Neurosphere

Another instance of progress through war.

“The thumb and fingers can move and grip just like a human hand and are controlled by the patient’s mind and muscles. It was invented by David Gow and was designed and built by Touch Bionics, which is based in Livingston. The technology has been tested by a number of people, including US soldiers who lost limbs in the Iraq war.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/6901231.stm

I wrote in my book Neurosphere that the war on terror was essentially a war on ourselves. The more we inter-mesh through RFID and other technologies, the more we need to proactively decide whether to war on ourselves or not.

“A typical passive RFID chip costs about a quarter, whereas one with encryption capabilities runs about $5. It’s just not cost-effective for your average office building to invest in secure chips. This leaves most RFIDs vulnerable to cloning or – if the chip has a writable memory area, as many do – data tampering. Chips that track product shipments or expensive equipment, for example, often contain pricing and item information.”

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/rfid.html

Real time location services. Tracking your stuff, tracking your loved ones, well, don’t you want to know?

“The company’s Hugs and Halo systems are designed to help prevent infants from being removed from a hospital without permission, while RoamAlert is intended to keep patients—such as those with Alzheimer’s—from wandering unattended. The infant and patient-monitoring systems offer other protections as well, such as skin-sensing capabilities that can trigger an alert when a tag is removed from a wearer.”

http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/3565/1/1/

Treating the electric with the electric. The boundary between the brain and the environment seems to be permeable.

“A device that specifically targets rapidly growing cancer cells with intermediate frequency electrical fields — called Tumor-Treating Fields (TTFields) — doubled the survival rates of patients with brain cancer, according to a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal article.”

http://pressesc.com/01180456249_brain_cancer_electric_field

I’m pretty sure Philip K. Dick already wrote this.

“Tel Aviv University scientists have shown that it is possible to store rudimentary memories in an artificial culture of live neurons.”

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1183459218199&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

This is, alas, how humanity progresses.

“Arredondo lost his hand following an IED explosion in Iraq and is now able to use the the i-Limb which has finger ‘joints’ that act like natural fingers.”

http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/3700/Wounded_US_Iraq_Vet_First_with_Bionic_Hand