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July 11, 2008

Strange But True!

Q. “Cyborgs” like RoboCop (1987) that combine humans and machines might seem the most far-fetched of film creations. Could they ever make the long leap into reality?

A. The seeds of these fictional hybrids already exist, says Sidney Perkowitz in “Hollywood Science.” In 2000, a Northwestern University researcher installed part of the living brain of a sea lamprey, an eel-like fish, into a small wheeled robot. Via implanted electrodes, the brain was connected to light sensors on the robot and to motors controlling its wheels, powering the brain-driven robot toward or away from light sources. Going even further, Miguel Nicolelis at Duke University implanted electrodes into a monkey's brain (the brain lacks pain sensors) to connect the animal to an artificial arm that mirrored the movements of the monkey's real arm. “Eventually, Nicolelis could train the monkey so that merely thinking about moving its arm moved the robotic arm correspondingly.”


 
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