Monkeys’ brain waves offer paraplegics hope
Monkeys have been trained to control a virtual arm on a computer screen using only their brain waves. Scientists say the animals were also able use the arm to sense the texture of different virtual objects. Writing in the journal Nature, the researchers say their work could speed up the development of wearable exoskeletons. This … Read more
Implanted chip ‘allows blind people to detect objects’
A man with an inherited form of blindness has been able to identify letters and a clock face using a pioneering implant, researchers say. Miikka Terho, 46, from Finland, was fitted with an experimental chip behind his retina in Germany. Success was also reported in other patients. The chip allows a patient to detect objects … Read more
Hologram messaging coming of age
STREAMING HOLOGRAPHIC IMAGES IN NEAR-REALTIME Many different perspectives of the object or person (1) are captured on a series of cameras arranged in an arc or circle That information is processed (2) and sent through a computer link. It could conceivably be sent anywhere in the world The 3D holographic printing system (3) receives the … Read more
Researchers Discover How to Erase Memory: How Dangerous Could this Be?
Researchers have discovered how to erase a memory. They have found a protein, that if removed from a specific region of the brain that recalls fear; they could completely erase the memory of a traumatic experience. Could this discovery be useful in treating things like depression or post traumatic stress disorder, or could this discovery … Read more
Is the Business Cycle In Your DNA?
Why bankers are like bacteria, and marketers are like virus. From The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism by Howard Bloom, Prometheus Books, 2009, reprinted with permission What has tumbled you and me into the pit of the Great Recession of 2008-2010? What causes boom and bust? Does economic catastrophe come from … Read more
A New Blueprint for Artificial General Intelligence
Demis Hassabis, a research fellow at the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, University College London, is out to create a radical new kind of artficial brain. A former well-known UK videogame designer and programmer, he has produced a number of amazing games, including the legendary Evil Genius — which he denies selling to Microsoft, thus ruining a perfectly good joke. … Read more
Nanobot Is Coming: Smallest Electric Engine Could Power Nanomachines
A blueprint has been sketched out for the smallest ever electric motor, which could eventually be used to drive tiny conveyor belts or pumps in future nanomachines. The motor’s rotor is a long, coal-derived molecule called anthracene, which spins around an axle composed of two ethynyl units. Each end of this axle is connected to … Read more
On Genes, Memes, Bemes, and Conscious Things
As human memory, personality, values, and other attributes are increasingly being captured in cybernetic form, they are becoming virtual entities of their own. These “bemes”–units of beingness–are analogous to memes (culturally transmissible ideas) and genes, but go far beyond them. Common sets of bemes will lead to a new “Beme Neural Architecture” (BNA), analogous to … Read more
Dream recording device ‘possible’ researcher claims
A US researcher has said he plans to electronically record and interpret dreams. Writing in the journal Nature, researchers said they have developed a system capable of recording higher-level brain activity. “We would like to read people’s dreams,” says the lead scientist Dr Moran Cerf. The aim is not to interlope, but to extend our … Read more
TUI (Thought User Interface): Brain link lets people choose images by thought alone
IMAGINE being able to manipulate images on a screen by thought alone. That’s the tantalising prospect raised by a brain-machine interface that lets you control which of two competing images you can see on a screen. Moran Cerf at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, and colleagues recruited 12 volunteers who had electrodes implanted in … Read more
