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Intercontinental Mind-Meld Unites Two Rats
ananyo writes "The brains of two rats on different continents have been made to act in tandem. When the first, in Brazil, uses its whiskers to choose between two stimuli, an implant records its brain activity and signals to a similar device in the brain of a rat in the United States. The U.S. rat then usually makes the same choice on the same task. Miguel Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, says that this system allows one rat to use the senses of another, incorporating information from its far-away partner into its own representation of the world. 'It's not telepathy. It's not the Borg,' he says. 'But we created a new central nervous system made of two brains.' Nicolelis says that the work, published today, is the first step towards constructing an organic computer that uses networks of linked animal brains to solve tasks. But other scientists who work on neural implants are skeptical."
Actually, sounds almost exactly like what I'd think was the beginnings of the Borg.
One of the most unusual concepts of an alien life form I've seen are the Tines in Vinge's novel A Fire upon the Deep , dog or giant rat-like animals that are not individually conscious, but when together in packs form a single sentient organism. In the case of Vinge's novel, neural communication between the individual members of the pack was carried out via ultrasound, not electricity like here, but I wouldn't have imagined that scientists would pursue the same idea at some point.