Monkeys are paving the way for future. A report in NY Times:
If Idoya could talk, she would have plenty to boast about.
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.
...
These experiments, Dr. Nicolelis said, are the first steps toward a brain machine interface that might permit paralyzed people to walk by directing devices with their thoughts. Electrodes in the person's brain would send signals to a device worn on the hip, like a cell phone or pager, that would relay those signals to a pair of braces, a kind of external skeleton, worn on the legs.
As a frustrated primate forced by evolution to walk on my knuckles, I'd love to get rid of my arms and legs - wonderfully dexterous, but they are ultimately an evolutionary throwback. In their place I'd love to have something more sensibly designed.
Imagine an advertisement that offers to replace your filthy bioware: arms, legs, eyes, hearts, penis that break down at the most inopportune moment with exquisitely crafted technological ones that run on reprogrammable hardware. Dreams of Utopia! Of course, there are a lot of hurdles to cross before we can live in that future. But a man can dream, can't he.
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