http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/04/1073151209066.html...

Can robots achieve consciousness? It's a three-part question. What is consciousness? Can you put it in a

machine? And if you did, how could you ever know for sure? Unlike any

other scientific topic, consciousness ‗the first-person awareness of the

world around‘ is truly in the eye of the beholder. I know I am conscious. But how do I know that you are?

Could it be that my colleagues, my friends, my wife, my child, all the

people I see on the streets are actually just mindless automatons who merely act as if they were conscious human beings? That would make this

question moot.

Through logical analogy ‗I am a conscious human being‘, and therefore you as a human being are also likely to be conscious: I conclude I am probably not the only conscious being in a world of biological

puppets. Extend the question of consciousness to other creatures, and uncertainty grows. Is a dog

conscious? A turtle? A fly? An elm? A rock?

‗We don't have the mythical consciousness meter‘, says Dr David J. Chalmers, a professor of philosophy and director of the Centre for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona. ‗All we have directly to

go on is behavior‘.

So without even a rudimentary understanding of what consciousness is, the idea of instilling it into a machine or ‗understanding how a machine might evolve consciousness‘ becomes almost unfathomable.

The field of artificial intelligence started out with dreams of making thinking ‗and possibly conscious‘

machines, but no one has yet produced a computer program that can pass the Turing test. In 1950, Alan Turing, a pioneer in computer science, imagined that a computer could be considered

intelligent when its responses were indistinguishable from those of a person. The field has now evolved to

focus more on solving practical problems like complex scheduling tasks than on emulating human

behaviour. But with the continuing gains in computing power, many believe that the original goals of artificial intelligence will be attainable within a few decades.

Some people, such as Dr Hans Moravec, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University in

Pittsburgh, believe a human is nothing more than a fancy machine, and that as technology advances, it will be possible to build a machine with the same features, that there is nothing magical about the brain

and biological flesh.

To Moravec, if it acts conscious, it is. Chalmers, too, sees nothing fundamentally different between a

creature of flesh and blood and one of metal, plastics and electronic circuits. ‗I'm quite open to the idea that machines might eventually become conscious‘, he says. It would be ‗equally weird‘.

And if a person gets into involved conversations with a robot about everything from Kant to baseball,

‗We'll be as practically certain they are conscious as other people‘, Chalmers says. But others believe machines, regardless of how complex they come, will never match people. In his book

Shadows of the Mind , mathematician Dr Roger Penrose enlisted the incompleteness theorem in

mathematics. He uses the theorem, which states that any system of theorems invariably will include statements that cannot be proved, to argue that any machine that uses computation ‗and hence all robots‘

will invariably fall short of the accomplishments of human mathematicians.

Instead, he argues that consciousness is an effect of quantum mechanics in tiny structures in the brain that

exceeds the abilities of any computer. - New York Times…

www.scientificamerican.com …A robot must protect its own existence.

This mid-20th-century dictate…from science fiction author and biochemist Isaac Asimov seems cleanly in step with Darwinian theory and the biological world of survival of the fittest.

But as scientists continue to witness animals and other organisms habitually sacrificing themselves for the

greater good of their colony or kin, the picture of self-interested behavior in the natural world has become murkier. Might robots also learn to cooperate for the betterment of their own kind?

They already have. Meet the Alice bots. Some robots have been programmed to help

each other out, but these automatons have ‗evolved’ over generations to be more helpful - that is, to like robots.

The version of this behavior in animals is known as Hamilton's rule of kin selection.

Put forth by biologist W. D. Hamilton in the 1960s, it aimed to explain why

organisms - from ants to humans - would sometimes help others at their own expense. This altruistic impulse - to spend time, energy and resources on others - is

thought to be especially strong toward those who might help pass along our own genes. But just how

close of kin does a person have to be for us to be compelled, under Hamilton's rule, to help out? Given the complexity of animal environments and actions and their relatively slow evolution, it's been

difficult to actually demonstrate Hamilton's rule in organisms.

Cue the robots. …Researchers in Switzerland developed a band of small, rolling robots equipped with sensors and their own ‗genetic code‘ - a unique string of 33 1's and 0's functioning as individual ‗neurons‘

to determine sensor use and behavior - and tasked with foraging for small ‗food’ objects and pushing

them to a designated area. Those robots that failed to collect the objects were weeded out of the ‗gene

pool‘ by the research team, whereas those that were successful could choose whether to collect the food object for themselves or share it with another robot.

Over hundreds of generations, the researchers concluded, ‗we show that Hamilton's rule always

accurately predicts the minimum relatedness necessary for altruism to evolve‘, they wrote in a paper describing the results, published online May 3 in PLoS Biology. The levels of relatedness that the

researchers tested included full clones as well as the digital equivalent of siblings, cousins and non-kin.

‗This study mirrors Hamilton's rule remarkably well to explain when an altruistic gene is passed on from one generation to the next, and when one is not‘, said Laurent Keller, a biologist at the University of

Lausanne and co-author of the new study.

Each test consisted of 500 generations of eight robots. To mimic what might happen in nature, the

successful robots from each generation were ‗randomly assorted and subjected to crossovers and mutations…forming the next generation‘. And although the 33 ‗genes‘ were randomly distributed at first,

‗the robots' performance rapidly increased over the 500 generations of selection, the researchers noted.

And along with acuity at collecting the food, ‗the level of altruism also rapidly changed over generations‘ with those robots around more closely ‗related‘ individuals becoming the most altruistic.

Aside from demonstrating Hamilton's rule in a quantifiable - if artificial - system, the work also shows

that kin selection does not require specific genes devoted to encode altruism or sophisticated cognitive

abilities, as the neuronal network of our robots comprised only 33 neurons… ‗We have been able to take this experiment and extract an algorithm that we can use to evolve

cooperation in any type of robot‘, said Dario Floreano, a robotics professor at the École Polytechnique

Fédérale de Lausanne and co-author of the new study. …Any type of robot? Does that mean it's time to run for the hills? Nope - should the bots decide to discard the other two of Asimov's laws for robots

(obeying humans and not harming them) they'll surely be able to find us there. ‗We are using this altruism

algorithm to improve the control system of our flying robots, and we see that it allows them to effectively collaborate and fly in swarm formation more successfully‘.

http://positivefuturist.com/archive/188.html ... Conscious robots working in our homes by 2030, experts

say …By Dick Pelletier Ever since Bradley the family robot received his level-4 upgrade, he has been difficult to get along with.

Bradley now has a conscience, and although he is still eager to care for Grandmamma, keep the house

spotless, maintain security, and run errands; he wants more "alone time”, and he recently joined a robots rights group. We wonder what’s next; vacations; sick leave; going on dates?

Although this scenario may sound like fiction, it could depict a real situation in the future when robots,

programmed with human consciousness, will want to be treated like us. Tomorrow‘s robots could easily maintain our homes, care for our aging population; even become our

soldiers of the future. But here‘s the concern; robots may be required to make decisions that could affect

our lives, and we will place more trust in a robot that expresses human consciousness than one that simply

acts like a machine. But before robots can become conscious, researchers must identify what consciousness is and where it

is. NY Times science writer David Dobbs believes that during the next decade, scientists will discover the

neural networks that generate this elusive human trait. We may then find answers to some of the most

profound questions in science: can the brain understand itself, and what is ‗self‖? Says Dobbs, ‗Once science unravels consciousness, researchers could then create what might be called a

‗consciometer’ – a set of tests (probably an advanced version of a brain scan or EEG) that can precisely

detect and measure consciousness‘. The ability to identify consciousness will change how we make end-of-life decisions, and beginning-of-

life choices…

After we understand consciousness, we will know the brain‘s capacities and limits for thought, emotions, reasoning, love and all aspects of human life, say experts. Scientists are now studying how groups of

neurons form functional networks when we learn, remember, see, hear, move, and love. And how these

give rise to altruism, sadness, empathy and anger.

When the discussion turns to these imponderables, neuroscientist Gerald Edelman dives right in. Nobel Laureate, physician and cell biologist, Edelman is now obsessed with the enigma of consciousness –

except he doesn‘t see it as a mystery. In his grand theory of mind, consciousness is merely a biological

phenomenon that one day can be built into machines. In a recent Discover Magazine interview, Edelman talked about his research into synthetic consciousness

and construction of a brain-based device (BBD) that he believes will one day become a super-intelligent

machine. Although his BBDs resemble R2D2, he says they are not robots, ‗because they do not use artificial intelligence; they operate similar to mammalian brains‘.

Edelman‘s team is now working on a new BBD called Darwin 12. It has legs and wheels with 100

different sensors enabling it to climb stairs and navigate unknown circumstances. This, they hope, will

bring them closer to creating a truly intelligent machine. Clearly, developing conscious robots poses unknown, possibly even dangerous consequences; but futurist

Ray Kurzweil and other experts predict that by as early as 2030, we will experience this ‗magical future‘.

http://memebox.com/futureblogger/show/7-robot-consciousness ...February 26 2008 / by futuretalk

Robots could gain human consciousness by 2030, futurists predict. By Dick Pelletier…

… researchers, must first define and understand this baffling human trait (consciousness). Scientists are learning volumes about the brain – how it makes

split-second decisions, how it learns from the past, and how it converts light

into visual scenes. For some, deciphering the electrical pulses that travel through our brains is

only half the story. The other part, more philosophical and complex, is how

that brain activity translates into a person‘s self-awareness and perception of the world around them.

Stanford neuroscientist Bill Newsome has spent twenty years studying how neurons encode information

and how they use it to make decisions about the world… with understanding how consciousness arises

from brain function, and feels the best way to solve that mystery is to implant an electrode into his own brain to observe how electric currents change his perception of the world.

It‘s not certain that Newsome will get approval for such a radical undertaking, but if he does, his

experiment won‘t be in the interest of curing a disease or becoming a human machine. He‘s hoping to do something broader: unravel the mystery of consciousness.

