Firstly, I’d like to announce that I am finally back in the United States, and that I am sorely regretful for my neglect towards this blog. I’m sure that I’m going to get my “Regular Contributor” title revoked by the WebMaster! Hopefully I can atone for my absence by posting regularly once more, most likely on Monday afternoons and I’ll most likely incorporate a good deal of information from my current professional studies: the Science of Man! As usual, I will also try my best to include some jokes. Life can’t all be books and worms!

Some old news, nonetheless still relevant, comes from the Duke University of North Carolina. There researchers, led by Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, have found a way to control robots from afar, fueled only by fresh fruit and tire swings. How you ask? Simple: monkeys do it for them. That’s right, unbelievable as it may seem, but the damnedest, dirtiest apes have gotten their paws all over our most beautiful machines. Or should I say their brains?

Researchers hooked up monkeys to machines that made it possible to observe their brainwave patterns. They then watched as the monkeys (rhesus macaques, for those primatologists out there!) used a joystick to move a cursor on a computer screen over a target. Then they incorporated a robotic arm into the mix; in a separate room, the arm made the same movements as the monkey, and moved its own cursor into the target. The official press release best explains what happened next:

The scientists next removed the joystick, after which the monkeys continued to move their arms in mid-air to manipulate and “grab” the cursor, thus controlling the robot arm.

“The most amazing result, though, was that after only a few days of playing with the robot in this way, the monkey suddenly realized that she didn’t need to move her arm at all,” said Nicolelis. “Her arm muscles went completely quiet, she kept the arm at her side and she controlled the robot arm using only her brain and visual feedback. Our analyses of the brain signals showed that the animal learned to assimilate the robot arm into her brain as if it was her own arm.”

Holy bananas! These creatures are so extra-somatic!

All this transpired in 2003, and the obviously eminent APEcalypse has yet to arrive. But steps are being made, quite literally.

From the New York Times, January 2008:

On Thursday, the 12-pound, 32-inch monkey made a 200-pound, 5-foot humanoid robot walk on a treadmill using only her brain activity.

She was in North Carolina, and the robot was in Japan.

Have you ever seen cats on a treadmill? Well, these neuroscientists did that for a monkey, and then hooked the monkey brain to a robot in Japan on a treadmill, then shut off the monkey’s treadmill. The robot kept walking, taking steps toward our impending doom.

A lot of people have a keen interest in this type of technology, from those who want an exoskeleton to those who want to wage war from the comfort of their living rooms. The only thing that everyone can agree on is the old adage: Mind over matter.