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Except they didn't exactly make a paralyzed monkey walk, did they? They simply paralyzed a monkey. There are parts of this study that seem quite legit (another

Except they didn't exactly make a paralyzed monkey walk, did they? They simply paralyzed a monkey. There are parts of this study that seem quite legit (another poster referred to them above). However, the paralysis, surgery, and replay of data into the nervous system, just to be the first to "claim" they made a monkey walk was not one of them. I already mentioned software is very different to biology, my issue is with reckless experimentation that has caused a lot of harm to a creature and provides no real gain. What were they actually hoping to achieve with this part of the experiment? It's already well understood that we can interface with nervous system, this is nothing new. P.S. concern for the well being of other creatures isn't a particularly high horse. It's called empathy.

234dd57d2c8db 10y ago
It's not "reckless experimentation" for "no gain" at all. Here's a practical application for this research. Someone with a disease will eventually suffer from paralysis due to the degen. nature of the disease. Applying the technique from the research, we could record their body movements before they become paralyzed and then restore their ability to walk later. I think that's a pretty real gain. Just because it's in a fledgling stage of research doesn't mean it's worthless. Medical research is a much longer timeline than even complex software. You make incredibly small baby steps precisely because you don't have tools like a debugger, logic analyzer, etc, etc.
adityab 10y ago
> It's already well understood that we can interface with nervous system, this is nothing new. Ok, let's not do anything then because actually putting this understanding to use involves touching actual brain matter and seeing what works.