Positive-thinkers believe that … with efforts ... to create a map of the brain… to identify thoughts at the

moment of creation, and … to reverse-engineer the human brain, could, by as early as 2020, answer two of the most profound questions in science: can the brain understand itself, and what is ‗self’?

With a better understanding of consciousness arising from these research projects, futurists Hans

Moravec, Ray Kurzweil, and others believe that by late 2020s or early 2030s, technologists could build feelings and emotions into robots. In a report, The World in 2030, futurologist Ray Hammond predicts

that ‗In the 2030s, robots will surpass the intellectual capacity of humans and become a conscious

species‘.

Should we fear our clever creations? Kurzweil says there‘s little need for alarm. By the time robots surpass humans in brainpower, cutting-edge neural science in late 2020s and early 2030s will enable us to

interface with these silicon wonders and share their intelligence. J. Storrs Hall, in his book Beyond AI,

agrees that there is no risk. ‗By connecting our brains with tomorrow‘s super-intelligent robots…humans will always stay a step ahead of their machines‘. Developing conscious robots …futurists see this as a

natural evolutionary step. …

Comment Thread (12 Responses)… Posted by: Alvis Brigis February 26, 2008 …

I agree that barring a cataclysmic event we‘ll be able to create … and probably even embed that

intelligence into robots according to the timeline that you lay out -… such a merger may only take place

after a more powerful expansion of human thought due to increased networking with other existing humans and information systems. Human intelligence arises from the network of brains, info, tech and

biology (MESTI) that a human grows up in.

…Posted by: futuretalk February 26, 2008 … I believe that AI will outthink humans by mid-2030s or

sooner. The advent of a human-level artificial intelligence – a machine that can match thought that we

associate with humanity – will generate huge wealth for inventors and companies that develop it. According to Business Communications Company, the AI market reached $21 billion last year and some

forward-thinkers believe that it could double every two years over the next several decades.

… J. Storrs Hall in his book ‗Beyond AI‘ says that when we reach the time that technology advances at

breathtaking speeds, faster than humans with today‘s minds can comprehend; we will possess the ability to enhance our neurons and interface with our super-intelligent AI creations, giving us the mind-power to

easily unravel all the mysteries of an exponentially expanding technological world. No problem; no

reason for concern….

…Posted by: Venessa Posavec February 27, 2008 …I think it‘s as interesting to think about the potential

risks of an intelligent machine as our dependence on it. … What happens if AI comes to pass, and we

relinquish control over all the usual tasks that we do. And then what if there‘s a massive system failure? What if all the bells and whistles come to a screeching halt – I wonder if we would even know what to do

at that point. We may fear it, but can we live without our technology?

…Posted by: futuretalk February 27, 2008 …Most scientists do not fear that intelligent machines will

develop huge intelligence levels on their own and one day will not feel they need humans and get rid of

us. As this artificial general intelligence grows, it will provide the information that will enable humans to interface with their silicon cousins and share the intelligence.

However, many do fear that robot warriors and other killer ‗bots‘ could become available to terrorists and

bad guys who could use it against society. This is a real danger and should be of concern to everyone.

…Posted by: AlFin February 28, 2008… All of the ambitious projects you mention are vital and

necessary to understand the brain. Consciousness may be a bit tougher, or it may be easier in the end, than

understanding the neuro-mechanics of brains. Understanding the brain will take many large, well-funded teams of scientists and bio-engineers. Understanding consciousness may come from the ruminations of

somebody whom most of the world views as a crackpot.

…Posted by: futuretalk February 28, 2008 …There is so much effort and attention towards unraveling

the mysteries of consciousness… that it indeed could be accomplished by around 2020.

Then given a decade or so of dabbling with our understanding of consciousness and developing super-

smart AI entities, I can easily believe that in the 2030s we will be able to instill consciousness into our machines.

The big questions then may go something like this: Will our silicon cousins attempt to change into a

being more like us? And will we see the many advantages of our artificial creations and want to be more

like them? Kurzweil and Moravec probably have it right – by mid-century or so, we could merge completely with

our artificial general intelligence and become a powerful, immortal being ready to begin scattering our

populations to the stars.

…Posted by: Zora Styrian February 28, 2008… if machines gain consciousness, and seems to be just

like us – I wonder what the philosophical debate about the existence of a soul might be …?

…Posted by: futuretalk February 28, 2008 ….Creating conscious robots could be compared with

developing artificial life. Entrepreneur Craig Venter says the little-known field of ‗wet artificial life‘ is

about to produce the world‘s first human-made life forms. Mark Bedau, COO of ProtoLife in Venice, Italy says, ‗Creating artificial life has the potential to shed new

light on our place in the universe. This will remove the fundamental mystery about creation and our role

in the world‘. Conscious robots and artificial life forms will surely change our minds about religion and challenge our

views of what it means to be human.

…Posted by: john2004 February 29, 2008 …Just to throw this out, in a nutshell, consciousness (sic) is,

IMHO, a 100 m/sec delay feedback loop of everything in our consciousness (area of attention) and is

reinserted into that very same area of attention after the delay. We then have as part of our awareness, the

present environment from outside, the interior environment (feelings, goals) and a ‗new‘ thing which is a copy of what was going on 100 m/sec ago. That actually contains a degraded copy of everything going on

in the last few seconds like a hall of mirrors where the speed of light is a few meters per second. We can

―see‖ what we are doing now plus what we were doing 100 and 200 and 300 m/sec ago and the copy gets more rudimentary as we go further back in time. All this is unconscious activity so we experience a full

picture of ourselves in a context of the last few seconds of activity, goals, thoughts, desires, etc. Without

this short memory loop, we would have no information on who we are, where we are or what we are

doing. Having it written down on a sheet of mental paper is not the same as having it fed back into our awareness on a continuous basis. This loop is unconscious but it is the fundamental mechanism that gives

us a sense of being here.

…Posted by: futuretalk February 29, 2008 …John, your definition of consciousness (sic) seems very

logical and it makes me wonder what kind of incredible computing power will be needed to analyze and

duplicate this human state. We will surely need the data-crunching abilities of quantum computing before we can make sense of

human consciousness – and to create a software program that could be duplicated and installed into

machines – wow! The computing power necessary to accomplish this would be mind-boggling.

Maybe we‘ll need to enlist the help of our machines to generate the massive volume of intelligence needed to understand human consciousness and be able to duplicate it.

Understanding consciousness poses enormous problems, but if technologies advance exponentially like

Kurzweil and others believe they will – this positive futurist believes that tomorrow‘s scientists will find the solutions.

…Posted by: Alvis Brigis February 29, 2008… @ John & FutureTalk: I wonder if rather than cracking consciousness and remaining outside the equation, we‘ll instead be engaged in a process of transferring

and augmenting our consciousness. How, will it be desirable or even possible to generate full models of

consciousness without the two systems bleeding into one another? After all, it will be super-compelling to

put all of the info-tech we gradually develop, to use.

…Posted by: futuretalk February 29, 2008…Unraveling the mysteries of consciousness offers many

possibilities.

Once human consciousness (sic) is understood (for example, to identify neuron firing patterns as they produce thoughts, emotions, and memories), this complex human trait with its myriad of activities could

be simulated with tomorrow‘s quantum supercomputers.

These simulations could then be digitally stored and become available for downloading into a new ‗housing-unit‘ should disaster strike our human body or robot, essentially providing every person and/or

machine with an indefinite lifespan – no possibility of an unwanted death ending life.

The new body‘s simulated ‗mind’ would believe that it is the same person or machine from the old body that was destroyed. Neither people nor machines would realize that they had died.

As far out as this concept seems, it may be only a matter of developing the information technologies as

we trek through the decades ahead.

http://sixwoffers.blogspot.com/2011/04/bot-shows-signs-of-consciousness.html ...Saturday, April 2, 2011

Bot shows signs of consciousness (sic).

A Software ‗bot‘ inspired by a popular theory of human consciousness takes the same time as humans to

complete simple awareness tasks. Its creators say this feat means we are closer to understanding where

consciousness comes from. It also raises the question of whether machines could ever have subjective experiences.

The ‗bot‘, called LIDA for Learning Intelligent Distribution Agent, is

based on ‗global workspace theory‘. According to GWT, unconscious processing - the gathering and processing of sights and sounds, for

example, is carried out by different, autonomous brain regions working

in parallel. We only become conscious of information when it is deemed important enough to be broadcast to the global workspace, an

assembly of connected neurons that span the brain. We experience this

broadcast as consciousness, and it allows information to be shared

across different brain regions and acted upon. Recently, several experiments using electrodes have pinpointed brain activity that might correspond to

the conscious broadcast, although how exactly the theory translates into cognition and conscious

experience still isn't clear. To investigate, Stan Franklin, of the University of Memphis in Tennessee, built LIDA - software that

incorporates key features of GWT, fleshed out with ideas about how these processes are carried out to

produce what he believes to be a reconstruction of cognition.

Franklin based LIDA's processing on a hypothesis that consciousness is composed of a series of millisecond-long cycles, each one split into unconscious and conscious stages. In the first of these stages -

unconscious perception - LIDA scans the environment and copies what she detects to her sensory

memory. Then specialized feature detectors scan sensory memory, pick out certain colours, sounds and movements, and pass these to a software module that recognises them as objects or events. For example,

it might discover red pixels and know that a red light has been switched on. In the next phase,

understanding, which is mainly unconscious, these pieces of data can be strung together and compared with the contents of LIDA's long-term memory. Another set of processes use these comparisons to

determine which objects or events are relevant or urgent. For example, if LIDA has been told to look out

for a red light, this would be deemed highly salient. If this salience is above a certain threshold, says

Franklin, ‗it suddenly steps over the edge of a cliff; it ignites‘. That event along with some of its associated content will rise up into ‗consciousness‘, winning a place in LIDA's global workspace - a part

of her ‗brain‘ that all other areas can access and learn from. This salient information drives which action

is chosen. Then the cycle starts again.

