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Control of Body Through Electrical Impulses In the Spine

Lionheart

04:35 / 29.09.01

I've first read about this here...

http://www.keelynet.com/biology/livewire.txt

...but it was an "unconfirmed report" in my point of view. I didn't know if the article was true or not until.....

http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/26/wbeet26.xml

That's right. In the future you could probably genetically engineer a cockroach to a gigantic size, take out most of the brain during the cockroach's "birth" and hook up electrodes to the fella's "spine". Then, using a computerized interface you can control the cockroach's motions and endocrine system. Cockroach cars!

Ronald Thomas Clontle

04:41 / 29.09.01

see, if I was in charge of the US military, this is how I'd try to get bin Ladin...I'd send a bunch of giant mecha-bugs after him... freak em out a little, show them that Allah 'categorically does not exist', etc, etc... and it would be just so incredibly absurd...

oh don't mind me, I'm up in the middle of the night, goofed up on cold medication...

[ 29-09-2001: Message edited by: Flux = Rad ]

Lazlo Woodbine [some call me Laz]

08:27 / 01.10.01

In theory i'm sure it could work, however have you ever wondered why there aren't any giant car sized cockroaches around anyway.
There legs wouldn't be able to hold the weight of the exo-skeleton.
Although in the future we may have created a living material with ???x the tensile strength of steel.

It would be cool to drive a cockroach with my spine

grant

18:25 / 01.10.01

The problem isn't the legs as much as it is the fact that insects have no lungs. Their "breathing" process uses spiracles, which don't work past a certain size.

That said, what's to stop them eventually doing somethng similar to a tiger? An elephant?

Lionheart

23:26 / 01.10.01

Because cockroaches can fly and climb walls. Elephants and tigers just walk around. Plus giant cockroaches are cooler than tigers and lions. now, what prevents us from doing this to dead bodies? Heh heh heh.... cyborg zombies....

Ronald Thomas Clontle

23:40 / 01.10.01

I should point out that most people get really freaked out and frightened by tiny cockroaches. Giant cockroaches, even if harnessed for the good of humanity, would scare most people half to death.

Clavis

05:38 / 02.10.01

Or scare half the people to death.

YNH

03:20 / 03.10.01

Bollocks! I've posted this little fella 3 or four times:

And the link to the apllicablearticle.

grant, there's really, er, nothing to stop them from doing it to an elephant, tiger, chimpanzee, or human. The friend who showed me this stuff is currently working on interfaces with human brain slices.

[ 03-10-2001: Message edited by: Teela Tomnoddy ]

Mister Snee

03:37 / 03.10.01

From that last article it sounds like this isn't a bona fide neural interface, per se -- they're replacing the antennae with electrodes so it seems that they're just taking advantage of the roaches' neural hardwiring to react to stimuli in certain ways. I think that's interesting; taking the level of interface a few abstraction layers higher, to the input level, rather than mucking about in the brain itself. After all, when you want a computer to do something for you, you punch it in through the keyboard, rather than re-designing the microprocessor from a block diagram.

Er, as it were.

Blank Faced Avatar

03:37 / 03.10.01

Those who remember the name of Wilder Penfield will be familiar with this type of thing - this CIA researcher was R/C-ing cats back in the mid 1960's, with variable ( initially farcical ) results, leading us to infer that some sector of the US military has a much more evolved system by now.

Penfield's other famous projects are some of the maddest scientist's nightmares - ( erasure of an adult human's personality to the point of potty training and relearning language & basic concepts; Mind controlling system to force any person to quickly commit suicide; Gun that shoots pure evil, etc )

The Return Of Rothkoid

11:10 / 03.10.01

Kobol Strom

17:04 / 10.10.01

1 light = YES
2 lights = NO
3 lights = Britney Spears

Kobol Strom

17:18 / 10.10.01

Gerri :"Ever since I broke up with The Spice Girls I've had a real chip on my shoulder".

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