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

["Bill Geschwind" <geschwin AT email.unc.edu>]

Can 'Robocop' and 'Ultimate Soldier' be far behind?  YIKES!

- Bill

*********************************************************************
Bill Geschwind
Technical Assistance Manager
Department of Technology and Systems Support  
Division of Student Affairs, University of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill
03 Teague Hall, CB# 5510                               (919) 962-5629
Chapel Hill, NC 27599                          geschwin AT email.unc.edu
********************************************************************* 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael S Czeiszperger [mailto:czei AT webperformanceinc.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 1:06 PM
> To: InterNetWorkers
> Subject: [internetworkers] Ratbots
> 
> 
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> http://www.nature.com/nsu/020429/020429-9.html
> 
> I sincerely hope that IT managers don't read this :-)
> 
> - -------------------
> 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.
> 
> - -- 
> Michael Czeiszperger
> Web Performance Inc.
> Raleigh, NC
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> 
> ---
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