Franklin reckons that similar cycles are the ‗building blocks for human cognition‘ and conscious

experience. Although only one cycle can undergo conscious broadcast at a time, rather like the individual frames of a movie, successive broadcasts could be strung together quickly enough to give the sense of a

seamless experience …

However, just because these cognitive cycles are consistent with some features of human consciousness

doesn't mean this is actually how the human mind works. So, with the help of Baars at the Neuroscience Institute in San Diego, California, who first proposed GWT, and philosophy student Tamas Madl at the

University of Vienna, Austria, Franklin put LIDA into direct competition with humans.

To increase her chance of success, they grounded the timings of LIDA's underlying processes on known neurological data. For example, they set LIDA's feature detectors to check sensory memory every 30

milliseconds. According to previous studies, this is the time it takes for a volunteer to recognize which

category an image belongs to when it is flashed in front of them. Next the researchers set LIDA loose on two tasks. The first was a version of a reaction-time test in which

you must press a button whenever a light turns green. The researchers planted such a light in LIDA's

simulated environment, and provided her with a virtual button. It took her on average 280 milliseconds to

hit the button after the light turned green. The average reaction time in people is 200 milliseconds, which the researchers say is comparable.

A second task involved a flashing horizontal line that appears first at the bottom of a computer screen and

then moves upwards through 12 different positions. When the rate that it shifts up the screen is slow, people report the line as moving. But speed it up and people seem to see 12 flickering lines. When the

researchers created a similar test for LIDA, they found that at higher speeds, she too failed to ‗perceive‘

that the line was moving. This occurred at about the same speed as in humans. Both results have been accepted for publication in PLoS One.

‗You tune the parameters and lo and behold you get that data,‘ says Franklin. ‗This lends support to our

hypothesis that there is a single basic building block for all human cognition‘. Antonio Chella, a roboticist

at the University of Palermo in Italy and editor of the International Journal of Machine Consciousness agrees: ‗This may support LIDA, and GWT as a model that captures some aspects of

consciousness’.

Murray Shanahan, a cognitive roboticist at Imperial College London who also works on computational models of consciousness, says that LIDA is a ‗high level‘ model of the mind that doesn't attempt to

represent specific neurons or brain structures. This is in contrast to his own lower-level models, but

Shanahan points out that both types are needed: he says: ‗We don't know what the right theory or right

level of abstraction is. We have to let a thousand flowers bloom‘.

So is LIDA conscious? ‗I call LIDA functionally conscious, because she uses a broadcast to drive actions

and learning‘, says Franklin. But he draws the line at ascribing ‗phenomenal consciousness‘, or subjectivity to her. That said, he reckons there is no reason in principle why she should not be fully

conscious one day. ‗The architecture is right for supporting phenomenal consciousness if we just knew

how to bring it about‘. Can a computer ever be aware?

At what point does a model of consciousness itself become conscious - if ever?

Antonio Chella of the University of Palermo, Italy, says that before consciousness can be ascribed to

software agent LIDA, (see main story) she needs a body. ‗Consciousness of ourselves, and the world, is based on a continuous interaction between our brain, our body and the world‘, he says. ‗I look forward to

a LIDA robot‘.

However, cognitive roboticist Murray Shanahan says that the robot need not be physical. ‗It only makes sense to start talking about consciousness in the context of something that interacts in a purposeful way

with a spatio-temporal environment. But I am perfectly happy to countenance a virtual environment‘.

LIDA's inventor, Stan Franklin …is planning to build a version of LIDA that interacts with humans within a complex environment. ‗When this happens, I may be tempted to attribute phenomenal

consciousness to the agent‘, he says. The trouble is, even if LIDA could have subjective experiences, how

would we prove it? We can't even prove that each of us isn't the only self-aware being in a world of zombies. ‗Philosophers

have been dealing with that for more than 2000 years‘, says Franklin. Perhaps we will simply attribute

subjectivity to computers once they become sufficiently intelligent and communicative, he says.

…Posted by Lakal Pankaja Fernando

Comment by Alphadog …So, if I get it correct, we create a model of human consciousness, then make a

software version of it, then ‗tune it‘ till it behaves somewhat like our current understanding of human consciousness, and then say we have successfully created consciousness?

http://blogs.nature.com/ubdb8ea98/2008/06/07/robots-and-consciousness ...Conscious cells - a nature

network blog by Kojiro Yano … Jun 7, 2008 On a BBC program ‗Visions of the Future‘, Michio Kaku, a Japanese-American theoretical physicist,

discussed the possibility of robots with human-level intelligence. One of the ‗humanoid‘ robots he

introduced in the program, was Honda's Asimo. This robot can see, listen, speak, and walk. It greets a

visitor, takes him to a cafeteria, brings a coffee to his table and has a bit of chat. If the progress of the technology continues, one day we may encounter robots with human-like consciousness with real

emotions, like happiness, sadness and anger. And they may start requesting legal rights equal to humans.

So, are you prepared to recognize intelligence, consciousness and emotions in robots and if you do, will you accept them as a member of our society?

What I have to say here is that we don't know enough about our consciousness, to unequivocally judge the

possibility of robots consciousness. Nevertheless I still think robots lack a crucial ingredient of consciousness, which is self-consciousness. They lack it because robots are made for purpose, namely to

serve us. Robots with real consciousness would place themselves in the centre of their mind and act on

their own accords to maximize THEIR chance of survival. Of course it is not the scientists but the public

who decide whether they want such ‗selfish‘ robots or not, and they must ask themselves whether it is morally consistent to build and accept new artificial conscious agents, in our society while rejecting

potentially conscious life being born from us, namely human.

3 Comments…

Posted by: Douglas F Watt Jul 16, 2008 1:07 p.m …While this is a very trendy topic, and might be an

appealing thought to lots of sci-fi fans, we are no closer to creating consciousness in a laboratory than we are to creating life. Indeed the former (the creation of sentience) is probably orders of magnitude more

complex than the latter (the creation of life). One might even speculate that there is a larger reason for

why Nature is so difficult to penetrate, and so reluctant to give up its secrets - namely that an ethically

immature species (hard to argue that we are not still ethically compromised as a species) is not ready for the knowledge and enormous power that goes with it. Additionally, given the evidence that the

management of homeostasis is somehow central to the creation of a sentient state (and presumably

consciousness was selected evolutionarily because it improved homeostatic management and the maintenance of life processes), it seems very difficult to construct a conscious architecture in a robot that

has no real homeostatic processes. The notion that consciousness will be relatively easy to create an

artificial life form in a few years or even decades frankly shows no respect or humility in the face of

Nature. We know far less about the neural substrates of consciousness in staggeringly complex biological systems than we think we do, and to instantiate this process in something other than a biological brain is

something that we are no closer to than interstellar faster-than-light travel. In other words, I think we have

much more immediate scientific concerns and I think it will be a long time before your vacuum cleaner says to you ‗I feel devalued when you turn me off at night.‘.

Posted by: Kojiro Yano Jul 20, 2008 9:00 a.m …Thanks for your comment. I think your argument is valid as far as human consciousness is concerned, but in this blog entry I intended a more basic form of

consciousness. While many would agree that consciousness is not unique to human, defining the

minimum mechanical requirements for consciousness is far less straight forward. In his paper in Annual Review, John Searle mentioned three elements of consciousness; qualitative-ness, subjectivity, and unity.

Unfortunately these are notoriously difficult to measure and don't help us much to determine the

mechanical requirements. Alternatively, we can pursue a bottom-up approach, where man-made objects

will be tested for their ‗conscious‘ behaviours. Management of homeostasis, for example, already exists in some robots which recharge their battery when it is low, but of course it is not enough to say they are

conscious. So what's missing then, or what should be added to them next? That's the question which I

hope I can address in the future …

Posted by: Idaho Falls… - whatever emotions the robot has would be based on the programming of its

creator which will be based on the limited understanding of how the mind works. Until we can better understand the ins and outs of the human brain, we'll never be able to create a robot that can think or feel

like a human.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/26246 ... Flux Particle Theory on December 22, 2010, 9:12 a.m…Are they even sure if consciousness is a separate

thing from the internal working of the brain? Meaning… all sensory inputs (touch, taste, smell, sight,

hearing) working together creating an illusion there is something more? If you could make an exact double of yourself right down to the last brain synapse… would the double

have the same consciousness? Would the consciousness even turn on? - For instance extremely fast

reflexes… if something drops and you catch it. The thinking that was involved is ‗thinking’ you were not completely in control of. It was automatic. Your brain is doing a lot more calculating then you are

actually knowingly thinking about. Consciousness might be something like that.

David Tschetter on December 22, 2010, 2:57 p.m What about understanding what makes known ‗super thinkers‘ tick…

We know there are people with eidetic memory, crazy high IQs, as well as absolute pitch. The potential is

obviously there, how close are we to unlocking it? In that I mean, the ability to ‗turn on‘ those functions of a brain that has yet to exhibit these traits.

Jon Pues on December 22, 2010, 8:51 p.m …Should we be looking at more of an Avatar idea of feeding

our brain with other sensory inputs? The brain translates what it is being sent to it by the different inputs from around the body. If one was to interrupt the signal and send it different inputs, the brain wouldn‘t

know the difference and in essence you would have transferred your consciousness (sic)…

jason perrone on December 23, 2010, 1:06 a.m …what is the ‗glue’ that binds consciousness to

the physical body, or maybe more interestingly, can consciousness precede the physical body‘s

birth? Or is their existence in strict lock-step chronologically?

