Monkey controls robot arm with its mind

This stuff doesn't prove much at all other than the researchers are cruel and fairly stupid.
It is barely any further on than connecting to the appropriate muscle impulses, and has nothing to do with 'thaught' or 'mind' as such.
Pavlov would be dissapointed with this.
Just let those bastards try to shave my head

Del

There was a television programme on Channel 4 the other night, featuring 'Robochick', the blind American woman that has had electrodes attached to the visual areas of her brain, a digital camera attached to her glasses, and an intervening computer to manipulate the signals in between them.

The project is currently suspended, partially because of the lack of US Food and Drugs Administration approval for it, and partly for lack of funding.

The other individual featured was an English chap who lost his left hand in a tragic accident. As most of his nerves in the region were still working, the prosthetic appliance forming his replacement hand relied on monitoring skin voltages, and, without implants, worked correctly on being slipped on. Its operation was intuitive.

Other than that, it's only a matter of time before this sort of thing becomes more common.

Brave New World, eh?

A U.S. "news" program recently reported on a funded university project involving rats. I have spoke of it here before. The "researchers" placed devices in a rats brain which were remotely stimulated much as a toy car. The "researchers" then guided the rodent up stairs and through a maze and such by stimulating the left/right/front/back motion electrodes.

I found it very disturbing. I alredy see the gov's next line of defense against suspected terrorists and similar. Very C.H.U.D. indeed.

I saw something similar on TV a few years back...it was what I consider 'bad science' .
Stupid conclusions drawn from a dubious experiment.
An electric shock applied to the fore legs in turn may have been just as effective!
It was about as scientific as the old story about the boy who concludes that his pet spider becomes deaf when you pull it's legs off.
(he demonstrates that it goes forward when he says 'forward' and back when he says 'back'... he pulls the legs off and repeats the experiment...)

Del

"...successfully feeding themselves more than half the time..."

Hmmm...if the researchers could only manage to be so successful, these kinds of experiments would likely stop, wouldn't they? Wonder what the monkeys think of it?

Look like a happy macaque to you?

Who knows it is human who is going to be the specimen of the Elians who is going to rule the world.And may be they are advanced and might have started something out there.It is so amazing because the Mars lady is allready in picture.May god save us!!

To those who oppose this research, let all those blind and crippled people remain condemned to disability. I also remember some TV shows, "The Bionic Man" and "The Bionic Woman" and the 2.0 guy with the nanotech in him. I would like to see a legless man able to walk normally, an armless man able to do whatever he wants with his "hands" and a blind woman who can "see" electronically.

Could it be misused someday by unethical and unscrupulous people? Yes. Some day they might take armless and legless bodies and put them in super strong robotic bodies to be super soldiers or even super tanks. But it is worth the risk of misuse to help so many people who need it.

To those who oppose this research, let all those blind and crippled people remain condemned to disability

I don't oppose good quality, well designed research and experiment. I do object to poorly designed/executed experimentation which draws wildly speculative conclusions.

My Son is spinally injured and in a wheelchair.
I lookforward to progress in this field...this doesn't mean that we should all randomly torture animals in the hope of stumbling on a solution.

Del

It would be excellent if this research could someday help your son. How can you test experimental devices such as this, unless it is on animals? It would not be allowed to be done on crippled humans. So you anesthetize a monkey, cripple it and test your mechanisms to see if you can get them to work. People are more important than animals and some things cannot be done any other way. I strongly dislike it too and would use that type of experimentation only when I was quite sure I could make it work, as this appears to do.

God, we claim Your healing for Del's son in the Name of Jesus. Amen.