God. Real. Right.

Several researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University recently succeeded at producing prosthetic arm control using a direct interface with cortical signals–according to an article they jointly published in Nature. In other words, scientists connected sensors to some monkeys’ brains and the monkeys learned to control a machine-arm in just about exactly the way they would control their own arms. Yes, it sounds creepy. But that success has huge practical implications for amputees in the near future, and for everyone–endless anticipated conveniences for optimists, endless anticipated conspiracies for everyone else. The synopsis of the article in Nature is carefully worded to avoid Read the rest of this entry »