MONKEYS AND ROBOTS, LIVING TOGETHER!

Best headline ever:

Monkeys Control Robotic Arm With Brain Implants

The story is pretty cool, too:

Scientists in North Carolina have built a brain implant that lets monkeys control a robotic arm with their thoughts, marking the first time that mental intentions have been harnessed to move a mechanical object.



The technology could someday allow people with paralyzing spinal cord injuries to operate machines or tools with their thoughts as naturally as others today do with their hands. It might even allow some paralyzed people to move their own arms or legs again, by transmitting the brain's directions not to a machine but directly to the muscles in those latent limbs.

The brain implants could also allow scientists or soldiers to control, hands-free, small robots that could perform tasks in inhospitable environments or in war zones.

In the new experiments, monkeys with wires running from their brains to a robotic arm were able to use their thoughts to make the arm perform tasks. But before long, the scientists said, they will upgrade the implants so the monkeys can transmit their mental commands to machines wirelessly.

"It's a major advance," University of Washington neuroscientist Eberhard E. Fetz said of the monkey studies. "This bodes well for the success of brain-machine interfaces."

I wonder if Fetz will be so enthusiastic when the monkey-robot armies come for him!