Brain Cells Fused With Computer Chip

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PinkPanther
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28 Mar 2006, 1:08 pm

Brain Cells Fused With Computer Chip

The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed "neuro-chips" in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together. The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons. To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size.

They used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells, called neurons, onto the chip. However, the proteins acted as more than just a simple adhesive. "They also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be passed to the silicon chip," said study team member Stefano Vassanelli from the University of Padua in Italy. The proteins allowed the neuro-chip's electronic components and its living cells to communicate with each other. Electrical signals from neurons were recorded using the chip's transistors, while the chip's capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons.

full story... http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189323,00.html



Laura
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29 Mar 2006, 5:22 am

Why must we insist on playing with our brains? Dont you think that we could just leave that alone for the good of our health.


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29 Mar 2006, 8:00 am

This is very disturbing. What is more disturbing is that the human race do not yet have the maturity to manage the technology we have in an ethical manner. Everything these days is decided by the market economy and unfortunately if it is profitable, then it is seen as justified, despite the fact that it is ethically wrong. If you look at some of the more optimistic sci-fi programs such as star trek, you will notice that they can only achieve a civilised and technologically advanced society by banning certain scientific practices, for example genetic engineering. If let loose, such technologies can fall into the hands of evil and power-mad people and if you thought the world was bad today, you may not want to be around in 20 or 30 years time.

Personally, I think we should abandon technology and go back to a more simple lifestyle, only keeping certain technologies that serve the common good.



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29 Mar 2006, 9:59 am

RobertN wrote:
If you look at some of the more optimistic sci-fi programs such as star trek, you will notice that they can only achieve a civilised and technologically advanced society by banning certain scientific practices, for example genetic engineering.

By all means, we should base our laws and ethics around a science fiction STORY that was created for our ENTERTAINMENT! :roll:



RobertN
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29 Mar 2006, 4:29 pm

Sean wrote:
RobertN wrote:
If you look at some of the more optimistic sci-fi programs such as star trek, you will notice that they can only achieve a civilised and technologically advanced society by banning certain scientific practices, for example genetic engineering.

By all means, we should base our laws and ethics around a science fiction STORY that was created for our ENTERTAINMENT!:roll:

Hello Sean - I haven't missed you much to be frank. That is a very unimaginative response you give. Stories, literature of any sort (basically what people call the Arts) all have meanings and themes to them, and I was simply using it to point out a system that people in the future may have to adopt if we don't want technology to get out of hand.



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29 Mar 2006, 5:04 pm

RobertN wrote:
Hello Sean - I haven't missed you much to be frank. That is a very unimaginative response you give. Stories, literature of any sort (basically what people call the Arts) all have meanings and themes to them, and I was simply using it to point out a system that people in the future may have to adopt if we don't want technology to get out of hand.

Perhaps you can get an abstract idea of what needs to be done from the arts, but the arts are not an exact science by any means by which you can make a policy by. So until the day the Vulcans land and share their culture with you, you are just plain SOL on your Star Trek argument. :lol:



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30 Mar 2006, 8:07 pm

RobertN wrote:
Personally, I think we should abandon technology and go back to a more simple lifestyle, only keeping certain technologies that serve the common good.


Pol Pot attempted this in Kampuchea with catastrophic results. See the movie The Killing Fields for further info, though some of the Cambodian people that I've talked to said that the movie was unrealistic as the reality that they endured was far worse.


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RobertN
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31 Mar 2006, 7:05 pm

Sean wrote:
RobertN wrote:
Hello Sean - I haven't missed you much to be frank. That is a very unimaginative response you give. Stories, literature of any sort (basically what people call the Arts) all have meanings and themes to them, and I was simply using it to point out a system that people in the future may have to adopt if we don't want technology to get out of hand.

Perhaps you can get an abstract idea of what needs to be done from the arts, but the arts are not an exact science by any means by which you can make a policy by. So until the day the Vulcans land and share their culture with you, you are just plain SOL on your Star Trek argument. :lol:


Well, at least it is better than the Conservative policy-making process, in which past mistakes are advocated as future solutions (i.e. bringing back hanging) because they don't have the imagination or the courage to think up something new.



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31 Mar 2006, 7:27 pm

Fogman wrote:
RobertN wrote:
Personally, I think we should abandon technology and go back to a more simple lifestyle, only keeping certain technologies that serve the common good.


Pol Pot attempted this in Kampuchea with catastrophic results. See the movie The Killing Fields for further info, though some of the Cambodian people that I've talked to said that the movie was unrealistic as the reality that they endured was far worse.
Kampuchea was the name the Veitnamese used during their ocupation of Cambodia from Jan 10, 1983 to Sept 1989.


