November 28, 2007
Metallicat
Apparently, cats do land on their feet. Sometimes. "Baby" has also apparently fallen on her back, but she's proven to be quite a resilient kitty. But does she have a life counter?
[link via boingboing]
June 21, 2006
Brain Chips
"In this trial," he explains, "we've implanted a tiny chip in the brain and that tiny chip picks up signals about moving the arm." The signal is then converted into simple commands that can be used to control computers, turn lights on and off, control a television set. Or, as Donoghue explains, "control robotic devices like an artificial hand... or a robotic arm."
"You are going to have individuals who have super-power of memories, calculation abilities and communication abilities and be far superior than the rest of us."
[ Link ]
June 06, 2006
Implant battery powered by body heat
Life-saving medical implants like pacemakers and defibrillators face a big drawback: their batteries eventually run out. So every few years, patients need surgery to have the batteries replaced.Now a company in New York state is planning to tackle the problem by providing patients with an implantable power source that recharges their implant's batteries using electricity generated by the patient's own body heat.
[ Link ]
May 01, 2006
Who needs a pulse?
Most LVADs [left ventricular assist devices] attempt to mimic the way the heart works, but their complicated design makes them prone to failure, and they have a tendency to make blood pool and clot, leading to strokes. That means LVADs are usually only used as a last resort for patients waiting for heart transplants.What makes the VentrAssist different is that it only has one moving part, a spinning impeller that drives a continuous stream of blood. That means the pulse is replaced by a gentle whirling noise that patients describe as similar to the sound of a washing machine. More importantly, the device prevents blood from stagnating, reducing the risk of clotting.
Also, "There is no predicted lifespan for VentrAssist because there are no wearing parts," says co-inventor of the device and company founder John Woodard. "It could be a hundred years, we don't know."
[ Link via New Scientist ]
April 18, 2006
Telescopic Eye Implant
Designed for people with Advanced Macular Degeneration, enhancements like this could be available as elective upgrades for healthy eyes in the future.
[ Link ]
Update [nym]: I initially wrote about this back in November, but it hadn't completed human trials then. Sweet!
April 17, 2006
iPod Nano implant using skin for network transmission
The image here is taken from Microsoft's patent application for using skin as a personal area network medium.
April 01, 2006
Transhumanists & Society
When I was younger, I was occasionally called a nerd, mostly because when I wasn't able to become wildly social with my peers, I turned to computers- one thing I could control and completely own mentally. Like most others who had similar experiences, I'm no longer called a nerd, but instead the more favorable term, "geek". I get this respect because this social group has grown through the dot com boom, and the push of the world wide web. I no longer wish to hide my interests as a geek, but stand tall.
Transhumanists though, while a subset of geeks, are less understood. In fact the idea of modifying oneself seems outright alien to many. The idea of pushing one's human shell to the limits to improve performance, and lifespan is even threatening to some. I myself have had conversations with people where I've expressed my desire to live for centuries instead of just one, and found myself in an argument about playing god. Nevertheless the goals of the transhumanist movement are appealing to many, which Stacy Robinson addresses in her book Transhumanism Reloaded:
...It may be a mistake to dismiss the transhumanists as a harmless group of under-socialized techno-geeks. Their vision of a world in which atomized individuals use technology and free markets to achieve dominance over others differs in degree, and not kind, from much of the real world today. At a time when many people feel powerless to influence social conditions, their message—don’t worry about society; technology will make you smart, strong, and attractive—could seem compelling.
It may seem foreign and strange right now to wear head mounted displays and want to put impant electronics under our skin now, but I think like theg geeks and the world wide web, transhumanism and cyborganics are going to become more and more accepted as this group of individuals excels beyond others. I will stand tall with my desire to augment myself because the idea of improving myself is compelling, and I believe while the transhumanist movement is young, the work being done now will be the foundations for years to come.
Fusing Chips with Brains
Cyborganics took a big step forward when european researchers were able to fuse electronic chips with brain cells. The reason why they did this was to pave the road towards sophisticated neural prostheses. These prostheses could be used potentially to assist nurological disorders or build more advanced computers using human tissue. Yeah, it sounds a bit like Robocop, but it could mean a great leap in computational power and cyborgs.
To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size.
[Researchers] used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells, called neurons, onto the chip. However, the proteins acted as more than just a simple adhesive."They also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be passed to the silicon chip," said study team member Stefano Vassanelli from the University of Padua in Italy.
The proteins allowed the neuro-chip's electronic components and its living cells to communicate with each other. Electrical signals from neurons were recorded using the chip's transistors, while the chip's capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons.
They see the payoff being decades away, but for the meantime they believe their work can be used for screening drugs for the pharmaceutical industry. After all researchers follow where the money is, and the pharmaceutical industry has bags of it.
[ Link via Xaos. Thanks Xaos! ]
February 13, 2006
Learning Retinal Implant System
(IMI), a Zug, Switzerland-based company just announced a learning retinal implant system, which has been successfuly implanted in two humans already. The implant is designed to "replace signal-processing functions of a healthy retina and provides input to the retinal nerve cells (the ganglion cells) that, in turn, provide input to the optic nerve and the brain", and at at 50-electrodes, the device is far beyond 16-electrode predecesors.
The system comprises on an implant, also called "The Retinal Stimulator", a pair of spectacles that contain a camera and a transmitter, and a wearable computer worn at the patient's waist that processes the input from the camera to replace the information processing function of the formall healthy retina.