Ray Renteria on December 23, 2010, 8:23 a.m…While the notion of transferring consciousness

from a carbon platform to a silicon platform is one vector, I think that the collective incremental

evolution of AI in robots both in the physical and in virtual worlds will allow the collective

essence of humanity to persist in non-biological mediums. Eventually you won‘t know if the

‗person‘ responding to your tweets, or a new ‗friend’ online…is a human or not. They will retain

the bits and pieces of knowledge they assimilate over time and in their own way reproduce and

pass it to the next generation again and again—eventually outliving us…

sounderraja duraisamy on December 23, 2010, 12:10 p.m …Actually Transport Our

Consciousness Into Robots is great idea for our future space exploration and searching for life on

other planets, we can‘t skip robot technology and I don‘t think complete human thinking and

senses can be inserted into a robot as thought possible. It shows humans challenge to god. …

anthony michel foust on December 23, 2010, 4:27 p.m… the dr. says that we would duplicate the

neuron. It is a duplication process - but it would not be the original person. It would only be a

robotic clone of the original.

Renee McShane on December 25, 2010, 4:04 p.m …Would transferring our consciousness to a

synthetic brain stifle evolution and/or creativity? It seems to me that in using software/hardware

we may be limited on what we can think the ability to evolve, not to mention reproduction and

possible population issues. Getting past that, would we just go in for a tune-up so we could be

more efficient at thinking or working? Could we at that time, be programmed to be a thinker or

worker? And who decides our fate? Assuming that we could replace worn body parts, would

everyone run to the store for the newest iBod? Would aging be measured in transistor failures?

Would death be a dead battery? Will procreation be a new synthetic body with the parents

collective consciousness downloaded to it? I think that the gray matter wetware, with it‘s random

abnormalities, is still essential. I support cybernetic enhancements, but am having a tough time

with total transference.

shawn disney on December 29, 2010, 1:30 p.m …Quite an interesting observation about ‗Consciousness‘.

Doesn‘t it raise the question of whether ‗C‘ might not be a basic Field in the Universe, analogous to

Electricity, Magnetism, and Gravity? If considered so, it has very simplifying and enlightening

implications for not only Science, but Religion as well.

Lina Petridis on December 29, 2010, 7:56 p.m ..What if? Consciousness is our connection to immortality?

Our physical body, alias ‗the robot‘ is made from the elements of earth, not just silicon and steel? Could we not say that Humans are receiving consciousness directly imported to our minds from immortality?

Ray York on January 2, 2011, 9:04 p.m …Instead of transporting our consciousness into a mechanical robot, why not concentrate on finding a way to keep old cells perpetually regenerating? If old age, and

eventually death, occurs because we lose the ability to continue to regenerate old cells that are dying, (and

we know what causes that,) we should be able, using the genome sequencer, to eventually determine the

culprit of that crime, and stop it from happening by manipulating those cells appropriately, following the schematics of our genome blueprint, our owner‘s manual. It‘s a matter of protein manipulation, or control.

That seems simpler to me than trying to manipulate, or transfer, consciousness. I know that‘s off the

subject of robotic life, but it address the question of immortality.

Ali Bahaloo on January 3, 2011, 7:36 a.m ... Does it also mean that consciousness is nothing more than

information? So it‘s the information stored in our DNA that makes our consciousness?

Herbert Medley on January 11, 2011, 1:54 a.m …Memories & attitudes comprise ‗identity’… generated

by an organism i.e. your brain. Let us not confuse identity with consciousness. Consciousness is unique to

the organism that generates it. An android or clone with your memories and attitudes uploaded into it cannot possibly be ‗you‘; it may believe it is you but when your organism expires, ‗you‘ expire. An

advanced enough a.i. may qualify as a consciousness but it belongs to the medium (organic, cybernetic or

bio-mechanoid etc.) which generates it. Liken your body and its replacement to two recording mediums (two CDs if you will). The information transferred from one to the other is not a consciousness.

Teleportation (disintegration/reintegration) is another totally misunderstood concept concerning

consciousness. When this becomes possible, the original consciousness would end upon disintegration of

the original organism/medium and what reintegrated would only be a copy which may believe it is the

original. If any of you has experienced teleportation through disintegration/reintegration (which I strongly doubt) then it is my sorrowful duty to inform you that you are only an echo of who you think you are.

Luciano Velocci on January 11, 2011, 4:33 a.m …Dr Kaku, …This got me thinking that perhaps it is our idea of memories that is distorted (as our common sense is unable to understand the queerness of

everything). It may be that our brain is in fact still making calculations about our own experiences and

thoughts, which in turn happen as we are focused in more important computations. So in way, our consciousness is the current thinking. If you think about the time it takes us to recognize our car, pet,

mother - this is ‗instant’ and we are aware what they look like and the feeling associated with them even

when we aren‘t occupied on thinking about them. So really it‘s like using this multidimensional matrix of

thoughts, whether current or previous that, in a way or another, are in use all the time. This idea now takes me to think that the unconscious should then be the experiences and thoughts that are least related yet

somehow still connected from the current track of thought.

Rui Couto Barbosa on January 12, 2011, 10:29 a.m … If you took into account Religion, the answer is

very simple: What marks the identity of anyone is its Soul, which is not material (body) but spiritual.

Thus, you can do whatever you want to the body, in particular to Consciousness (considered as a product of evolution by Damasio, and, at a certain instant, probably a product of certain parts of the brain),

without changing the identity of the person.

Rui Couto Barbosa on January 13, 2011, 9:23 a.m …In a debate in RAI (Enigmas of God), Franz

Wuketits, Theoretical Evolutionary Biologist and Philosopher, Former Director of Inst. Konrad Lorenz in

Altenberg Biology and Knowledge, and University Professor of Biology, argued that consciousness is a property of complex systems of the brain, unlike Eccles who separated the consciousness from the brain

(on what was criticized by many neurobiologists). Note that this is consistent with Damasio‘s thesis that

consciousness is a product of evolution… an emergent property of these systems, or phenomena that

occur in complex systems of the brain…what is called by Miguel Albergaria ‗counter-case to reductionism‘.

Franklin Price on January 18, 2011, 7:13 p.m …Dr. Kaku … Do you see an advantage or even the possibility to using Graphene based cybernetic brains ? Instead of going to silicon, we would remain

carbon based.

andrzej garde on February 5, 2011, 7:12 p.m …If consciousness is the expression of the highest evolutional level we can imagine - and if there is a parallel me vibrating on Mars (which I am unable to

be aware of) there must be a higher shape variant existing. Kind of: hyper-consciousness. If so, there is no

way to understand it yet. Could this be the evolutionary strategy –the goal to attain?

http://science.howstuffworks.com/robot.htm... 06 March 2011. By Harris, Tom. Robots and Artificial Intelligence… - arguably the most exciting field in robotics. It's certainly the most controversial: Everybody agrees that a robot can work in an assembly line, but there's no consensus on

whether a robot can ever be intelligent.

Like the term ‗robot‘ itself, artificial intelligence is hard to define. Ultimate AI would be a recreation of the human thought process - a man-made machine with our intellectual abilities. This would include the

ability to learn just about anything, the ability to reason, the ability to use language and the ability to

formulate original ideas. Roboticists are nowhere near achieving this level of artificial intelligence, but they have made a lot of progress with more limited AI. Today's AI machines can replicate some specific

elements of intellectual ability.

Computers can already solve problems in limited realms. The basic idea of AI problem-solving is very

simple, though its execution is complicated. First, the AI robot or computer gathers facts about a situation through sensors or human input. The computer compares this information to stored data and decides what

the information signifies. The computer runs through various possible actions and predicts which action

will be most successful based on the collected information. Of course, the computer can only solve

problems it's programmed to solve -- it doesn't have any generalized analytical ability. Chess computers are one example of this sort of machine.

Some modern robots also have the ability to learn in a limited capacity. Learning robots recognize if a

certain action (moving its legs in a certain way, for instance) achieved a desired result (navigating an obstacle). The robot stores this information and attempts the successful action the next time it encounters

the same situation. Again, modern computers can only do this in very limited situations. They can't absorb

any sort of information like a human can. Some robots can learn by mimicking human actions. In Japan, roboticists have taught a robot to dance by demonstrating the moves themselves.

Some robots can interact socially. Kismet, a robot at M.I.T's Artificial Intelligence Lab, recognizes human

body language and voice inflection and responds appropriately. Kismet's creators are interested in how

humans and babies interact, based only on tone of speech and visual cue. This low-level interaction could be the foundation of a human-like learning system.

Kismet and other humanoid robots at the M.I.T. AI Lab operate using an unconventional control

structure. Instead of directing every action using a central computer, the robots control lower-level actions with lower-level computers. The program's director, Rodney Brooks, believes this is a more accurate

model of human intelligence. We do most things automatically; we don't decide to do them at the highest

level of consciousness. Photo courtesy Kitano Symbiotic Systems Project

Kitano's PINO – ‘The Humanoid Robot‘ …

The real challenge of AI is to understand how natural intelligence works. Developing

AI isn't like building an artificial heart - scientists don't have a simple, concrete model

to work from. We do know that the brain contains billions and billions of neurons, and that we think and learn by establishing electrical connections between different

neurons. But we don't know exactly how all of these connections add up to higher

reasoning, or even low-level operations. The complex circuitry seems incomprehensible. Because of this, AI research is largely theoretical. Scientists hypothesize on how and why we learn and

think, and they experiment with their ideas using robots. Brooks and his team focus on humanoid robots

because they feel that being able to experience the world like a human is essential to developing human-like intelligence. It also makes it easier for people to interact with the robots, which potentially makes it

easier for the robot to learn.

Just as physical robotic design is a handy tool for understanding

animal and human anatomy, AI research is useful for understanding how natural intelligence works. For some

roboticists, this insight is the ultimate goal of designing robots.

Others envision a world where we live side by side with intelligent machines and use a variety of lesser robots for manual

labor, health care and communication. A number of robotics

experts predict that robotic evolution will ultimately turn us into

cyborgs - humans integrated with machines. Conceivably, people in the future could load their minds into a sturdy robot and live

for thousands of years!

