Yes folks, the cyberpunk universe starts on the concept of the Direct neural Interface with machines, and as far as I can tell, this is what's being discussed in this article.
Cyberkinetics Inc. of Foxboro, Mass., has received Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) approval to begin a clinical trial in which four-square-millimeter chips will be placed beneath the skulls of paralyzed patients.So pretty soon we might be arguing about cyber-enhanced athletes competing in the paralympics beating the 'ordinary'/drug-enhanced meat athletes... William Gibson is probably dancing in his lounge room right now.
If successful, the chips could allow patients to command a computer to act — merely by thinking about the instructions they wish to send.
The search goes on...
NASA reports that the search forthe mostt dangerous asteroids are nearly complete and they want to move onto the smaller objects. Of some interest is this section here:
If an asteroid was confirmed to be on a catastrophic collision course with Earth, the experts said it would take about 30 years to get ready to do anything about it.So, it's not quite like Deep Impact/Armageddon, but they've got something cooking for this contingency.
"The Space Shuttle's main engines and the fuel contained in the large external tank could successfully deflect a 1 kilometer object if it were applied about 20 years in advance," of a projected collision, Griffin said.
Using a nuclear bomb might make matters worse because the pieces of the blown-up asteroid would stay in the same orbit and eventually come back together again.
In other news, the two Mars Rovers are getting a software upgrade.
- Art Neuro