Mind Power
From: Sydney Morning Herald Online - 09/12/2002
By: Nathan Taylor

The science of bionics has progressed to the point where the effects of
certain disabilities can be mitigated to a small degree by neural interfaces.
In Australia, 2,000 people boast cochlear implants that transmit audio
signals directly to the brain, while researchers at the Dobelle Institute in
the United States are developing a bionic eye that enables the brain to
receive images from camera-equipped glasses via electrodes hooked up to the
wearer's visual cortex. Research teams at Germany's Bonn and Stuttgart
Universities have created chips that circumvent dead retinas and send visual
data captured by cameras through the optical pathways, while a joint team
from the Universities of Newcastle and NSW announced in August that they had
created an artificial retina. Some bionic technologies could theoretically
help people with Alzheimer's and other neurological problems by enhancing or
supplanting brain functions: One such project is underway at the University
of Southern California, where Professor Theodore Berger is researching
computer chips that replicate the functions of the human hippocampus.
Meanwhile, other neural interface technologies give hope to paralysis
victims--the American Neural Signals company has developed a chip that, when
implanted into the motor cortex, allows the recipient to control the movement
of a computer cursor by thought, and MIT has conducted experiments in which a
monkey was able to control a robotic limb via a neural interface; the MIT
Touch Lab is considering its virtual reality applications. A recent report
from the U.S. National Science Foundation and Commerce Department forecasts
significant "social and business reform" within 20 years as a result of
developments in bionics, genetics, and nanotechnology. Advances it predicts
include wireless "telepathy," direct computer-brain interaction, and
anti-aging technologies. 

Read the entire story at:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/12/1031608262625.html 

