> On Aug 16, 7:40 am, Jerry Kraus yahoo.com> wrote:
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>> On Aug 16, 12:39 am, Immortalist yahoo.com> wrote:

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>>> On Aug 15, 7:16 am, Jerry Kraus yahoo.com> wrote:

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>>>> On Aug 15, 1:02 am, Immortalist yahoo.com> wrote:

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>>>>> On Aug 14, 4:43 pm, Jerry Kraus yahoo.com> wrote:

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>>>>>> On Aug 14, 12:59 am, Immortalist yahoo.com> wrote:

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>>>>>>> A 'Frankenrobot' with a biological brain

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>>>>>>> Meet Gordon, probably the world's first robot controlled exclusively
>>>>>>> by living brain tissue.

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>>>>>>> Stitched together from cultured rat neurons, Gordon's primitive grey
>>>>>>> matter was designed at the University of Reading by scientists who
>>>>>>> unveiled the neuron-powered machine on Wednesday.

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>>>>>>> Their groundbreaking experiments explore the vanishing boundary
>>>>>>> between natural and artificial intelligence, and could shed light on
>>>>>>> the fundamental building blocks of memory and learning, one of the
>>>>>>> lead researchers told AFP.

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>>>>>>> "The purpose is to figure out how memories are actually stored in a
>>>>>>> biological brain," said Kevin Warwick, a professor at the University
>>>>>>> of Reading and one of the robot's principle architects.

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>>>>>>> Observing how the nerve cells cohere into a network as they fire off
>>>>>>> electrical impulses, he said, may also help scientists combat
>>>>>>> neurodegenerative diseases that attack the brain such as Alzheimer's
>>>>>>> and Parkinson's.

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>>>>>>> "If we can understand some of the basics of what is going on in our
>>>>>>> little model brain, it could have enormous medical spinoffs," he said.

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>>>>>>> Looking a bit like the garbage-compacting hero of the blockbuster
>>>>>>> animation "Wall-E", Gordon has a brain composed of 50,000 to 100,000
>>>>>>> active neurons.

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>>>>>>> Once removed from rat foetuses and disentangled from each other with
>>>>>>> an enzyme bath, the specialised nerve cells are laid out in a nutrient-
>>>>>>> rich medium across an eight-by-eight centimetre (five-by-five inch)
>>>>>>> array of 60 electrodes.

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>>>>>>> This "multi-electrode array" (MEA) serves as the interface between
>>>>>>> living tissue and machine, with the brain sending electrical impulses
>>>>>>> to drive the wheels of the robots, and receiving impulses delivered by
>>>>>>> sensors reacting to the environment.

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>>>>>>> Because the brain is living tissue, it must be housed in a special
>>>>>>> temperature-controlled unit -- it communicates with its "body" via a
>>>>>>> Bluetooth radio link.

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>>>>>>> The robot has no additional control from a human or computer.

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>>>>>>> From the very start, the neurons get busy. "Within about 24 hours,
>>>>>>> they start sending out feelers to each other and making connections,"
>>>>>>> said Warwick.

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>>>>>>> "Within a week we get some spontaneous firings and brain-like
>>>>>>> activity" similar to what happens in a normal rat -- or human --
>>>>>>> brain, he added.

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>>>>>>> But without external stimulation, the brain will wither and die within
>>>>>>> a couple of months.

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>>>>>>> "Now we are looking at how best to teach it to behave in certain
>>>>>>> ways," explained Warwick.

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>>>>>>> To some extent, Gordon learns by itself. When it hits a wall, for
>>>>>>> example, it gets an electrical stimulation from the robot's sensors.
>>>>>>> As it confronts similar situations, it learns by habit.

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>>>>>>> To help this process along, the researchers also use different
>>>>>>> chemicals to reinforce or inhibit the neural pathways that light up
>>>>>>> during particular actions.

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>>>>>>> Gordon, in fact, has multiple personalities -- several MEA "brains"
>>>>>>> that the scientists can dock into the robot.

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>>>>>>> "It's quite funny -- you get differences between the brains," said
>>>>>>> Warwick. "This one is a bit boisterous and active, while we know
>>>>>>> another is not going to do what we want it to."

