect neural networks badly without killing a single cell.
Consider LSD for example, nontoxic by any standard at typical dosage.
FRA: STFU GTFO
I don't know about nanodots, but I've had some experience with microdots when I was younger.
Having seen the results of mixing brain cells and microdots in the 70s, I shudder to think of the consequences.
I once sat next to a guy from my dorm at a movie; there was a scene where a couple was sitting at a table and the woman was laughing.
"Oh, wow!" said my friend, "look how her teeth are spinning around. Like a chainsaw or something."
"What are you talking about?" I whispered.
"Her teeth are spinning around!"
"No they aren't," I replied. "Are you OK?"
"Oh, don't worry," he replied,"somebody must've salted my food with acid."
"Some joke," I said, thinking that if somebody did that to me I'd break both their arms. For starters.
"Nah, it's cool," he replied,"I've done a lot of acid. It couldn't have been much"
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I, for one, welcome our new rat overlords.
Ask me what adult genetic modifications I'd like and I can tell you, but the whole brain in a machine interface creeps me out. I blame Babylon 5. Growing the cell/interface lattice from scratch creeps me out even more for some reason. Guess we all have our limits.