In any case, robots will certainly play a larger role in our daily lives in the future. In the coming decades, robots will gradually move out of the industrial and scientific

worlds and into daily life, in the same way that computers spread to the home in the 1980s.

Asimo may be the forerunner of robots that can recognize and respond to human needs.

Robot Madness: Creating True Artificial Intelligence…Jeremy Hsu…18 March 2009 Time:

06:13 ET - In Robot Madness, LiveScience examines humanoid robots and cybernetic enhancement of

humans, as well as the exciting and sometimes frightening convergence of it all.

Artificial intelligence in the form of Deep Blue may have beaten human chess champions,

but don't expect robots to fetch you a beer from the fridge just yet. Robotic artificial intelligence (AI) mainly excels at formal logic, which allows it to sift through thousands

of Web sites to match your Google search, or find the right chess move from hundreds of previous games.

That becomes a different story when AI struggles to connect that abstract logic with real-world meanings, such as those associated with ‗beer‘ or ‗fridge handle‘.

‗People realized at some point that you can only get so far with a logical approach‘, said Matt Berlin an

AI researcher with MIT's Media Lab. ‗At some point these symbols have to be connected to the world‘. A robot fetching a beer has to realize that it should go to the fridge, figure out where the handle is and

how to open the fridge door, and distinguish between beer cans and soda cans. It should know not to

crush the beer can in its grasp. Finally, it should know that handing a beer over isn't the same as dropping

the can in someone's lap, Berlin noted. Even the most painstaking lines of logic can't convey actual understanding of what each step means in the

real world, unless robots can perceive that world and learn from their experiences.

Learning: Robot Minds Grow by Feel - Turns out a brain needs a body to make a mind. Robots must learn how to conceptualize feelings by touching, hearing and seeing for themselves. We cannot teach

them. ‗People learn what a word means in a truly grounded way‘, Berlin told LiveScience. Researchers

around the world are trying to replicate the human perception that permits such learning, which means building things such as robotic hands that can feel what they grasp.

One major challenge is getting robots to see the world as well as people.

‗As humans, we can detect where there's shadows, colors and objects‘, said Chad Jenkins, a robotics

expert at Brown University. ‗That has proven extremely difficult for robots‘. Jenkins is working on a robot that can respond to nonverbal commands, such as gestures. His research

group took a bomb-disposal PackBot that's normally controlled by a human soldier, and hard-coded it to

understand gesture commands such as ‗follow‘- ‗halt‘ - ‗wait‘ and ‗door breach‘. The upgraded PackBot has a camera that provides depth perception, meaning that the robot can easily

extract and follow the silhouette of a person against any background. Eventually, Jenkins hopes that a

soldier could ‗train‘ PackBot by performing certain gestures and telling the robot to remember.

That hints at a future where each person can easily supervise their own robot team, with each robot having different forms and capabilities, Jenkins said.

But humans need not fret during the wait for their robotic ‗Jeeves‘. New technology promises upgrades

for people as well.

www.robotzeitgeist.com…Brain-controlled prosthetic limb most advanced

yet… Scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)

were awarded no less than $34.5 million by the Defense Advanced Research

Projects Agency (DARPA) to continue their outstanding work in the field of

prosthetic limb testing, which has seen them come up with the most advanced model yet. Their Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) system is just about ready

to be tested on human subjects, as it has...

Willow Garage puts PR2 up for sale… Good news everybody, after a successful beta program that placed 11 robots in the hands of university researchers at no cost to them (but at a cost of $4.4 million to the

company over a period of 2 years - recipients), Willow Garage recently announced that the Personal

Robot 2 (PR2) is now available for sale. The bad news are that it is a bit too... (expensive)?...

‗Chess Terminator‘ plays blitz chess with Vladimir Kramnik…Nov 23 - Posted by Rossum in Robotics…

Fans of the game of chess surely remember former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, who held the title back in 2006, but the most recent news regarding the Russian gross-master comes from the world of

robotics. Kramnik was the sparring partner for a chess-playing robot called ‗Chess Terminator‘, designed

by Konstantin Kosteniuk, who is the father of the current women‘s champion, Alexandra Kosteniuk.

The engrossing video shows the match in full, where the robot-arm‘s lightning movements certainly match the former champion in terms of speed. The A.I. is also very responsive and doesn‘t make any big

mistakes during the short match, which ended in a draw. The funniest part is at the 2:45 minute mark,

where Kramnik offers his hand for a draw, but the robot brushes it away and continues playing. It is not that the Chess Terminator lacks manners, it‘s that it cannot actually see its environment. It has

already been connected to the chess board, and sees the pieces on a digital board, where it chooses the

best move from a list of all possible combinations. The robot arm is a steady worker, and can grasp and move around tiny objects like the chess pieces very easily, as well as press the button on the clock. It

looks so dedicated and concentrated on the task at hand, providing quite the humorous contrast with

Kramnik‘s relaxed and zestful exterior.

Geminoid F takes up acting… Nov 15

th …Posted by Rossum in Robotics …

The highly realistic android called Geminoid F has been placed in a Japanese play called ‗Good-bye‘ and

presented at a Tokyo Art Festival. The robot, which costs around $1.2 million, can mostly just sit, but she can also move her head and change her facial expressions. Another actress stands behind the stage

feeding her, her lines, which she conveys through her implanted microphone.

The Osaka University creation acted alongside a human actress in the play, which is about a woman with a fatal illness (not the android). Geminoid F is supposed to test out how robots can interact with humans

in the arts, in this case simulating a theatrical performance. She may not be able to do many actions, but

the brown-haired and brown-eyed robot does her job fairly well in monologues or simple dialogues.

As the human actress admits at the end of the video, however, there is something missing from the bot‘s performance, something that perhaps will always be missing—the human element. Call me a bit

pessimistic, but acting is one field where I don‘t see robots having a great future. Maybe in comedy, but

more serious dramatic stories would be a problem. Many human actors struggle to shed their ―robotic‖ or monotonous performance, it takes a great deal of adaptiveness and intelligence to be able to give a

realistic performance—simply having a human exoskeleton won‘t cut it.

Still, such a novelty is bound to excite some theater-goers, and apparently ticket sales at the Tokyo fair

were indeed boosted by Geminoid F. The play only had a two-day run, but due to its success, they‘ll probably find other ones to put the robot in. …

Japan‘s Yume Robo climbing robot - Nov 10…Posted by Rossum in Robotics … The Shanghai Expo in Japan presented three new humanoid robots that have been designed for one

function only – to climb walls like nobody‘s business. Called ―Yume Robo‖, the 140cm, 30kg bots have

been climbing up and down a 15-meter wall every 20 minutes for the past half a year. It is not precisely clear why (it looks like a technology demonstration rather than a robot designed for anything practical–

Awesome-o), but they have shown that if you focus a robot on one thing, it‘s going to start doing it really

good.

Another thing not clear is why they are dressed in silver astronaut-like clothes, and why they all have two antennas on their heads that make them look like little green men from Mars, but that is most probably an

aesthetic choice. Interestingly enough, the robots are said to have been created by no less than 15 midsize

companies in Osaka, so it was a collaborative effort by many engineers. Maybe the design was just the most neutral idea they could come up with?

Their wacky appearance aside, the Yume Robots climb the walls much in the same way a human can.

They move up limb by limb, first making sure that their hands and feet are secure on the bar before trying to go further. They are a little bit on the slow side, but that is compensated in the stability they seem to

possess. To simulate a human climber further, the creators also programmed them to move their heads

towards each progressing limb, as if they are consciously checking to see that everything is alright. All the above you can see in the video, which unfortunately only features one of the Yume Robos in

action. It would have been curious to see all three of them scaling the wall, though I don‘t suspect they

will have been programmed with any real team-work abilities.

Honda ASIMO‘s 10th birthday …Nov 8 - Posted by Rossum in Robotics…

Many of the modern day robots owe their inspiration and basic design to Honda‘s

ASIMO, the humanoid ‗bot‘ which marked his 10 year anniversary on October

31st, Halloween night. Unlike Frankenstein, this inanimate creation that was powered to life a decade ago has gone on to be a guiding light for success in its

entire field. Work was first started on ASIMO 25 years ago, and the finished

prototype took almost 15 years of extensive research to complete. At the celebration, Honda treated guests with short films and new smart phone

applications that retold the journey of their special robot, which was more of a history lesson than

anything too tech-heavy. It highlighted some of ASIMO‘s proudest moments, which included meeting

world leaders and visiting places like the European Parliament, as well as touring countless of science museums around the world ,and educating children about science and engineering. When it comes to

robot celebrities, they don‘t get more famous than ASIMO.

ASIMO conducts the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. - There was still talk of future projects, however, as Honda said that their new goal in further robotic research will be developing artificial intelligence and

strengthening the bond between humans and robots. There are many innovations and new concepts

popping up all the time that help improve the physical qualities of robotic humanoids like ASIMO, but A.I research is still waiting for its ‗one giant leap for robots‘ moment. As Honda stressed, the goal for this

new movement will be to make robots better helpers for humans, as increasing their intelligence will

increase the ways in which they can help us too. How successful they will be in their new endeavors

remains to be seen, but as ASIMO is has yet to be truly surpassed for over ten years now, the ball is in their court.

Robot cooks make pancakes - Oct 29th …Posted by Rossum in Robotics …

Cooking is an art sometimes forgotten in the robotics world, but James, the PR2 robot, and Rosie, another

robot from CoTeSys (Cognition for Technical Systems) in Munich have joined forces to show that robots

can be of great use in the kitchen as well. They made some pretty successful-looking pancakes and used various tools around the Assisted Kitchen to show off their skills.

The main chef in the experiment was Rosie, who used her broad arms and high levels of dexterity to flip

and cook the pancakes…she is a bit on the slow side, but she‘s also extra careful and gets it done right.

