Slashdot Mirror
Researcher Implants Laser-Activated Brain Cells
destinyland writes "A Stanford researcher has spliced light-sensitive algae genes into human brain cells to fire neurons when activated by a laser. Light is shined through an implanted fiber optic cable (blue light on, yellow light off), and the procedure can target very specific deep brain structures too fragile for most surgery. 'Once the researcher attaches the other end of the cable to a laser, he or she has absolute and flawless control over that group of neurons.' Science writer Quinn Norton cites it as a first attempt at 'building useful handles on the very things that make us ourselves.'"
This sounds an awful like binary.... Could this potentially be used to make bio-computers? Or at the very least Bio-Memory? Perhaps it has too many flaws to be useful, but the idea of using cells to store data is interesting to say the least.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
So I need to get tinfoil glasses now too so the government can't control my mind? How do you expect those of us that believe in conspiracy theories to see UFOs? Sounds shady.
A Magic the Gathering Article and Forum Aggregator
If he can splice some photoelectric properties (generates small amount of electricity from lasers), we can finaly have a brain machine interface. But regardless this will make reading memory composition easier. Cyberpunk here we come!
Exactly. The further science comes, the closer scientists will be to proving the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster: The source of creation, consciousness, and morality. Finally, we can have world peace when the people of Earth are united in worship of the one, true God.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
Put me down for a laser stimulation implant of the nucleus accumbens .
Speaking of "stimulated emissions," I'll never leave the house!
I can see the fnords!
I have this mental image of a bunch of soldiers with sets of remotely controlled optical fibers hanging out of their head. For some reason in this image they're all kind of grey like something out of Edward Scissorhands or perhaps The Matrix, or maybe The Borg from Startrek....and the best bit is that the guy controlling them is doing it with an r/c aircraft radio. "Crush, kill, destroy, my pets!". Wait, I think someone has implanted MY brain with Hollywood crap. They did it the old fashioned way though - tv brainwashing.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Instantly flooded with posts beating that dead horse. (Dead shark?)
Lock phasers on the pleasure centers.
Stand by to fire.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
We've been over this. God is sufficient but not necessary for consciousness. It's far too early to tell either way right now. Keep working on the Hard Problem:-)
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
So, how do they get the laser beam through the person's thick skull to shine on these light sensitive cells?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Things you need to do with your DNI:
1. Invoke mental imagery, preferably without interfering with normal vision.
2. Infer mental imagery manipulation.. for example, when you hear the question "what letter do you get by turning a Z on its side?" results in a common specific quale of visual intelligence.
3. Test and improve the rate and bandwidth.
With such an interface you can do human computer interaction in ways that are completely unavailable to current input devices. Imagine having a 3d modeling tool where you can just think about the object you want, or how it differs from the object you're seeing. Imagine, if you can, receiving data at a higher bandwidth than video.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The Bill Gates Borg icon should be used with this story.
But seriously this is cool, but is an AI running on a nero-optic processor alive?
Here's a pic of the subject hooked up to the machine.
No sig for you!!
Is not the same a bunch of bricks than a home, even if you arrange them as in a house.
---
Futurology Feed @ Feed Distiller
wasps that can do this to ants ?
Nullius in verba
And why the operators are called "illuminati". B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
now all we need is very advanced AI that is too retarded to build nucular power plants.
weinersmith
everyone will become light headed.
Now we just need brain activated laser cells.
I'm a fruit pirate. I bought a watermelon once, and spat the seeds in the back yard. They grew into another watermelon,
I am visualizing sharks with frigging lasers in my head . . .
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
destinyland only posts stories from H+ magazine... they are neat but feels like its just an advertising extension ala Roland (RIP)
I guess that this particular neurologist likes to do it with the lights on.....
---
Welders do it in all positions.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
until they realize finally that the brian does not produce consciousness but rather, is an interface for it. When they do realize that, maybe they'll be a little humbled by those who have been saying as much for the last several thousand years and won't be so quick to discount such things in the future.
Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!
Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.
Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!
Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!
Brian: Now, fuck off!
[silence]
Arthur: How shall we fuck off, O Lord?
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
God is sufficient but not necessary for consciousness.
That's a completely meaningless statement, since both "God" and "consciousness" are vague concepts that nobody can define without some serious hand-waving.
I wonder if this can be applied to other purposes like bypassing damaged sections of a paraplegics spinal cord.
We would need to develop a neuron to laser device at the other end first, but the possibilities of making people walk again are worth investment.
Unicode in Slashdot
You are confusing "nobody can" with "I cannot". Consciousness is not yet defined, but it will be. It's not a philosophical, but rather physical concept. All physical concepts, however complicated, are definable.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Before Michael Crichton got in bed with the oil industry with "State of Fear" (with rain forest venom dart shooting environmentalists driving Priuses) he wrote some really good science fiction (like "The Andromeda Strain"). In a previous book "The Terminal Man" he wrote about a man who had electrical impulses providing him with biofeedback (which he abuses). Substitute lasers and Voila!
It was later made into a movie. Anybody see it?
Before Michael Crichton got in bed with the oil industry with "State of Fear" (with rain forest venom dart shooting environmentalists driving Priuses) he wrote some really good science fiction (like "The Andromeda Strain"). In a previous book "The Terminal Man" he wrote about a man who had electrical impulses providing him with biofeedback (which he abuses). Substitute lasers and Voila!
It was later made into a movie. Anybody see it?
Also, there was an Arthur C. Clarke science fiction story where electrodes were used to "train" Orcas from eating dolphins.
Finally, in real life, there was a (I think) DARPA funded project where they managed to remotely control a large beetle into flying whichever direction they chose. A tiny radio triggered electrodes which were connected to the appropriate neurons and thus they could make it go left, right, etc. Gives new meaning to the phrase "bug on the wall".
I'm wondering when they'll be able to "improve" this technology so as to make people into remote controlled "zombies"!
Could be worse. You could OD on a laser powerful enough to vaporize a hole your head!
A friend of mine used to work with very high powered C02 lasers. For demonstration purposes they used to destroy bricks. Sounds like just the ticket!
I knew I should have qualified it with an "at the moment" the second I hit submit, but your "it will be" isn't a given. We might find out how it works (and I hope we will), but perhaps we are fundamentally unable to.
But we may construct an AI who can figure it out. (Who will subsequently be unable to explain it in a way out monkey brains can grasp it.)
Researcher Implants Brain Cell-Activated Lasers!
Fixed that for you.
The reverse of that would be so much cooler.
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
Researchers have learned how to make light-activated brain cells that can affect deep-brain structures and help us in "building useful handles on the very things that make us ourselves". And yet, I'm the only person who tagged this article "Dollhouse". Come on, people! Star Trek references are old; you have to move with the times if you want to keep your geek license!
Light-activated brain writing -> Dollhouse. You should know this stuff.
But we may construct an AI who can figure it out. (Who will subsequently be unable to explain it in a way out monkey brains can grasp it.)
and that is the point where the AI decides we are no longer the creator as we cant understand something basic, Decides we are lying to them and unworthy and starts a systematic extinction of the human race.
See what you started? See? It's all because you had to open your mouth and correct one person...
you Killed humanity sir.. I hope you can live with that.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Can any system transcend itself? Can humans never understand consciousness? Isn't this the core of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems? Aren't too many rhetorical questions annoying?
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
There's nothing wrong that that statement though - proving one vague sufficiently proves the other, but to prove the other it is not necessary to prove the first.
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
The OMCLs (Orbital Mind Control Lasers) are on the board. Whatever you do, don't let the Bermudans get a hold of them.
Next...we will be able to use this to counter the deficiency that makes Parkinson's disease so horrible.
...what does the PINK light that Valis shines on your brain do to you?
Blue = become alliance, Yellow = become horde
and i alway thought the theorem meant that you need some sort of observable reality that to build your consistent systen on.