Saturday, May 28, 2011

The Six Million Dollar Bionic Brain

By Judith Horstman / Source: Fox News

The six-million dollar man was pure fantasy in the 70s -- but largely realistic technology today. And the future of this tech is even wilder: Implantable brain electrodes may be just around the corner.

Futurists and science-fiction writers have long speculated about merging human and machine, especially human brains and computers. These dreams are slowly becoming reality: The deaf are hearing with bionic "ears," the blind see with the aid of electrodes, an amputee is moving a prosthetic arm by thought, a man paralyzed with locked-in syndrome is "speaking" through a brain electrode connected to a computerized synthesizer.


One such bionic advance -- thought-driven neural implants -- could change the lives of millions of people, including the many thousands conscious but now entombed within their own bodies in what's called locked-in syndrome, and the thousands of wounded warriors returning from battle with missing limbs and devastating brain injuries.

And it could open tremendous opportunities for people in the future who would like to take their minds where no man's body has gone before -- into deepest space or the deepest of ocean depths, for example, through the "senses" of a thought-driven robot.


READ THE FULL STORY HERE...

Mind Secrets Exposed

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