She is capable of adjusting the way she pours the batter based on the weight of the bowl, demonstrating some impressive planning and a good use of her sensors, which allow the ‗bot‘ to recognize how much

batter she has already poured.

James did his part too by looking up the pancake recipe on the internet, which allowed the robots to learn something new, much in the same way humans can. He generated his own program which used image

recognition to find the right ingredients, like differentiating between bottles and finding them in the

fridge. James also assisted Rosie by opening and closing drawers, moving things around, and helping her

with the dish. He showed off his impressive gripping skills, and both robots were able to correct their errors very quickly as they went along. Let us also not forget that in the past the PR2 has been shown

capable of folding towels.

The first-ever all-robotic surgery - Oct 25th …Posted by Rossum in Robotics … It‘s been coming for quite some time now, and it‘s finally here. The world‘s first all-robotic surgery was

performed on a Canadian man at Montreal General Hospital, who had his prostate successfully removed.

The operation was performed by two main robots - McSleepy, which, as the name suggests, provides

anesthesia to the patient, while the DaVinci system uses tools and performs movements way too delicate for any human to match.

The 360 degree arms of the DaVinci robot were guided by a team of surgeons viewing the details of the

operation thanks to a 3D high-def camera. A constant stream of information on the patient‘s vitals was

also provided. So the human brains are still guiding things behind the scenes, but all the physical aspects are under the control of the robotic system.

McSleepy has a simpler task of pumping sleep-inducing drugs into a patient‘s veins, but that is a vitally

important aspect of any operation. The anesthesia bot has actually been in use for over two years, and DaVinci has helped out in many operations in this past, but this was the first time the two were combined,

which eliminated the need for a human presence during the operation.

Dr. Aprikian, from the McGill University Health Center, stated his confidence that this will become a standard procedure in the future, and an all-robotic team will be able to improve results and save more

lives on the operating table. While that sounds very promising, at least from all these news stories of

successful robotic machines being employed in such operations, the trick will be getting the average Joe

to feel comfortable enough knowing a robot is slicing his body. Even with a lot of reassurance, you know some people will feel skeptical about the process.

Turkey‘s scientists unveil their own humanoid robot - Oct 18

th…Posted by Rossum in Robotics …

This might come as a surprise to some, but it‘s not just the far east, Europe and the US that are involved in the humanoid-building industry. Proof of that is Turkey‘s brand new SURALP (Sabanci University

Robot Research Laboratory Platform) robot, which was unveiled after an eight year development process.

The robot is rather straight-forward in nature, and stands at 5 feet 4 inches, weighing around 250 pounds. It can rotate its arms, legs, head and torso, possessing 29 degrees of freedom, and looks sort of like an

astronaut. Besides cameras that allow it to see where it‘s going, SURALP employs gyro sensors to help

keep its balance. It is also smart enough to reach out its arms and steady itself against a wall if it feels in

danger of falling.

SURALP can do different things, which it demonstrated at its unveiling. It can pick up and throw away

trash, walk backwards and forwards, and even perform something resembling a dance. The below video of it walking doesn‘t make it look too steady, but it stays on its feet, which is the important thing.

Japan did help out a little bit, at least by providing inspiration to associate Professor Kemalettin Erbatur,

the man who designed the robot, when he visited Yokohama National University. Still, it‘s nice to see other countries getting involved in such projects, and $1 million is actually not a lot of money to spend on

the development of a humanoid robot. The cost of developing such experimental robots has declined

steadily over the years since HONDA begun development of Asimo in the late 1980s. SURLAP may not

change the entire robotics world, but it is a step forward to a more combined global-effort. After all, to achieve progress in anything we need new and diverse ideas, and relying only on one or two regions to

carry A.I. research won‘t be very advantageous.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/11/us-brain-model-LONDON | Mon Apr 11, 2011 11:28am EDT

(Reuters) - Scientists say they have moved a step closer to developing a computer model of the brain after

finding a way to map both the connections and functions of nerve cells in the brain together for the first

time. In a study in the journal Nature on Sunday, researchers from Britain's University College London (UCL)

described a technique developed in mice which enabled them to combine information about the function

of neurons with details of their connections. The study is part of an emerging area of neuroscience research known as 'connectomics'. A little like

genomics, which maps our genetic make-up, connectomics aims to map the brain's connections, known as

synapses.

By untangling and being able to map these connections - and deciphering how information flows through

the brain's circuits - scientists hope to understand how thoughts and perceptions are generated in the brain and how these functions go wrong in diseases such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and stroke.

‗We are beginning to untangle the complexity of the brain, once we understand the function and

connectivity of nerve cells spanning different layers of the brain, we can begin to develop a computer

simulation of how this remarkable organ works‘, said Tom Mrsic-Flogel who led the team. But he said would take many years of work among scientists and huge computer processing power before

that could be done.

In a report of his research, Mrsic-Flogel explained how mapping the brain's connections is no small feat: There are an estimated one hundred billion nerve cells, or neurons, in the brain, each connected to

thousands of other nerve cells, he said, making an estimated 150 trillion synapses.

‗How do we figure out how the brain's neural circuitry works? We first need to understand the function of each neuron and find out to which other brain cells it connects‘, he said.

In this study, Mrsic-Flogel's team focused on vision and looked into the visual cortex of the mouse brain,

which contains thousands of neurons and millions of different connections.

Using high resolution imaging, they were able to detect which of these neurons responded to a particular stimulus.

Taking a slice of the same tissue, the scientists then applied small currents to subsets of neurons to see

which other neurons responded and which of them were synaptically connected. By repeating this technique many times, they were able to trace the function and connectivity of hundreds of nerve cells in

visual cortex. Using this method, the team hopes to begin generating a wiring diagram of a brain area with

a particular function, such as the visual cortex. The technique should also help them map the wiring of regions that underpin touch, hearing and movement. John Williams, head of neuroscience and mental

health at the Wellcome Trust medical charity, which helped fund the study, said understanding the brain's

inner workings was one of science's ultimate goals. ‗This important study presents neuroscientists with

one of the key tools that will help them begin to navigate and survey the landscape of the brain‘, he said. ..(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Sophie Hares)

MrGameTheory - Apr 15, 2011 6:17pm EDT… Following synaptic connections and understanding the function of cells through the study of localization

is a tedious and logical approach towards understanding the brain and if we are lucky, consciousness. I

wonder if the computer model provides any support to the idea that a specific part of the brain contains a

cell that is central to mind. VoR wrote:

I believe that a deeper examination and understanding of the actions at the synapse hold the key to

understanding the larger environment. At the synapse, as we all know, the action is electrical signal through the nerve - exciting a chemical signal across the gap to chemical receptors on another nerve - then

transferred through that nerve as an electrical impulse. This, I believe, is a cycle that deserves deeper

study as to the communication. Imagine that same action used as a mechanical device (dynamotor as an example). It would be: an electrical motor (nerve) - gears or chain (synapse) - electrical generator or

dynamo - (naturally feeds the motor). This is the beginning of an unlocked circuit or chain of events.

There‘s more to understand about the nature of simple actions and how they provide clues to a much

broader understanding of the world around us.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Map-of-the-Human-Brain-in-the-Works-157288.shtml

Map of the Human Brain in the Works September 21st, 2010, 10:00 GMT| By Tudor Vieru… All major circuits and neural pathways in the human brain will be included in a highly-detailed map… to be created over the next 5 years with a $30 million grant.

The effort is the first of its kind, and is bound to push the boundaries of science if it succeeds. The sheer

complexity of the task as at hand has until now deterred those seeking to work in the field of mapping the

brain. One thing that you should know about your brain from the get go is that it features as estimated 100

billion neurons, which means that you have as many cells in your brain than the Milky way has stars. Each individual neuron connect to other neurons via synapses.

Many neurons can span a length of about 10 centimeters in the brain, and can connect to as much as 10

000 other neurons. In addition, all of these interactions are plastic, as in they can change at all times.

Given these immense numbers, it stands to reason that even the most advanced supercomputer today stops dead in its tracks when it comes to simulating the human brain.

But the goal of the Human Connectome Project (HCP) is to map all the major circuits in the cortex. The

HCP‘s name is an analogy to that of the Genome Project, which sequenced the entire human genome some years ago. The HCP is being led by experts at the Washington University in St.Louis (WUSL)

School of Medicine (WUSM), and the Centre for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMMR) at the

University of Minnesota. The entire team features 33 experts from different research institutions. The group will build custom brain scanners, supercomputers and new analysis techniques as part of the job…

to make mapping the brain easier… It will also enable future projects that probe what changes in brain

circuits underlie a broad variety of disorders…such as autism and schizophrenia…says lead investigator

David van Essen.

http://willcov.com/bio-consciousness/review/Mental%20Image.htm...Mental Image, Map, Neural Pattern,

Image, Object, etc.

Consciousness literature contains many words and terms referring to similar concepts related to ‗mental image‘. In general, thalamo-cortical activity, supported by sub-cortical activity, mediates a neural

representation of a worldly object or concept, either perceived or imagined. This momentarily ‗mental

image‘ representing a thought is ‗convolved with‘ the neural representation of self to yield ‗core consciousness‘.

As the science of consciousness matures, the terms and definitions will coalesce and become more

explicit… informally defined technical meanings - concept, idea, image, mental image, neural pattern,

perception, and the list probably could go on...used in context will make the meaning clear. The terms ‗map‘, ‗mapping‘, ‗neural map‘ deserve special comment.

Nerves of the somato-sensory system are mapped in the cortex in a topographical pattern corresponding

to areas on the skin. The term ‗map‘ accurately describes the biological fact of this relationship. Other similar terms such as ‗global mapping‘ are simply extensions of this somato-sensory mapping idea.

Hierarchical assemblies of audio-visual and other neural maps are considered global maps.

A 'concept' is a memory object that contains only a small sensory component, because it is the result of neuronal activity in association areas such as the frontal lobe (where multiple sensory or motor modalities

are mixed) or in a large number of areas in different regions of the brain.

