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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."
Oh c'mon Pinky, you already know, you DMA'd it from me 250nS ago.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
North America and South America are different continents...
Common Sense (+1)
I notice they do not include a picture of the wireheaded rats (only an artists impression). Probably wise. While I for one believe that the advancement of science to be the greatest height to which a rat could aspire, I have a feeling that others (and possibly the rats) do not feel the same way.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
Actually, sounds almost exactly like what I'd think was the beginnings of the Borg.
And I thought Brazil and the United States belonged to the same continent...
Yea, that can happen when you sleep through geography.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
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.
Clearly we need an RFC for the Brain-To-Brain-Interface Protocol.
Hopefully it'll be built on top of SSL. I don't want someone hacking into my rats.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
I for one refuse to issue the standard obligatory decades old Simpson's joke that typically accompanies a story like this one.
... out of respect to our cyber-enhanced rat overlords.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I hate to break it to the researchers, but getting a pack of rats to operate under the same collective consciousness has been done before
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