http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/disco…ate-cover_x.htm
This makes me pretty happy, as it strikes me as quite the scientific breakthrough. The practical applications seem nearly boundless. I’m going to look into investing in this company…
But why is there so little media coverage of this? USATODAY seems to be just about the only major news/media outlet i’v found… drudge, cnn, googlenews- none of them turned up anything on it. Good thing I picked up a USAT.
Anyways, cheers for progress!
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/disco…ate-cover_x.htm
This makes me pretty happy, as it strikes me as quite the scientific breakthrough. The practical applications seem nearly boundless. I’m going to look into investing in this company…
But why is there so little media coverage of this? USATODAY seems to be just about the only major news/media outlet i’v found… drudge, cnn, googlenews- none of them turned up anything on it. Good thing I picked up a USAT.
Not to undercut the significance of this work, you should realize that those in this field have been working on this for some time, and this work represents an evolutionary step, not a revolutionary one. Here is report I made more than five years ago on the work which forms the base for the one which you noted (and which, in some ways, holds an even greater potential).
*************************************************
On that note, there is something else related to this that I
think is also quite remarkable. Ron Bakay and Phil Kennedy are
researchers in the Department of Neurosurgery at Emory
University. While at Georgia Tech, Kennedy had developed an
implantable electrode system, with the idea being to make a
connection between the brain and external devices. After
experimenting for 12 years on animals, Bakay and Kennedy received
permission to experiment with humans. They implant electrodes
incased into very small glass cones that are hollowed out and
coated with neurotropic chemicals, which encourage nerve growth
through the glass itself. The nerve tissues grow into the
protected glass and form synapses in the motor cortex of the
patient’s brain. In effect they are creating an isolated piece of
brain which generates its own electrical activity (there are no
batteries involved). The internal brain generated signal is sent
to a receiver in the patient’s scalp and then transmitted to an
external computer. The idea is to have the patient control a
cursor on the computer directly from his brain generated signals.
So far, there have been two human patients.
The patients they experiment with are, obviously, very ill. The
first patient was a lady who was debilitated by Lou Gehrig’s
disease, trapped in a body where she could only move her eyes up
and down. During the 76 days she survived she helped to identify
cell areas of concern, but she died before learning any basic
controls. The current patient (only known as J.R.) suffered a
massive stroke which paralyzed his entire body, leaving him with
control of only his face. Almost 10 months ago J.R. received
Kennedy’s brain implant, and has since learned to control a
computer cursor through the initiation of his own thoughts. The
brain activity generates a signal which when transmitted to the
computer causes the cursor to select icons which stand for
predefined messages, thereby allowing the otherwise trapped brain
of J.R. to communicate to the rest of the world. J.R. can also
very slowly spell words by causing the cursor to move to
available letters printed on the screen.
Kennedy speaks of the joy he felt when J.R. first slowly spelled
out P_H_I_L, Kennedy’s first name. This was the first direct
communication that J.R. had with the external world since he
suffered his massive stroke and was paralyzed. Both Bakay and
Kennedy think of J.R. as a courageous man, and one day soon
hopefully J.R. will be able to tell Bakay and Kennedy just how
wonderful _they_ are.
I leave you with a quote from Bakay:
"Dr. Kennedy and I are two overworked clinicians who
still have patients to see. We need some help. We are
hoping some venture capitalist will be interested."
I wish them luck.
************************************************
Anyways, cheers for progress!
Amen to that!
I read a study some years ago about the work being done with pilots. Very exciting stuff!
Isn’t it wonderful that in the midst of all the horrors, we know that something like this is going on! :dough: Something worth fighting for, huh.
…
Isn’t it wonderful that in the midst of all the horrors, we know that something like this is going on!
Something worth fighting for, huh.
It is wonderful! And now it seems that space exploration is coming out of its 30 year (1974 - 2004) hiatus and has become reinvigorated by the private sector. Just think of Ansari X prize recently won by Rutan and his team, and now the $50 million prize anounced by a private company for the first privately funded ORBITAL spaceship (as well as plans for a private space station)! (see this)
It’s stories like that these that give me hope; whenever I look at global politics and broad intellectual movements it seems the world is headed irresistably to a new Dark Ages. But these events make me think otherwise.