4 ms·

Yeah, as far as I understand, it can act like a bridge between two ends of a severed nerve.

rbanffy 3y ago
Give me a pair of bridges and a conductor to make the nerve signals travel at electric current speeds and I’ll give you almost instantaneous reflexes.
- calvinmorrison 3y ago
  Oh boy wait till this guy finds out about copper
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    I think bio-compatibility is nasty.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Give me one bridge and a mechanical arm... ... or just make it a plane's control surface.
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    That as well. Why be human when you can be an airplane?
- skykooler 3y ago
  I wonder if you could multiplex the signals from a bunch of nerves and send them over an Ethernet link.
  - BurningFrog 3y ago
    A radio link would simplify this enormously. You could link nerves "wirelessly"from a leg to near the brain without any surgery in between. I don't see why it's fundamentally impossible?
    - gumby 3y ago
      After pressing the button on the microwave you'd be frozen until the machine beeped. Unless you had a tinfoil hat (well, suit).
      - PawgerZ 3y ago
        Typically, you close the microwave door before starting it.
        BurningFrog 3y ago
        Just remember to close it from the outside!
    - westurner 3y ago
      "Walking naturally after spinal cord injury using a brain–spine interface" (2023) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06094-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06094-5 : > To establish this digital bridge, we integrated two fully implanted systems that enable recording of cortical activity and stimulation of the lumbosacral spinal cord wirelessly and in real time (Fig. 1a).
    - rbanffy 3y ago
      I'm not sure it'd be a brilliant idea from an infosec point-of-view - the links themselves would need to be hardened in such way interfering with them would be impossible, or someone would be able to just blast the proper messages to the receivers to take over someone's body. In fact, the conductor was half-joking. I'd probably go for fiber, even if it adds latency at the endpoints.
      - BurningFrog 3y ago
        Radio would be awesome because you don't have to force some cable through half the body, which must be real major surgery. Some pretty basic encryption scheme should handle infosec angle.
  - soco 3y ago
    Next level: link together a group of humans. I can't really imagine the implications of that, but I think of Vernor Vinge's "A fire upon the deep" and the group minds of the wolves there...
    - skykooler 3y ago
      Hmm, you could have a skilled pianist play piano through your hands.
      - rbanffy 3y ago
        There's more than that to playing - a musician masters their own body in order to play the instrument with the required dexterity. There would need to be a translation layer between the commands that work on their body and the ones that'd work in yours (different finger lengths and muscular strength is the first thing that came to my mind).
        soco 3y ago
        I was rather thinking about instant communication and cooperation, instead of remote control. Like an entire orchestra tuned together - no more individual players but one orchestra superbrain. Or football team. Or of course army shudder
- gumby 3y ago
  > I’ll give you almost instantaneous reflexes. This is almost probably not what you want. Your nerves respond pretty quickly already and you can do things faster than you can think about them (e.g. catching a ball) so there's more to the computation than the "CPU". I have read that the myelin sheath on your nerves is thicker at birth then as an adult. The theory (not mine!) is that as it thins the capacitance goes down and perhaps this helps keep the transmission time more constant as yu grow, so that what you have learned about walking, catching a ball, drinking hot coffee from a cup continues to work. Imperfectly -- kids are clumsy -- but enough that you can quickly adapt and not have to keep learning all over again.
  - lifeisstillgood 3y ago
    So if as a child I learn to send a signal to my hand to move out to catch the ball, the signal takes X microseconds to travel from brain down my arm to my and and "clasp" But as an adult / teen my arm is now a foot or more longer. So the signal would take x+y microseconds to get to my hand - but if the resistance of the nerves reduces it's signal is faster and back to x microseconds That's brilliant
    - rbanffy 3y ago
      > But as an adult / teen my arm is now a foot or more longer. It was a lifetime of tiny adjustments. We'd be lost in our adult bodies if it were a sudden transition. As a teen, I was observably clumsier than I was as a small kid.

Give me a pair of bridges and a conductor to make the nerve signals travel at electric current speeds and I’ll give you almost instantaneous reflexes.

calvinmorrison 3y ago
Oh boy wait till this guy finds out about copper
- rbanffy 3y ago
  I think bio-compatibility is nasty.
ethbr1 3y ago
Give me one bridge and a mechanical arm... ... or just make it a plane's control surface.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  That as well. Why be human when you can be an airplane?
skykooler 3y ago
I wonder if you could multiplex the signals from a bunch of nerves and send them over an Ethernet link.
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  A radio link would simplify this enormously. You could link nerves "wirelessly"from a leg to near the brain without any surgery in between. I don't see why it's fundamentally impossible?
  - gumby 3y ago
    After pressing the button on the microwave you'd be frozen until the machine beeped. Unless you had a tinfoil hat (well, suit).
    - PawgerZ 3y ago
      Typically, you close the microwave door before starting it.
      - BurningFrog 3y ago
        Just remember to close it from the outside!
  - westurner 3y ago
    "Walking naturally after spinal cord injury using a brain–spine interface" (2023) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06094-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06094-5 : > To establish this digital bridge, we integrated two fully implanted systems that enable recording of cortical activity and stimulation of the lumbosacral spinal cord wirelessly and in real time (Fig. 1a).
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    I'm not sure it'd be a brilliant idea from an infosec point-of-view - the links themselves would need to be hardened in such way interfering with them would be impossible, or someone would be able to just blast the proper messages to the receivers to take over someone's body. In fact, the conductor was half-joking. I'd probably go for fiber, even if it adds latency at the endpoints.
    - BurningFrog 3y ago
      Radio would be awesome because you don't have to force some cable through half the body, which must be real major surgery. Some pretty basic encryption scheme should handle infosec angle.
- soco 3y ago
  Next level: link together a group of humans. I can't really imagine the implications of that, but I think of Vernor Vinge's "A fire upon the deep" and the group minds of the wolves there...
  - skykooler 3y ago
    Hmm, you could have a skilled pianist play piano through your hands.
    - rbanffy 3y ago
      There's more than that to playing - a musician masters their own body in order to play the instrument with the required dexterity. There would need to be a translation layer between the commands that work on their body and the ones that'd work in yours (different finger lengths and muscular strength is the first thing that came to my mind).
      - soco 3y ago
        I was rather thinking about instant communication and cooperation, instead of remote control. Like an entire orchestra tuned together - no more individual players but one orchestra superbrain. Or football team. Or of course army shudder
gumby 3y ago
> I’ll give you almost instantaneous reflexes. This is almost probably not what you want. Your nerves respond pretty quickly already and you can do things faster than you can think about them (e.g. catching a ball) so there's more to the computation than the "CPU". I have read that the myelin sheath on your nerves is thicker at birth then as an adult. The theory (not mine!) is that as it thins the capacitance goes down and perhaps this helps keep the transmission time more constant as yu grow, so that what you have learned about walking, catching a ball, drinking hot coffee from a cup continues to work. Imperfectly -- kids are clumsy -- but enough that you can quickly adapt and not have to keep learning all over again.
- lifeisstillgood 3y ago
  So if as a child I learn to send a signal to my hand to move out to catch the ball, the signal takes X microseconds to travel from brain down my arm to my and and "clasp" But as an adult / teen my arm is now a foot or more longer. So the signal would take x+y microseconds to get to my hand - but if the resistance of the nerves reduces it's signal is faster and back to x microseconds That's brilliant
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    > But as an adult / teen my arm is now a foot or more longer. It was a lifetime of tiny adjustments. We'd be lost in our adult bodies if it were a sudden transition. As a teen, I was observably clumsier than I was as a small kid.