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An Organic Computer Using Four Wired-Together Rat Brains

Posted by timothy on from the nothing-creepy-here-either-bob dept.

Jason Koebler writes: The brains of four rats have been interconnected to create a "Brainet" capable of completing computational tasks better than any one of the rats would have been able to on its own. Explains Duke University's Dr. Miguel Nicolelis: "Recently, we proposed that Brainets, i.e. networks formed by multiple animal brains, cooperating and exchanging information in real time through direct brain-to-brain interfaces, could provide the core of a new type of computing device: an organic computer. Here, we describe the first experimental demonstration of such a Brainet, built by interconnecting four adult rat brains."

8 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Ethics? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Anyone?

    1. Re:Ethics? by Duhavid · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Anyfour.

      Humor aside,there are serious ethical issues here.

      If an alien race as much above us as we are above rats were to come here and began to use Humans in like manner, how would we react/feel/moralize?

      --
      emt 377 emt 4
    2. Re:Ethics? by alvinrod · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I take it you won't be using any antibiotics or other medication anytime soon then. No one seemed to ask those poor bacteria or viruses if they consented. If you have an issue with that, why is your arbitrary line that covers rats any better than the one I've suggested?

    3. Re:Ethics? by alvinrod · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Suffering is rather subjective and considering that the outcome of a lot of research is the death of the subject, does it matter much whether it was a rat or a paramecium? Neither appear to have shown any sapience so pain is a useless metric unless someone is testing pain responses.

      Let's turn the question around and ask how much suffering would you be willing to inflict to rats if it would yield a cure for cancer? Can you contemplate or measure the reduction in suffering that would reduce to humanity? What's 100 years of suffering in millions of rats against the rest of the life of the universe and trillions of humans of suffering prevented?

      Obviously we can't know in advance the results of any experiment, but that's what review boards are for. Not every scientist is a Mengele and stopping progress until we have all of the answers is likely objectively worse from the point of amount of suffering inflicted than using animals in laboratory experiments.

  2. Mod article by SeaFox · · Score: 3, Insightful

    +1, Creepy

  3. Rat-Borg of Nine by tekrat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Isn't this how the Borg operate? Collective thought working towards a single goal. Interconnected minds sharing problem solving, which is how they quickly adapt.

    I for one welcome our new rat overlords....

    --
    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
  4. Yeah...no by krray · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think they crossed the line. Just wee bit. I mean, I'm not a rat lover or anything. But if kept clean, as in a pet, they are pretty damn cute. Smart too. Not as smart as my dog IMHO -- HEY! Let's wire up four dog brains next! Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket. How about a monkey? Why not!

    These animals have a consciousness. You can't deny that. No, it is not at the human level, but a life none-the-less. How fucking freaky cruel is it to take a consciousness and tie it together with three others in some form to just see what happens? How freaked out were these rats in their little disembodied brains.

    Cruel.

  5. Congress by frnic · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Maybe we could replace the US Congress with a bunch of rats wired together, they certainly couldn't do worse than what we have.