The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier.

European researchers have developed "neuro-chips" in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together.

The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons.

To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size.

They used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells, called neurons, onto the chip. However, the proteins acted as more than just a simple adhesive.

"They also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be passed to the silicon chip," said study team member Stefano Vassanelli from the University of Padua in Italy.

The proteins allowed the neuro-chip's electronic components and its living cells to communicate with each other.

Electrical signals from neurons were recorded using the chip's transistors, while the chip's capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons.

It could still be decades before the technology is advanced enough to treat neurological disorders or create living computers, the researchers say, but in the nearer term, the chips could provide an advanced method of screening drugs for the pharmaceutical industry.

"Pharmaceutical companies could use the chip to test the effect of drugs on neurons, to quickly discover promising avenues of research," Vassanelli said.

The researchers are now working on ways to avoid damaging the neurons during stimulation. The team is also exploring the possibility of using a neuron's genetic instructions to control the neuro-chip.

http://www.foxnews.com/images/197735/1_21_032706_neurochip1.jpg
A neuron from a rat brain on a linear array of transistors.


http://www.foxnews.com/images/197735/1_22_032706_neurochip2.jpg
A network of snail neurons on a silicon chip.

i hope so.

I'd like to see human technology reproduce a hydrogen atom


It's been done.

But instead of looking it up, you'll post "what a joke!" or some other crud, then be shown it has been done, then you'll change the topic, or pretend you meant all along that it's been done and that I'm the one who said it wasn't... :rolleyes:

Hmm, facinating.

I always wondered when this stuff would be discovered.

I'm more concerned about the abuse of such technology then looking forward the benifits it might bring :p

terminator? hell no.

if anything, this is totally ghost in the shell.

the entire premise of masamune shirow's GITS is 'cyberbrain' technology. cyberbrain technology is basically built on neurons grafted onto some type of microchip, allowing communication between 'organic' networks and digital ones.

not nuclear fission, I mean creating something new and different at the atomic level

anyway, the key point is mankind never creates anything, engineering is the synthesis of existing matter and energy, using designs already forumlated at the atomic level....human technology does not result in a new periodic table, it uses what has been created

the difference between me and you, manntis, is you worship human intellect, that is obvious in everything you post....I see human intellect as frail and woefully limited, ultimately not providing lasting solutions to any problem, but instead a temporary and inadequate semblance of divine wisdom

I think you will be surprised as nanotechnology comes to the forefront. Machines disassembling atoms to make new ones. I'm sure we'll kill ourselves with it soon enough.

As long as Henry Rollins becomes a brain doctor and Ice T leads the resistance, count me in!

One example I was thinking:

Perhaps Governments could use this to find some way of integrating a circut, manditory to attain 'citizen' status, in everyones brain. Keep everyone nice and patriotic. Just link up to the plesure or pain centers based on action and thought. And while they are at it, perhaps it would be a great way to keep track of who is who, a wonderful ID system! Then you could always make it contain all of your credit card, bank, social security, and even tax information.

Then, to get rid of a big chunk of crime, you could just eliminate physical currency and force everyone to just get one of these free government chips, using computer tracked credits instead of currency! Hey, we could save even more time by making them renounce such ancient, destructive, and insane ideas such as religion, so that they can obtain one!


It'll all be just GREAT for a few years :)