The boot-like device uses machine learning to provide support for an individual with mobility problems.
Category: cyborgs – Page 29
Scientists are getting closer to producing prosthetic limbs that can sense touch. A team of researchers from Stanford University and Seoul National University have created an artificial nerve system that can not only sense differences in pressure but also read individual Braille letters. More amazingly still, they managed to hook the artificial nerves up to the leg of a cockroach and make the limb twitch.
“We take skin for granted but it’s a complex sensing, signaling and decision-making system,” says Stanford’s Zhenan Bao, co-author of the paper published in Science and whose lab has been developing the system, in a statement. “This artificial sensory nerve system is a step toward making skin-like sensory neural networks for all sorts of applications.”
The nerve circuit that the team developed is made up of three main components.
Imagine brain implants that let you control devices by thought alone—or let computers read your mind. It’s early days, but research into this technology is well under way.
Film supported by @mishcondereya.
00:00 — Are brain implants the future of computing?
00:58 — Headsets are changing how brains interact with the virtual world.
02:24 — What is a brain computer interface?
03:24 — What’s holding this technology back?
04:00 — How wearable BCIs can read your mind.
06:27 — How BCIs physically alter the brain.
07:17 — Invasive brain implants.
09:14 — The first human cyborg.
09:51 — What’s next?
Sign up to our science newsletter to keep up to date: https://econ.st/3Mn3IR3
Soft robots have phenomenally advanced in recent years. Microscale soft robots designated to navigate difficult paths and perform biological functions in the human body could have profound potential biomedical applications such as surgery, prosthetics, and pain relief.
Currently, the intrinsic functionalization of bio-inspired soft robots is based on elastomeric materials such as silica gel, which requires introducing bulky components and extensive processing steps. They have major limitations in their extent of deformability as compared to their natural biological counterparts.
A research team led by Professor Anderson H.C. Shum from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Professor Thomas P. Russell from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has invented an all-water robotic system that resolves these constraints through revolutionary scientific advances.
Synchron, a neurovascular bioelectronics medicine company, today announced publication of a first-in-human study demonstrating successful use of the Stentrode™ brain-computer interface (BCI), or neuroprosthesis. Specifically, the study shows the Stentrode’s ability to enable patients with severe paralysis to resume daily tasks, including texting, emailing, shopping and banking online, through direct thought, and without the need for open brain surgery. The study is the first to demonstrate that a BCI implanted via the patient’s blood vessels is able to restore the transmission of brain impulses out of the body, and did so wirelessly. The patients were able to use their impulses to control digital devices without the need for a touchscreen, mouse, keyboard or voice activation technology. This feasibility study was published in the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery (JNIS), the leading international peer-review journal for the clinical field of neurointerventional surgery, and official journal of the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery (SNIS).
Year 2020 face_with_colon_three
An international team of scientists have restored the vision in blind rats using a nanoparticle-based artificial retina prosthesis that can be injected directly into the eye. The scientific advance has been successfully demonstrated for a period of eight months without the need for surgery. While it is still early days for the research, it suggests it might one day be possible to use the conjugated polymer nanoparticle (P3HT-NP) treatment in humans to correct eye problems –ranging from hereditary retinal dystrophies to the incredibly common age-related macular degeneration.
“In our ‘liquid retina device,’ P3HT nanoparticles spread out over the entire subretinal space and promoted light-dependent activation of spared inner retinal neurons, recovering subcortical, cortical and behavioral visual responses,” Fabio Benfenati, research director at the Italian Institute of Technology, told Digital Trends. “We think that P3HT-NPs provide a new avenue in retinal prosthetics.”
Retinal prostheses refer to implantable devices that are designed to help restore sight in patients with retinal degeneration. They work by introducing visual information into the retina through the electrical stimulation of surviving retinal neurons. While promising, current retinal prostheses have so far been shown to only return low-resolution vision: Useful for things like distinguishing between light and dark or recognizing simple shapes and objects. This new nanotech approach appears far more promising, offering significantly higher resolution. After just one injection, activity in the rats’ visual cortex and visual acuity were the same as those found in healthy rats.
In the underground movement known as, people are taking their health into their own hands. Biohacking ranges from people making simple lifestyle changes to extreme body modifications.
One popular form of focuses on nutrigenomics, where biohackers study how the foods they eat affect their genes over time. They believe they can map and track the way their diet affects genetic function. They use dietary restrictions and blood tests, while tracking their moods, energy levels, behaviors, and cognitive abilities.
Then there are grinders, a subculture of A grinder believes there’s a hack for every part of the body. Rather than attempting to modify our existing biology, grinders seek to enhance it with implanted technology.
Interview with Hugo in Melbourne after the Singularity Summit Australia 2010, conducted by Adam A. Ford.
Terrans, Cyborgs and Cosmists — Varieties of human groups. Species dominance.
Bio: Prof. Dr. Hugo de Garis, 63, has lived in 7 countries. He recently retired from his role of Director of the Artificial Brain Lab (ABL) at Xiamen University, China, where he was building China’s first artificial brain. He and his friend Prof. Dr. Ben Goertzel have just finished guest editing a special issue on artificial brains for Neurocomputing journal (December 2010), the first of its kind on the planet.
He continues to live in China, where his U.S. savings go 7 times further, given China’s much lower cost of living. He spends his afternoons in his favorite (beautiful) park, and his nights in his apartment, intensively studying PhD-level pure math and mathematical physics to be able to write books on topics such as femtometer scale technology (“femtotech”), topological quantum computing (TQC), as well as other technical and sociopolitical themes.
Humans SHOULD Become Cyborgs
Posted in cyborgs, robotics/AI, transhumanism
In this video, I’m arguing that humans should become cyborgs and more about Transhumanism.
We are going to look at a few ideas which embrace the concept of artificial intelligence and cybernetics – the idea that we can fundamentally change the way that we think and interact with the world.
There may be humans who look more or less like us in the year million, but they won’t be alone.