king talk

Yesterday arte showed a documentation about cyborgs which was very interesting and sometimes a little bit scary. This clip about a brain-controlled rat was the one which retained in my memory. A laptop computer is used to wirelessly send signals to a rat’s brain, scientists found that that they could control the decisions of the rat by stimulating the part of the brain that controls its movement. The rat does have a choice but is rewarded for a correct decision with a hit to the pleasure center of the brain.

You just have to hit the right button and the rat will do so. This project reminded at our remote controlled robot, which was developed by envis some weeks ago. We thought about mounting a camera to the top of the robot, but we never would thought about to replace the robot by a tiny little pet like a gerbil or something. What is the next step? Should we hack our neighbours bobtail. Go to the zoo and brain-control the pinguins? This seems to be wrong.