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You've always been told that you can "improve your mind" by learning, but a group of European scientists have decided to be more direct about it. They've learned that neural activity can be increased by grafting brain cells onto nano-tubes, thereby creating something that's half brain, half ultra-tech, all awesome.
The work clamps a bunch of hippocampus cells to a fullerene nanotube. Trials have shown that the brain cells grow very effectively on the nanomaterial, indicating that this junction could be a biocompatible link between mind and machine. Even better, the single-walled nanotubes can actually accelerate signaling between neural cells. Electrical signals can be conducted by the tube, and are transmitted faster than by the cells' own axon connections.
The team intend to use this nanoneurology to repair spinal cord injuries. The scaffold can steer the cells between the existing cells, while newly grown nerves can complete the connection. When the chance to heal people otherwise thought permanently paralyzed is just the first test of a new technique? That's when you know that science is awesome.
Faster signalling doesn't mean faster thinking - the cells can still only fire at a certain speed. But the ability to provide extra connections between brain cells, and use the nanoscaffold to steer their development, offers limitless possibilities. By their very nature brain cells learn and adapt to form a network - faster connections doesn't mean faster thinking, but extra connections and new architectures offer the chance for entirely new modes of thought.
The problem is that tinkering with the human mind is pretty much every moral and ethical minefield on the planet jammed together (all the experiments so far have been on rat cells). If somebody wants to engineer a hyperbrain they'll have to do it in secret. But then again, if someone is working to use the latest nanotechnology to create a race of ultraintelligent cyborgs it's certain that they'll be working in secret. To avoid James Bond killing them.
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By Luke McKinney
The work clamps a bunch of hippocampus cells to a fullerene nanotube. Trials have shown that the brain cells grow very effectively on the nanomaterial, indicating that this junction could be a biocompatible link between mind and machine. Even better, the single-walled nanotubes can actually accelerate signaling between neural cells. Electrical signals can be conducted by the tube, and are transmitted faster than by the cells' own axon connections.
The team intend to use this nanoneurology to repair spinal cord injuries. The scaffold can steer the cells between the existing cells, while newly grown nerves can complete the connection. When the chance to heal people otherwise thought permanently paralyzed is just the first test of a new technique? That's when you know that science is awesome.
Faster signalling doesn't mean faster thinking - the cells can still only fire at a certain speed. But the ability to provide extra connections between brain cells, and use the nanoscaffold to steer their development, offers limitless possibilities. By their very nature brain cells learn and adapt to form a network - faster connections doesn't mean faster thinking, but extra connections and new architectures offer the chance for entirely new modes of thought.
The problem is that tinkering with the human mind is pretty much every moral and ethical minefield on the planet jammed together (all the experiments so far have been on rat cells). If somebody wants to engineer a hyperbrain they'll have to do it in secret. But then again, if someone is working to use the latest nanotechnology to create a race of ultraintelligent cyborgs it's certain that they'll be working in secret. To avoid James Bond killing them.
___
By Luke McKinney
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