Consciousness (sic) is the images (and thoughts and feelings) that are represented in the activated neural

networks. Because words have various connotations their use is fraught with difficulties, nonetheless, words are indispensable to convey thoughts in any attempt to deal with the topics of consciousness, using

images as a synonym for mental images. Mental images are the mental constructs we normally experience

in consciousness. Neural patterns or neural maps or maps are the neural representation of the mental images.

…‗Cerebral cortex is arranged as a set of maps, which receive inputs via the thalamus. Global mappings

are dynamic systems consisting of multiple reentrant local maps that correlate sensory input with motor

activity‘. An important characteristic of images is that they have spatially and temporally organized patterns, and in the case of visual, somatosensory, and auditory images, those patterns are topographically

organized. Topographic representations can arise in turn as a result of signals external to the brain in the

perceptual process, or in the process of recall from signals inside the brain, coming from memory records held in dispositional representation form. Both organism and object are mapped as neural patterns in the

first-order maps; all of these neural patterns can become images.

Second-order maps represent the relationship of object and organism. Neural patterns transiently formed in second-order maps can become mental images.

Mental image is an autonomous and transient memory object, not requiring direct interaction with the

environment. Temporally coordinated activity of varied early cortices and of the subcortical stations with which they are interconnected yields the essence of what we call an image.

An important characteristic of images is that they have spatially and temporally organized patterns, and in

the case of visual, somato-sensory, and auditory images, those patterns are topographically organized

connections of the value-category memory to cortical systems carrying out perceptual categorizations. Humans experience primary [core] consciousness (sic) as a ‗picture‘ or ‗mental image‘ of ongoing

categorized events. There is no actual image in the brain; ‗image‘ is a correlation between different kinds

of categorizations. Consciousness (sic) can be focused on an internalized representation, or a memory. When we interact with an object outside ourselves, the image we experience is based on changes that

occur in our organism - including the brain - when the physical structure of the object interacts with the

body. Sensors located throughout the body - in the skin, in the muscles, in the retina, and so on - help construct the neural patterns that map the organism's interaction with the object. The neural pattern (map)

is based on the momentary selection of neurons and circuits engaged in the interaction.

Brain makes images - Early sensory cortices are the critical base for processes of image making. Damage to higher-order association cortices, which are located outside of the early sensory region, does

not preclude the making of images …with the assistance of structures in the thalamus and the colliculi,

neural representations that are the basis for images. Temporally coordinated activity of varied early cortices and of the sub-cortical stations with which they are interconnected yields the essence of what we

call an image. Images can be completely internal as when dreaming.

Mental object is identified as the physical state created by correlated, transient activity, both electrical and chemical, in a large population or 'assembly' of neurons in several specific cortical areas. Object is used in

a broad and abstract sense - a person, a place, a pain, an emotion. Neural events at the molecular, cellular,

and systems levels contribute to the neural patterns (maps) that result in our mental images that create the

mind. Impairment of image making with one sensory modality, e.g., visual or auditory, only compromises the conscious appreciation of one aspect of an object.

Perceptual categorization - the ability to carve up the world of signals into categories adaptive for a given

animal species. Along with control of movement, perceptual categorization is the most fundamental process of the vertebrate nervous system.

Concept - the ability to combine different perceptual categorizations related to a scene or an object and to

construct a ‗universal‘ reflecting the abstraction of some common feature across a variety of such

percepts. Concepts arise as a result of the mapping by the brain itself of the activity of the brain's different areas and regions. Various common features of responses to different signals can be abstracted.

Ideas - An idea is a mental image that has been freed from fixed, immediate action. Humans can form an

image that is less tied to action and therefore can acquire a new meaning and symbolism. Once an image is separated from its action, that image can serve a new purpose: to plan, solve problems, and think. …

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080813175509.htm...

Robot With A Biological Brain: New Research Provides Insights Into How The Brain Works…

ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2008) — A multidisciplinary team at the University of Reading

has developed a robot which is controlled by a biological brain formed from cultured

neurons. This cutting-edge research is the first step to examine how memories manifest themselves in the brain, and how a brain stores specific pieces of data. The key aim is

that eventually this will lead to a better understanding of development and of diseases

and disorders which affect the brain such as Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, stroke and brain injury.

The robot's biological brain is made up of cultured neurons which are placed onto a multi-electrode array

(MEA). The MEA is a dish with approximately 60 electrodes which pick up the electrical signals generated by the cells. This is then used to drive the movement of the robot. Every time the robot nears an

object, signals are directed to stimulate the brain by means of the electrodes. In response, the brain's

output is used to drive the wheels of the robot, left and right, so that it moves around in an attempt to avoid hitting objects. The robot has no additional control from a human or a computer, its sole means of

control is from its own brain.

Cultured neurons from rats are placed onto a multi-electrode array - a dish with approximately 60

electrodes which pick up the electrical signals generated by the cells… The researchers are now working towards getting the robot to learn by applying different signals as it

moves into predefined positions. It is hoped that as the learning progresses, it will be possible to witness

how memories manifest themselves in the brain when the robot revisits familiar territory. Professor Kevin Warwick from the School of Systems Engineering, said: ‗This new research is

tremendously exciting as firstly the biological brain controls its own moving robot body, and secondly it

will enable us to investigate how the brain learns and memorizes its experiences. This research will move our understanding forward of how brains work, and could have a profound effect on many areas of

science and medicine‘.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7559150.stmRat-brain robot aids memory study …

The robot and rat brain cells work together… Dr Ben Whalley, from the University of Reading has

carried out tests on the 'rat- brain-controlled' robot.

A robot controlled by a blob of rat brain cells could provide insights into diseases such as Alzheimer's, University of Reading scientists say. The project marries 300,000 rat neurons to a robot that navigates via

sonar. The neurons are now being taught to steer the robot around obstacles and avoid the walls of the

small pen in which it is kept. By studying what happens to the neurons as they learn, its creators hope to reveal how memories are laid down.

Hybrid machines …The blob of nerves forming the brain of the robot was taken from the neural cortex in

a rat foetus and then treated to dissolve the connections between individual neurons. Sensory input from the sonar on the robot is piped to the blob of cells to help them form new connections

that will aid the machine as it navigates around its pen.

As the cells are living tissue, they are kept separate from the robot in a temperature-controlled cabinet in a

container pitted with electrodes. Signals are passed to and from the robot via Bluetooth short-range radio. The brain cells have been taught how to control the robot's movements so it can steer round obstacles and

the next step, say its creators, is to get it to recognize its surroundings.

Once the robot can do this the researchers plan to disrupt the memories in a bid to recreate the gradual loss of mental faculties seen in diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Studies of how neural tissue is degraded or copes with the disruption could give insights into these

conditions.

‗One of the fundamental questions that neuroscientists are facing today is how we link the activity of individual neurons to the complex behaviours that we see in whole organisms and whole animals‘, said

Dr Ben Whalley, a neuroscientist at Reading.

‗This project gives us a really useful and unique opportunity to look at something that may exhibit whole behaviours but still remains closely tied to the activity of individual neurons‘, he said.

The Reading team is not the first to harness living tissue to control robots.

In 2003, Dr Steve Potter at the Georgia Institute of Technology pioneered work on what he dubbed ‗hybrots‘ that marry neural tissue and robots.

In earlier work, scientists at Northwestern University Medical Center in the US wired a wheeled robot up

to a lamprey in a bid to explore novel ways of controlling prosthetics.

http://www.gizmowatch.com/entry/monkey-in-north-carolina-controls-robotic-

legs-in-japan/Neuroscience breakthrough - Madan | Nov 24 2007

The university of Pittsburgh successfully created a robot arm and hand, that can be controlled by a monkey‘s thought alone. That was good news for those

suffering with paralysis. …The researchers at Duke University wired electrodes

to a monkey‘s brain …and then transmitted it to the Internet to control a pair of robot legs at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International

in Kyoto, Japan. The work was presented at Neuroscience 2007 in San Diego,

California.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/736210 ...Human Brain Spots Emotion in Non Humanoid Robots Stéphanie Dubal; Aurélie Foucher; Roland Jouvent; Jacqueline Nadel… Posted: 01/28/2011; Social

Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 2011;6(1):90-97. © 2011 Oxford University Press…

The computation by which our brain elaborates fast responses to emotional expressions is currently an active field of brain studies. Previous studies have focused on stimuli taken from everyday life. Here, we

investigated event-related potentials in response to happy vs. neutral stimuli of human and non-humanoid

robots. At the behavioural level, emotion shortened reaction times similarly for robotic and human stimuli. Early P1 wave was enhanced in response to happy compared to neutral expressions for robotic as

well as for human stimuli, suggesting that emotion from robots is encoded as early as human emotion

expression. Congruent with their lower face-ness properties compared to human stimuli, robots elicited a

later and lower N170 component than human stimuli. These findings challenge the claim that robots need to present an anthropomorphic aspect to interact with humans. Taken together, such results suggest that

the early brain processing of emotional expressions is not bounded to human-like arrangements

embodying emotion. The computation by which our brain elaborates fast responses to emotional expressions is currently an

active field of brain studies. Until now, studies have focused on stimuli taken from everyday life -namely

facial expressions of emotion, emoticons (also called smileys) created to convey a human state of emotion and instantly taken as such, landscapes or social pictures likely to generate recalls of past emotional

events, etc. Less is known, however, concerning brain responses to expressive stimuli devoid of humanity

and that have never been seen before. Non-humanoid robots can help in providing such kind of

information. Robots are a potential scaffold for neuro-scientific thought, to put it in Ghazanfar and Turesson's words.

This comment intends to announce a turn in the exploration of the brain by neuroscientists.

More and more is known about the fact that the Mirror Neuron System responds anthropomorphically to robotic movements, when the mechanical motion is closely matched with the biological one.