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>>>>>>> Mainly for ethical reasons, it is unlikely that researchers at Reading
>>>>>>> or the handful of laboratories around the world exploring the same
>>>>>>> terrain will be using human neurons any time soon in the same kind of
>>>>>>> experiments.

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>>>>>>> But rats brain cells are not a bad stand-in: much of the difference
>>>>>>> between rodent and human intelligence, speculates Warwick, could be
>>>>>>> attributed to quantity not quality.

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>>>>>>> Rats brains are composed of about one million neurons, the specialised
>>>>>>> cells that relay information across the brain via chemicals called
>>>>>>> neurotransmitters.

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>>>>>>> Humans have 100 billion.

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>>>>>>> "This is a simplified version of what goes on in the human brain where
>>>>>>> we can look -- and control -- the basic features in the way that we
>>>>>>> want. In a human brain, you can't really do that," he said.

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>>>>>>> For colleague Ben Whalley, one of the fundamental questions facing
>>>>>>> scientists today is how to link the activity of individual neurons
>>>>>>> with the overwhelmingly complex behaviour of whole organisms.

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>>>>>>> "The project gives us a unique opportunity to look at something which
>>>>>>> may exhibit complex behaviours, but still remain closely tied to the
>>>>>>> activity of individual neurons," he said.

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>>>>>>>http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080813192458.ud84hj9h&show_ar...

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>>>>>> Interesting game.  But, is it really anything more than that?  I often
>>>>>> have the feeling, these days, that scientific experiments aren't
>>>>>> really intended to accomplish anything at all, other than attract
>>>>>> attention.  What really are they trying to design with this particular
>>>>>> monstrosity, other than the outline for a research grant?

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>> - Hide quoted text -

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>>> - Show quoted text -

>>>>> Should they throw it away then because it will be abused but possibly
>>>>> developed?

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>>>>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlTImvP8M-Q&feature=related-Hidequoted...-

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>>>>> - Show quoted text -

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>>>> Somehow, I'm not too worried about that possibility.  What worries me
>>>> isn't that this is going to lead to the "Terminator".  What worries me
>>>> is that it is extremely unlikely to lead to anything, and was only
>>>> proposed because it sounds a bit like the "Terminator".

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>>> Can explain why you believe it will ever, in the near or even far
>>> future lead to anything? Using only nerve cells seems like a major
>>> step, like inventing the transistor or something. This could be so
>>> revolutionary that it changes everything in the information world.

>

>> Not really.  We've hooked up electrodes to the human brain that
>> allowed people to crudely manipulate devices.  But, we haven't
>> proceeded to be able to manipulate much of anything psychokinetically,
>> for practical purposes.  Now we have a few neurons that can be used to
>> very crudely manipulate something.  The problem isn't the general
>> concept.  It's the crudeness of the technique.  And the total abscence
>> of any general approach to structure the research process so as to
>> refine the technology.  Scientists are good speculators.  But,
>> frequently, they are very bad at moving from theory to practice.
>> Perhaps because the system doesn't really reward results.  Neurons
>> produce electrochemical discharges, obviously these discharges can be
>> used to crudely influence an electronic system.  But, to produce
>> something of real practical value, that may be a qualitatively
>> different step.  Which the scientists have no way of knowing how to
>> proceed to.  And may not which to proceed to, if they have no
>> incentive to do so.

>
> The neat thing about this is that there is already an exposed plan for
> developing bio-computers like mammal brains. The genes direct the
> assembly of multiple cells and steer them here and there with chemical
> gradients until a full brain sort of happens. All these researchers
> need to do is learn to "steer" or "herd" these downhill processes and
> find structures events in nature would not allow because of survival.
>
> Embryogenesis is the process by which the embryo is formed and
> develops. It starts with the fertilization of the ovum, egg, which,
> after fertilization, is then called a zygote. The zygote undergoes
> rapid mitotic divisions, the formation of two exact genetic replicates
> of the original cell, with no significant growth (a process known as
> cleavage) and cellular differentiation, leading to development of an
> embryo
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryogenesis- Hide quoted text -
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> - Show quoted text -