And while catching up on her posts I saw one commenter who mentioned some neuroscience that reminded me of of Dr. Dr. Miguel Nicolelis (M.D, PhD, hence the double doc), the fellow who plans on equipping a couple paraplegics with exoskeletons that will allow them to walk onto the soccer pitch at next year's FIFA World Cup in Rio.
You may remember him from our post "Maybe He Didn't See the Part Where the Monkey Controlled a Robot on the Other Side of the World With Its Little Monkey Brain".
So I stopped by the good doctor's lab at Duke to check out what he was up to and saw the latest, experiments investigating the plasticity of a monkey's cortex. They seem to be making progress: “'After our results, neuroscience textbooks will definitely have to be updated,' Mikhail Lebedev, senior research scientist at the lab, wrote in an email Friday."
For these guys that's just incremental, another day at the office.
At the University of Washington on the other hand....
From the Christian Science Monitor:
How one scientist hacked another scientist's brain
Using already existing technology, University of Washington researchers have proved that it's possible to use one's thoughts to remotely control another person's body movements.
Scientists
at the University of Washington have built what is believed to be the
world’s first non-invasive human brain interface. The University of Washington
Two weeks ago, Professor Rajesh Rao sat in his lab at the University of Washington wearing a cap studded with blue and green electrodes. He thought about pressing the spacebar on his computer keyboard to fire a cannon in a video game. And as he thought that, Andrea Stocco, a colleague sitting in another lab on the university’s campus, involuntarily pressed his own keyboard's space bar.
Dr. Rao and Dr. Stocco have created what is believed to be the world’s first noninvasive human brain interface, which uses existing, but still cutting-edge, technology in a novel application. The experiment represents what the scientists call a forward movement in a fast accelerating field that aims to help us manipulate the world with just our brains.
"We wanted to show proof of concept," says Stocco, referring to the idea that it is possible for one human mind to connect to and instruct another. "We're not aware that anyone else has made a noninvasive brain interface between humans."...MORE
“I’ve always been a fan of ‘Star Trek,’ but we’reAlrighty then.
not really at the point of the Vulcan mind meld yet,”
Rao said.
Today I managed to get to work.
Not quite the same level of accomplishment.