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31 Mar 2006, 8:43 pm

RobertN wrote:
This is very disturbing. What is more disturbing is that the human race do not yet have the maturity to manage the technology we have in an ethical manner. Everything these days is decided by the market economy and unfortunately if it is profitable, then it is seen as justified, despite the fact that it is ethically wrong. If you look at some of the more optimistic sci-fi programs such as star trek, you will notice that they can only achieve a civilised and technologically advanced society by banning certain scientific practices, for example genetic engineering. If let loose, such technologies can fall into the hands of evil and power-mad people and if you thought the world was bad today, you may not want to be around in 20 or 30 years time.

Personally, I think we should abandon technology and go back to a more simple lifestyle, only keeping certain technologies that serve the common good.


It would never work technology once invented can't realy be banned (ie nukes and chemical wepons) someone will alway be working on it in secret or otherwise. I do not see makeing biological computers or helping people with neuologcial disorders unethical. As far as abondoning technology we've gone down that road to far already without technology I don't see much of a future for the human race or even a steady state at wear we are now.


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31 Mar 2006, 8:56 pm

RobertN wrote:
This is very disturbing. What is more disturbing is that the human race do not yet have the maturity to manage the technology we have in an ethical manner. Everything these days is decided by the market economy and unfortunately if it is profitable, then it is seen as justified, despite the fact that it is ethically wrong. If you look at some of the more optimistic sci-fi programs such as star trek, you will notice that they can only achieve a civilised and technologically advanced society by banning certain scientific practices, for example genetic engineering. If let loose, such technologies can fall into the hands of evil and power-mad people and if you thought the world was bad today, you may not want to be around in 20 or 30 years time.

Personally, I think we should abandon technology and go back to a more simple lifestyle, only keeping certain technologies that serve the common good.
Mankind has always move forward not backwards. Mankind has always used technology too. So it would be hard to move backwards to a simpler time today. For many would rebel against it in the end too. It would to Me be the wrong way to go to in the end.


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17 Apr 2006, 3:59 am

Laura wrote:
Why must we insist on playing with our brains? Dont you think that we could just leave that alone for the good of our health.

Our health is the reason we do it. Personally I'd love a computer sticking out of the side of my head- and I'm dead serious.



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18 Apr 2006, 4:37 pm

RobertN wrote:
This is very disturbing. What is more disturbing is that the human race do not yet have the maturity to manage the technology we have in an ethical manner. Everything these days is decided by the market economy and unfortunately if it is profitable, then it is seen as justified, despite the fact that it is ethically wrong. If you look at some of the more optimistic sci-fi programs such as star trek, you will notice that they can only achieve a civilised and technologically advanced society by banning certain scientific practices, for example genetic engineering. If let loose, such technologies can fall into the hands of evil and power-mad people and if you thought the world was bad today, you may not want to be around in 20 or 30 years time.

Personally, I think we should abandon technology and go back to a more simple lifestyle, only keeping certain technologies that serve the common good.


The cat's out of the bag. Fearing technology will just result in someone else creating it and using it to their advantage. The 21st century will be the one defines humanity. We will either merge with technology and move ot the next level of evolution (which, IMO, is cyberorganic) or blow ourselves up in wars and run out of recourses to sustain ourselves. This is the bottleneck that, theoretically, every advanced civilization goes through. If there is life out there, then it should tell us that not many have been successful (since we havent recieved contact) but it never hurts to try.



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22 Apr 2006, 12:34 pm

This my be the start of Cyber brains, and cyborgs like in Ghost in the Shell... Hey, we gotta start somewhere, right?



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22 Apr 2006, 8:41 pm

Come on, guys and girls. Most of us on these forums are aspie or aspie-like, and why would we want to allow the Feds to put chips in our brains? As being aspies, we should be analyzing situations, not catering to them. If we then think the situations are right, then by all means, surely, cater to them.

This is somewhat disturbing, for one simple reason. What if they wanted to place one of those chips in our heads? And turn us into corporate-loving automatons, or else take away our interests and turn us into obedient NTs? Would many here actually go for that?

This sort of stuff is straight out of Orwell's 1984. It's frightening, because it can be used for good or bad, but we, as a culture, NT or not, have no control over what the profiteers decide. It will always be used to exact a form of social discipline, I think. If you don't fit in, they are going to make you fit in.

People in this country and abroad are scared of things they can not see. Parents are starting to place electronic bands and gadgets on their kids, so they can keep an eye on them, keeping them like prisoners and slaves.

People have become increasingly paranoid. They will do anything that their Master tells them, so long as their Master has them scared enough every single day. Crime has decreased in the United States, yet the US seems to be the only industrialized country that continuously has people worried about the effects of crime.

What are we afraid of?

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23 Apr 2006, 7:28 pm

Aeturnus wrote:
This sort of stuff is straight out of Orwell's 1984.

1984 didn't have computers, firstly, and there are a lot cheaper and subtler methods of survelliance than the surgical implantation of a computer chip into the brain.