Brains In A Jar
The brian in ajaris a collection of 25,000 living neurons grown from a rat's brainthat's then hooked up to a bunch of elctrodes and a common deskto computer. Next sotp, bringing it down to a laptop or evean a pocket PC near you. I'm trying to figure out what I'm most freaked out by. Is it that it's a rat's brain OPr, that I could get started on it by myself with a trip to Radio Shack. Or, maybe it is that the rat brain in a jar might fly an airplane and play video games better than I can
I'm disturbed by the factthat the official reasonwe coneduct this project is to study the cause of neural disorders like epilepsy and how to cure them. It's really very clear that there are other interests at play here thatsholdhave bioethicists up in arsm. I mean,k whydid we have to have the brain in a jar firstty to fly an F-22 fighter jet> Is that really a coincidence? Was it really so hard to start it out with a civilian plane? Professor DeMarse says that more complex applications are still a long way off, but the official press statements pont outthat as living computers, these brains in a jar jmay someboday be used to fly small unmanned airplanes or handle tasks that are dangerous for hnans, such as search adn rescue missions or bomb damage assessments. I'm sure the rest of the world will just love toknow they'll be killed by rat brains wired to an explosive weaspon, as soon as we get the funding for thfor it.
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