The use of a high-speed digital signal processor allows the provision of "intelligent information" to the implant (and the nerve cells) by using tuneable software to approximate the information processing normally carried out by the healthy retina. The entire process enables patients to optimize their visual perception during the learning phase. Indeed, using the patient's feedback on perception as an input for the tuning of The Pocket Processor is the unique, patent-protected feature of the System and constitutes the 'learning' capability of the Learning Retinal Implant System.
February 11, 2006
New Cochlear Implant in Development
A new cochlear implant is in development. This is particularly good news for patients in four or five years as it means less invasive surgery, which means a lower chance of damage to the patient's ear canal.
The University of Michigan team has developed a cochlear implant from thin-film electrodes that can stimulate the auditory nerve directly. This design allows a much simpler insertion method for surgeons and will definitely prove to be a boon for the hard of hearing. Currently being tested on guinea pigs and cats, this new implant is manufactured in a similar process to integrated circuits, allowing them to be made in batches.
In addition, the implant can hit more nerves, allowing lower frequencies to be activated by the implant:
"The range of frequencies that can be stimulated depends on how far into the cochlea the implant can go, with the lower frequencies located further up toward the apex of the spiral canal," Wise said. In current technology, each implant has anywhere from 16 to 22 stimulating sites along its length. By contrast, the U-M implant will host up to 128 stimulating sites."More sites mean greater tonal range and better frequency perception," Wise said, "and the implant's flexibility will minimize damage to existing hearing."
February 10, 2006
40/40 Vision
As a person who wears glasses, I find laser surgery facinating from a scientify point of view, but why stop there? Why not improve your vision? Sure you could create an eyetap with a zooming camera for your eyes, but a company called PixelOptics is trying to do one better, and they say they will be able to double the quality of a person's eyesight.
That company, PixelOptics of Roanoke, Virginia, just won a $3.5 million Department of Defense grant to refine its "supervision" technology, which Blum claims could double the quality of a person's eyesight. "Theoretically, this should be able to double the distance that a person can see clearly," he says.At the heart of PixelOptics' technology are tiny, electronically-controlled pixels embedded within a traditional eyeglass lens. Technicians scan the eyeball with an aberrometer -- a device that measures aberrations that can impede vision -- and then the pixels are programmed to correct the irregularities.
Update:
This is probably not the best title since 40/40 vision doesn't actually mean that you have double the quality of vision that a 20/20 person. What would be technically accurate would be 20/10 vision. Read the comments for more information.
January 05, 2006
Deaf hacker rewrites implant-firmware so he can enjoy music again
At my last job one of my coworkers had just got a cochlear implant, and he said it was helping, but the doctors were tweaking it over a few weeks to be able to get it to work better for him. Obviously this is not a perfect science, and a lot of innovation is going on to improve hearing for people with cochlear implants.
The implant was embedded in my head; it wasn't some flawed hearing aid I could just send back. But it was a computer. Which meant that, at least in theory, its effectiveness was limited only by the ingenuity of software engineers. As researchers learn more about how the ear works, they continually revise cochlear implant software. Users await new releases with all the anticipation of Apple zealots lining up for the latest Mac OS.About a year after I received the implant, I asked one implant engineer how much of the device's hardware capacity was being used. "Five percent, maybe." He shrugged. "Ten, tops."
I was determined to use that other 90 percent. I set out on a crusade to explore the edges of auditory science. For two years tugging on the sleeves of scientists and engineers around the country, offering myself as a guinea pig for their experiments. I wanted to hear Boléro again.
I wonder how implant firmware like this is going to evolve with respect to open source. Will hackers around the world tweak the code that runs these devices, releasing specialized hacks, allowing people to switch in different versions of the software? For that matter, will Michael Chorost release his code so that others can enjoy Boléro again?
[ Link and title via boing boing ]
October 13, 2005
iBreast: MP3 in your Tits
One boob could hold an MP3 player and the other the person's whole music collection....
BT Laboratories' analyst Ian Pearson said flexible plastic electronics would sit inside the breast. A signal would be relayed to headphones, while the device would be controlled by Bluetooth using a panel on the wrist.
Ian Pearson said to the British tabloid, The Sun, "It is now very hard for me to thing of breast implants as just decorative. If a woman has something implanted permanently, it might as well do something useful.". I tend to agree, but the idea of having legacy hardware in one's body isn't too exciting either, and really, who wants to be fondling someone's tits, only to have France Ferdinand start playing?
All kidding aside, there is potential in this kind of development for things like medical equipment to detect heart murmurs, blood pressure increases, and breast cancer.
July 21, 2005
Magnetic Implants
Magnetic Implants are something I've heard about before, and interest me since it seems like a low tech way of extending our senses, a common desire of cyborg-enthusiasts. One of my friends has an implant like this; they're good for party tricks, as well as detecting magnetic fields.
In one sensory incident, I was walking out of the library, and I sensed the inductive anti-theft device. I have walked in and out of dozens of libraries hundreds of times, and never once have I thought about the magnetic fields passed through me to prevent me from stealing a book. I have been intellectually aware of the mechanism, but never paid attention until now. Another time I opened a can of cat food for my girlfriend’s pets, and I sensed the electric motor running. My hand was about six inches away from the electric can opener, and I was able to sense where the motor was inside of the assembly. Again it brought my attention to a magnetic source that I understood intellectually, but would have otherwise been unaware of. I feel I am one step closer to fully grokking the reality I inhabit. [Todd M Huffma]
[ Link via del.icio.us ]