Neil
01-Mar-2013, 12:12 PM
If any of you have read any Alastair Reynolds science fiction, you'll know he loves the notion of augmentation to human brains to allow technology to enhance performance, and improve communication. These people were call Conjoiners.
We'll maybe now that fiction is a step nearer to being reality with rats communicating with each other over wires (& the internet).
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mindreading-rodents-scientists-show-telepathic-rats-can-communicate-using-braintobrain-8515259.html
Pairs of laboratory rats have communicated with each other using microscopic electrodes implanted into their brains. One rat was able to pass on instructions to the other rat in a separate cage using a system of electronic encoding.
Brazilian and American scientists say in their study published today that the telepathic-like breakthrough represents an important advance in establishing new ways of communicating between individuals using brain power alone.
“As far as we can tell, these findings demonstrate for the first time that a direct channel for behavioural information exchange can be established between two animal’s brains without the use of the animal’s regular forms of communication,” they say.
One rat in each pair, the “encoder”, detected the physical signals of where to find a food reward and pass on these instructions to the second “decoder” rat, which was able to use the encoded signals of the first rat to find a similar reward in its own cage without any further help.
The scientists also showed that the direct brain-to-brain communication, carried by fine wires connecting one rat to the other, can be extended over the internet, with rats in Brazil communicating with rats in North Carolina, some 7,500km away.
We'll maybe now that fiction is a step nearer to being reality with rats communicating with each other over wires (& the internet).
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/mindreading-rodents-scientists-show-telepathic-rats-can-communicate-using-braintobrain-8515259.html
Pairs of laboratory rats have communicated with each other using microscopic electrodes implanted into their brains. One rat was able to pass on instructions to the other rat in a separate cage using a system of electronic encoding.
Brazilian and American scientists say in their study published today that the telepathic-like breakthrough represents an important advance in establishing new ways of communicating between individuals using brain power alone.
“As far as we can tell, these findings demonstrate for the first time that a direct channel for behavioural information exchange can be established between two animal’s brains without the use of the animal’s regular forms of communication,” they say.
One rat in each pair, the “encoder”, detected the physical signals of where to find a food reward and pass on these instructions to the second “decoder” rat, which was able to use the encoded signals of the first rat to find a similar reward in its own cage without any further help.
The scientists also showed that the direct brain-to-brain communication, carried by fine wires connecting one rat to the other, can be extended over the internet, with rats in Brazil communicating with rats in North Carolina, some 7,500km away.