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Remote Control Worms With Laser Light, Using FOSS
Kramer747 writes "to share a new tool I've developed for neuroscience that uses optogenetics to remotely control the neurons of a worm as it swims or crawls. Its called CoLBeRT, Controlling Locomotion and Behavior in Real Time. With the instrument I can induce the worm to stop, accelerate, lay eggs or experience the illusion of touch. All source code to run the instrument is GPLd and available. Science News and Scientific American both have stories. The project homepage is at colbert.physics.harvard.edu." I hope that name also constitutes a successful bid to get on the actual Colbert show!
The CoLBeRT project is dedicated to its namesake, Stephen Colbert, who manipulates the neurocircuits of millions of Americans daily using only the light from their monitors.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
Herbert was a Prophet?
For patent infringement.
Maybe you can try for Iron Chef Japan.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I see very little practical use for controlling worms. Now, get me a vertebrate, a good-sized one... can you get it light enough to mount on a bird? That would be useful. Birds have a lot of lift in them.
I can see why C. Elegans was used. I know of that worm. It's been mapped: Every neuron teased apart, and it's connections to the others documented.
I played this game on my Nokia YEARS ago.
With the instrument I can induce the worm to stop, accelerate, lay eggs or experience the illusion of touch
That's what you think it does. What it actually does is sear the alien intelligence's brain with intense, burning pain.
At least we now know who to turn over when the screwworm motherships arrive.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Whatever you do, don't tell these guys.
Actually, Stirman, not Stewart. Anyway, there is a second independently developed system that does approximately the same thing, just without Harvard's PR department behind it.
It would be collegial to mention that this other project exists, no? (Especially since their software is also available, and since you know it exists.)
Ethics only applies to animals whose nervous systems are complex enough to be considered as "brains".
Not at all. That's the beauty of open source - if the worms don't like it, they are free to fork it and start a competing project!
Good point! I'm adding a link to them now. FYI, harvard PR department had nothing to do with this. Just me.
Added to the links page:
http://colbert.physics.harvard.edu/links.php
I'm still basically writing the website, so there is more stuff coming.
I think I need new glasses. I first read the headline as "Remote Control Women With Laser Light, using FOSS"
Read what you will into what that says about my subconscious. I'm making an appointment with my eye doctor this week.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Very sporting of you!
Maybe this will bring in a new era of competitive worm-games: you control your team (or single worm) with your system, and Stirman controls the other side with his. (You just need to put them in a microfluidic device and set up your system on one side and theirs on the other....)
Jeff is actually an expert at microfluidics! He could pull it off. Check out his other papers.
If he designs the arena, it might help him make up for your 50% faster response time.
Ha ha!!! Now my plans for world domination will be complete! Of course, I will still have to figure out a way to keep them from frying on the sidewalks...
Mod points seem to work pretty well here.
Have gnu, will travel.
One of the big questions in science is how neurons control behavior. It's a tough thing to answer when you can't control the neurons. (E.g. "tell me what this software program works without using it or altering the source code.")
So this is a big help in figuring out how neurons control worm behavior. Since we don't know much about how neurons control the behavior of anything, this is a big step forward!
With the instrument I can induce the worm to stop, accelerate, lay eggs or experience the illusion of touch.
Can you make'em dance? http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=dancing+worms
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
you control your team (or single worm) with your system, and Stirman controls the other side with his.
no, no, no. You control a team of 4 worms. And arm them with all kinds of miniature weapons trying to blast opponent's worms!
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
It has long been established that you can control cats' movements using nothing but a laser pointer.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
That could take the Worms games series to a whole new level. Fuck Kinect!
I'm afraid Mary is dead.
http://xkcd.com/729/
Great! Spent my life making sure I never had worms, and now the freakin' things are kewler than Elvis and Philip J Fry!!!
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
Can get them to swim with lasers attached to their friggin' heads???
I just want to know how they got the frikkin "lasers" on the worms' heads!
(Also, what exactly are "remote control worms"?)
... to become a benevolent worm overlord.
So you never brush your teeth or wash yourself, since that kills bacteria?
You never clean your bathroom or take antibiotics?
You never swat at mosquitos or kill ants staging a home invasion?
You never eat either? Or are you a scavenger? (Except even scavenging results in the small deaths of microscopic creatures.)
Valuing all life is an untenable position that simply cannot be put into practice. If you value life, an admirable tenet, you still have to decide which kinds of life to value. Just saying "I value all life in and of itself" shows that you haven't really considered the proposition.
Your brain is not a computer.