Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Michael S Czeiszperger <czei AT webperformanceinc.com>]

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http://www.nature.com/nsu/020429/020429-9.html

I sincerely hope that IT managers don't read this :-)

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Bioengineers at the State University of New York have transformed a common 
lab 
rat into a radio-controlled automaton with little more than a few electrodes. 
By stimulating the part of the rat's brain that normally receives sensations 
from the animal's whiskers via a radio receiver plugged into an interface in 
its skull, researchers were able to navigate the animal through an obstacle 
course, making it twist, turn and even leap on demand. When it responded 
properly, the rat was rewarded with a signal that stimulated its medial 
forebrain bundle, the "feelgood" center of the mammalian brain."It's really 
just conditioning behavior," said physiologist John K. Chapin of the 
university's Downstate Medical Center, noting that training an animal to do 
human bidding is as old as teaching dogs to fetch. "But it's different in 
that you can do it all with remote control. In theory, you could guide the 
animal anywhere." Researchers believe these remote-controlled rats could be 
used to detect land mines and find people trapped in collapsed buildings.

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Michael Czeiszperger
Web Performance Inc.
Raleigh, NC
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