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My Thoughts on Paralyzed Monkeys Using Limbs Again Through Tech
A conversation I had with a friend the other day...
Me: I read this morning about a device they've created at a big university [University of Washington (UW) and the Washington National Primate Research Center] that allows a monkey who's paralyzed to control his own wrist by taking brain signals into a computer and then the computer sending those signals back to the wrist through electronic pulses
My friend: no way!? serious? do you have a link for that? http://spectrum.ieee.org/oct08/6908 Our world is changing, and we are only at the beginning of a digital revolution that will leave mankind looking.. well.. different. I'm sure my friend and I were among thousands of people who were absolutely floored when we read that story. Sometimes, it seems like I read a report like that every day at news.ycombinator.com and other, related sites.
What are the implications for this tech from Washington and other life science discoveries at universities and research labs around the world? Will men and women who have been paralyzed for decades walk again? This wired story reports on a man who can control a computer through electrical signals from his thoughts. With monkeys controlling their wrists through computers, and men controlling computers with the electrical signals of their brain, being able to walk again after being paralyzed doesn't seem very far off.
And when I say around the world that's no joke. China already graduates many more times as many engineers as the U.S. 300 million Chinese children are being taught English right now. Technologies like Cisco's telepresence continue to shrink the world and allow for collaboration regardless of geography. What will all those powerful minds be able to create as they work together? What will happen when Silicon Valley is no longer a place but an idea and the great minds of the world can work together without the distractions of zip code? I think we're living through the most exciting part of our world's history. Some don't even realize it. Do you?
