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From http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-116291,00.html
Robocop prototype is looking just a little down at eel
FROM BEN MACINTYRE IN WASHINGTON
IT CANNOT yet do the housework nor repel alien invaders, but the first functioning cyborg — combining a living brain with high technology — has arrived in the form of a machine that whizzes around looking for light and thinks like an eel.
Scientists in Chicago have created a robot guided by the extracted brain of a tiny eel-like lamprey, in a breakthrough paving the way for a new generation of inventions merging living tissue with high technology.
The machine, about the size of a cigarette packet, is attached to the brain of a lamprey kept alive in an oxygenated saline solution. When it detects a light, the electronic eyes on the device send a signal to the live brain, which then commands the wheels to roll via a microprocessor.
In a specially designed pit, the cyborg dashes back and forth in pursuit of the flashing lights. “Until the recent past, people were using biological nervous systems to inspire technology,” Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi, of Northwestern University’s Rehabilitation Institute in Chicago, told The Washington Post. “Now we have gone one step beyond, to tap into the nervous system itself.”
The inventors of the device say that it could eventually lead to the development of prostheses and machines to help stroke victims and others suffering disability due to nerve damage.
Similar experiments combining animal tissue with microelectronics are under way with numerous potential applications, including the use of genetically engineered bacteria to identify pollutants and adapting moth antennae to pick up the presence of land-mines.
As microelectronics grow ever smaller, the technology is becoming compatible with even the smallest living creatures.
“We are asking the question: ‘Can we make machines with living components and make them work?’” said Alan Rudolph, of the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency.
The science is in its infancy, and there are few obvious uses for the lamprey-brain lighthunter. Our own brains can tell us when the light is on, and electronics can already do the job without resorting to the brainpower of the lamprey.
There is another problem with the invention — and cyborg science in general: even by the standards of modern high-tech gadgets, it does not last very long, and requires a surfeit of lampreys to keep running.
The brain remains alive for only a few days in its special solution before the machine expires, and another lamprey must die.
[ 05-08-2001: Message edited by: Ice Honkey ] |
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