Intercontinental Mind-Meld Unites Two Rats 176
ananyo writes "The brains of two rats on different continents have been made to act in tandem. When the first, in Brazil, uses its whiskers to choose between two stimuli, an implant records its brain activity and signals to a similar device in the brain of a rat in the United States. The U.S. rat then usually makes the same choice on the same task. Miguel Nicolelis, a neuroscientist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, says that this system allows one rat to use the senses of another, incorporating information from its far-away partner into its own representation of the world. 'It's not telepathy. It's not the Borg,' he says. 'But we created a new central nervous system made of two brains.' Nicolelis says that the work, published today, is the first step towards constructing an organic computer that uses networks of linked animal brains to solve tasks. But other scientists who work on neural implants are skeptical."
Re:Intercontinental? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not the Borg? (Score:2, Informative)
Mmm. No, I think the thing that sets the Borg apart from others is their networked mind.
Geordi had a VISOR / eye implants and Picard had an artificial heart. No one ever said these were a slippery slope to being Borg.
But directly connecting your mind to another, to lose your sense of individuality, THAT is the first step to full on Borg time.