Many in the general public think scientific and technological innovations bring helpful change to society, but they are more concerned than excited when it comes to the potential use of emerging technologies to make people's minds sharper, their bodies stronger and healthier than ever before, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
The survey covers broad public reaction to scientific advances and examines public attitudes about the potential use of three specific emerging technologies for "human enhancement."
The nationally representative survey of more than 4,700 U.S. adults centered on public views about: gene editing that might give babies a lifetime with much reduced risk of serious disease, implantation of brain chips that potentially could give people a much improved ability to concentrate and process information, and transfusions of synthetic blood that might give people much greater speed, strength and stamina. The survey is part of a research package that also includes an analysis of focus groups and an essay summarizing experts' views on these topics.
A majority of Americans would be 'very' or 'somewhat' worried about gene editing (68%); brain chips (69%); and synthetic blood (63%), while no more than half say they would be enthusiastic about each of these developments. While some people say they would be both enthusiastic and worried, overall, concern outpaces excitement.
The tiny injectable machine could turn your noodle into a remote control.
The Pentagon is attempting what was, until recently, an impossible technological feat—developing a high-bandwidth neural interface that would allow people to beam data from their minds to external devices and back.
That’s right—a brain modem. One that could allow a soldier to, for example, control a drone with his mind.
This seemingly unlikely piece of technology has just gotten a lot less unlikely. On Feb. 8, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—the U.S. military’s fringe-science wing—announced the first successful tests, on animal subjects, of a tiny sensor that travels through blood vessels, lodges in the brain and records neural activity.
The so-called “stentrode,” a combination stent and electrode, is the size of a paperclip and flexible. The tiny, injectable machine—the invention of neurologist Tom Oxley and his team at the University of Melbourne in Australia—could help researchers solve one of the most vexing problems with the brain modem: how to insert a transmitter into the brain without also drilling a hole in the user’s head, a risky procedure under any circumstances.
Based on existing stents that doctors use to clean blood vessels, the stentrode includes sensors and a tiny transmitter. Entering the bloodstream via a catheter, the stentrode swims in the bloodstream.
Doctors monitor the stentrode on its journey through the circulatory system. When the device reaches the brain, the physicians command it to expand against the blood vessels’ walls and hold station. There it remains for potentially months at a time, recording and relaying the subtle electrical signals that flow from the brain to the rest of the body.
A simple injection is now all it takes to wire up a brain. A diverse team of physicists, neuroscientists and chemists has implanted mouse brains with a rolled-up, silky mesh studded with tiny electronic devices, and shown that it unfurls to spy on and stimulate individual neurons.
The implant has the potential to unravel the workings of the mammalian brain in unprecedented detail. “I think it’s great, a very creative new approach to the problem of recording from large number of neurons in the brain,” says Rafael Yuste, director of the Neurotechnology Center at Columbia University in New York, who was not involved in the work.
If eventually shown to be safe, the soft mesh might even be used in humans to treat conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, says Charles Lieber, a chemist at Harvard University on Cambridge, Massachusetts, who led the team.
An experimental Pentagon program has already developed two types of a highly advanced, Terminator-like prosthetic arm.
What's more, a quadriplegic woman with sensors implanted onto her brain controlled one of the robotic limbs to grab a cup, shake hands and eat a chocolate bar. She even flew an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter simulator using just her thoughts.
Now, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants to expand on that cutting-edge work to build other potential breakthrough medical technologies, including a pacemaker-sized device that might someday improve the memory of troops who suffered a traumatic brain injury. Think of it as a hard drive of sorts for the brain.
"We know we need a next-generation device that doesn't exist today," said Justin Sanchez, who manages DARPA's Biological Technologies Office in Arlington, Virginia. "That's what these new programs are all about -- not only understanding the brain and these conditions, but building the hardware that enables us to address those issues. You need both."
EPFL scientists have managed to get rats walking on their own again using a combination of electrical and chemical stimulation. But applying this method to humans would require multifunctional implants that could be installed for long periods of time on the spinal cord without causing any tissue damage. This is precisely what the teams of professors Stéphanie Lacour and Grégoire Courtine have developed. Their e-Dura implant is designed specifically for implantation on the surface of the brain or spinal cord. The small device closely imitates the mechanical properties of living tissue, and can simultaneously deliver electric impulses and pharmacological substances. The risks of rejection and/or damage to the spinal cord have been drastically reduced. An article about the implant will appear in early January in Science Magazine.
So-called "surface implants" have reached a roadblock; they cannot be applied long term to the spinal cord or brain, beneath the nervous system's protective envelope, otherwise known as the "dura mater," because when nerve tissues move or stretch, they rub against these rigid devices. After a while, this repeated friction causes inflammation, scar tissue buildup, and rejection.
And now for something completely different: Cyborgs. No, this is not a joke. For years, certain technology enthusiasts have floated variations on the question or whether we are becoming cyborgs—or already are cyborgs. In our newly released paper, titled “Our Cyborg Future: Law and Policy Implications,” we take a different, more legal angle.
The law remains embryonic on virtually all points of interest to the adolescent cyborg: everything from your right to access your own data, to your right to restrict access to your data, to your ability to secure something more than property restitution when an airline destroys your custom mobility assistance device and leaves you bedridden for a year. That’s right: whether you rely on a pacemaker to stay alive or on a cellphone to stay connected, when we say “adolescent cyborg,” we are talking about you.
DARPA has selected two universities to initially lead the agency’s Restoring Active Memory (RAM) program, which aims to develop and test wireless, implantable “neuroprosthetics” that can help servicemembers, veterans, and others overcome memory deficits incurred as a result of traumatic brain injury (TBI) or disease.
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) will each head a multidisciplinary team to develop and test electronic interfaces that can sense memory deficits caused by injury and attempt to restore normal function. Under the terms of separate cooperative agreements with DARPA, UCLA will receive up to $15 million and Penn will receive up to $22.5 million over four years, with full funding contingent on the performer teams successfully meeting a series of technical milestones. DARPA also has a cooperative agreement worth up to $2.5 million in place with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to develop an implantable neural device for the UCLA-led effort.
“The start of the Restoring Active Memory program marks an exciting opportunity to reveal many new aspects of human memory and learn about the brain in ways that were never before possible,” said DARPA Program Manager Justin Sanchez. “Anyone who has witnessed the effects of memory loss in another person knows its toll and how few options are available to treat it. We’re going to apply the knowledge and understanding gained in RAM to develop new options for treatment through technology.”
Contact lenses sharpen our blurry vision, and free us from the hassle of pushing sliding glasses back up our noses. But the future of contacts is nigh: Researchers have created a super-thin infrared sensor that could lead to the development of night vision contact lenses.
Night vision, presently, is a rather clunky technology — epitomized in the rainy Tyrannosaurus rex scene in the original Jurassic Park. To see in the dark, a person dons a set of binocular-shaped goggles strapped to the head. The devices also produce a lot of heat, so they need to be cooled, adding to the overall volume of mechanics required.
Now, researchers from the University of Michigan are close to packing night vision’s clumsiness into technology that fits on your fingertip. They built a super-thin infrared light sensor using graphene — a material that’s a single carbon atom in thickness — that could be stacked on contact lenses or integrated into smart phone cameras for handy night vision.
