On Thu, Jul 07, 2005 at 04:15:30PM +0200, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> I think so. I have recently discovered impressioning progress in
> neuronal nets used for handicaped (completely paralyzed) people. They
> are able to learn fast the handling of a cursor and files on a
> computer. No doubt it will be used soonely to vide-games and in the
> middle run it could replace the keyboard for most application. Then
> those neuronal nets will grow into "artificial" sort of neocortex and I
> can imagine taking up the main role in our brain information
> processing. Then we could just abandon brain!
Currently, there's only output, not input. It's invasive, and the electrodes
don't age well. You'd need something with the I/O of corpus callosum to allow
migration into an exocortex. This would seem to absolutely require invasive
nanotechnology. It is very unlikely that this technology will become
available within our biological life span.
> Yet I think Cryo will progress too, most probably by genetic
> manipulation, copying and ameliorating some molecular technics used by
> frogs I think.
Current vitrification solutions are already good enough. Biological
cryoprotectants do not vitrify (no frogs had to adapt to -150 degrees C
habitat), mostly due to failure to achieve high enough molality by metabolic
generation (desiccation-resistant organisms do achieve this by dehydration),
though some of them might be useful ice blockers.
We have synthetic ice blockers however, which are excellent. Again, look at
some of the images at
http://leitl.org/docs/cryo/
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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Received on Thu Jul 07 2005 - 10:39:28 PDT