Interference between action and observation of a biological motion performed by a humanoid robot

suggests similar action effect of robotic and human motor perception, although an artificial motion may

require more attention. Electro-myographic studies have found that we respond by similar automatic imitation to the photograph of a robot opening or closing hand and to the photograph of a human hand.

In sum, the human brain tends to respond similarly to humans compared to robotic motion. But, what

about emotion, so deeply anchored in our social brain.

…Does the human brain respond similarly to emotion expressed by human and robot?

To explore this question, we compared event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by human expressions of emotion and by emotion-like patterns embodied in non-humanoid robots that should prevent the patterns

from being captured as conveying mental states of emotion and recalling emotional reactions already

experienced.

Recent brain findings may feed assumptions about whether we can react similarly to robotic and human

emotional stimuli. Perceptual processing of facial emotional expressions engages several visual regions

involved in constructing perceptual representations of faces as well as activations of sub-cortical structures such as the amygdala. Functional MRI studies found greater activations in the occipital and

temporal cortex and in the amygdala in response to expressive faces as compared to neutral faces.

Electroencephalographic studies have localized temporally this amplification of activity for emotional

content at about 100 ms post-stimulus, with occipital components of the ERPs amplitude being higher for

emotional than neutral faces. In non-human primates, intra-cell recordings found temporal lobe face-selective neurons differentiating emotion vs neutral expression at a latency of 90 ms, and differentiating

monkey identity about 70 ms later. These delays meet P1 and N170 visual components latencies in human

EEG studies, with the P1 wave being modulated by emotion, and the N170 wave being mainly modulated

by facial configuration, and originated in higher-level visual areas selective of face recognition.

The emotional modulation of the P1 has been described in the literature in response to human and

schematic emotional faces and also in response to emotionally arousing stimuli such as body expressions, words or complex visual scenes. Such perceptual enhancement has been found in response to positive as

well as negative eliciting stimuli. The P1 visual component has a field distribution compatible with

activation of occipital, visual brain areas, and may be due to several striate and extrastriate generators within the posterior visual cortex. The posterior activation is likely to be modulated by the amygdala,

acting remotely on sensory cortices to amplify visual cortical activity, and may as well involve frontal

sources. Such participation would be related to the top–down regulation of attention designed to enhance

perceptual processing of emotionally relevant stimuli. P1 amplitude enhancement in response to emotional stimuli compared to neutral stimuli may reflect a sensory gain for the processing of emotional

stimuli. This is congruent with results from fMRI studies that reported emotional amplification in several

visual regions of early perceptual processing.

Now suppose that we are facing a non-humanoid robot displaying emotional and neutral patterns. We

wonder whether the encoding of emotion from such a machine-like set-up may occur as early as P1: will

we find a P1 enhancement for the emotional patterns, notwithstanding the fact that the set-up is a complex combination of emotional features and typical components of mechanical devices?

To investigate this question, we created pictures of robotic patterns presenting two contrasted properties:

some of the robotic features are similar to inner features of emotion in the human face (mouth, eyes, brows) but a great number of other features are familiar components of machine set-ups (cables, nails,

threads, metallic pieces). In such a case, we do not know what the prominent perceptual saliency should

be. If we reason by analogy we could consider that the answer is already given in studies having used schematic faces. Those studies have shown similar brain responses to the emotional expressions of real

faces compared to schematic faces.

However, our robots are not analogous to schematic faces, at least regarding the criterion of complexity. In schematic faces, only the main invariant of an expression has been selected so as to provide both

simpler and prototypical patterns. Reversely, our designs are complex mixtures of a prominent feature of

emotion and familiar components of mechanical devices. Schematic faces show much less variance than human faces or robots. It is not given for granted that the invariant of the robotic emotional expression

will be extracted from the whole. Those contrasted properties of our designs allow us to explore whether

the brain can spot emotion in complex non-humanoid stimuli

http://www.futureforall.org/brain/brain_mind.htm ...The Human Brain ...Here as some general facts about

the brain: - Center of the human nervous system

- Most complex organ on earth

- Weighs on average about 3 lb (1.5 kg)

- Consistency similar to jelly - Estimated 50–100 billion neurons

The Mind - I find current philosophies of the mind to be as foggy as a morning hangover. How does the brain's processes generate the stream of consciousness we call the mind? I'm not sure that the science

community can adequately answer this question. That may change, thanks to merging technologies like

artificial intelligence, imaging, nanotechnology and supercomputers.

Brain Matters - Future breakthroughs in neuroscience could have a great effect on society. What will the

world be like when technology can tell us without a doubt that the accused is guilty of a crime, a spouse

has cheated, or an employee would likely steal? How about uploading your memories for posterity or downloading the skills you need for that new job? Record your dreams for later viewing or control your

computer (or any device), just by thinking about it. Many of these futuristic technologies are already in

development. Some of the most controversial issues to face society in the future will come from cognitive breakthroughs …the more we understand about the human brain, the more we know about ourselves, and

that can be a bit unnerving.

Brain Frees

Brain-Machine Interface - (BMIs), allow for activity in the brain to be sent to, or received from, a computer. Some BMIs use sensors mounted in a removable cap or MRI technology to read signals from

the brain. Others connect directly to the surface of the brain, through tiny wires and an array of micro-

electrodes. BMIs can also be entirely implanted in the brain.

Neuroscience is the field that is devoted to the scientific study of the nervous system. Neuroscience is at the frontier of investigation of the brain and mind. The study of the brain is becoming the cornerstone in

understanding how we perceive and interact with the external world and, in particular, how human

experience and human biology influence each other. Smart Drugs - Researchers are studying ways to improve memory, learning and other mental abilities by

using substances called cognitive enhancers or smart drugs.

Brain Backup - Some experts predict that by the year 2050, computers will have the capacity to store all of the information contained in the human brain. For those that can afford immortality, their brains could

be scanned and downloaded to machines, perhaps to be uploaded to a new brain.

Computers That Work Like Your Brain …A new NASA-developed computing device allows machines

to work much like the brain. This technology may allow fast-thinking machines to make decisions based on what they see. - An international team of researchers have developed a system that combines a brain-

computer interface with eye tracking glasses to control the movement of a robotic arm.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-04-functioning-synapse-carbon-nanotubes.html...

Researchers create functioning synapse using carbon nanotubes

This image shows nanotubes used in synthetic synapse and apparatus used

to create them. Credit: USC Viterbi School of Engineering…

Engineering researchers the University of Southern California have made a significant breakthrough in the use of nanotechnologies for the construction

of a synthetic brain. They have built a carbon nanotube synapse circuit

whose behavior in tests reproduces the function of a neuron, the building

block of the brain.

The team, which was led by Professor Alice Parker and Professor Chongwu Zhou in the USC Viterbi

School of Engineering Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, used an interdisciplinary approach combining circuit design with nanotechnology to address the complex problem of capturing

brain function.

In a paper published in the proceedings of the IEEE/NIH 2011 Life Science Systems and Applications

Workshop in April 2011, the Viterbi team detailed how they were able to use carbon nanotubes to create a synapse.

Carbon nanotubes are molecular carbon structures that are extremely small, with a diameter a million

times smaller than a pencil point. These nanotubes can be used in electronic circuits, acting as metallic conductors or semiconductors.

‗This is a necessary first step in the process‘, said Parker, who began the looking at the possibility of

developing a synthetic brain in 2006. ‗We wanted to answer the question: Can you build a circuit that would act like a neuron? The next step is even more complex. How can we build structures out of these

circuits that mimic the function of the brain, which has 100 billion neurons and 10,000 synapses per

neuron?‘ Parker emphasized that the actual development of a synthetic brain, or even a functional brain

area is decades away, and she said the next hurdle for the research centers on reproducing brain plasticity in the circuits.

The human brain continually produces new neurons, makes new connections and adapts throughout life,

and creating this process through analog circuits will be a monumental task, according to Parker. She believes the ongoing research of understanding the process of human intelligence could have long-term

implications for everything from developing prosthetic nanotechnology that would heal traumatic brain

injuries to developing intelligent, safe cars that would protect drivers in bold new ways. For Jonathan Joshi, a USC Viterbi Ph.D. student who is a co-author of the paper, the interdisciplinary

approach to the problem was key to the initial progress. Joshi said that working with Zhou and his group

of nanotechnology researchers provided the ideal dynamic of circuit technology and nanotechnology.

‗The interdisciplinary approach is the only approach that will lead to a solution. We need more than one type of engineer working on this solution‘, said Joshi. ‗We should constantly be in search of new

technologies to solve this problem‘. - Provided by University of Southern California…

http://www.kurzweilai.net/ibm-scientists-create-most-comprehensive-map-of-the-brains-network-IBM -

July 28, 2010 by Amara D. Angelica …‗The Mandala of the Mind‘: The long-distance network of the

Macaque monkey brain, spanning the cortex, thalamus, and basal ganglia, showing 6,602 long-distance

connections between 383 brain regions. (PNAS) The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published Tuesday a landmark paper

entitled ‗Network architecture of the long-distance pathways in the macaque brain‘ - (an open-access

paper) by Dharmendra S. Modha (IBM Almaden) and Raghavendra Singh (IBM Research-India) with major implications for reverse-engineering the brain and developing a network of cognitive-computing

chips.

‗We have successfully uncovered and mapped the most comprehensive long-distance network of the Macaque monkey brain, which is essential for understanding the brain‘s behavior, complexity, dynamics

and computation‘, Dr. Modha says. ‗We can now gain unprecedented insight into how information travels

and is processed across the brain. We have collated a comprehensive, consistent, concise, coherent, and colossal network spanning the entire brain and grounded in anatomical tracing studies that is a stepping

stone to both fundamental and applied research in neuroscience and cognitive computing‘.

The scientists focused on the long-distance network of 383 brain regions and 6,602 long-distance brain

connections that travel through the brain‘s white matter, which are like the ‗interstate highways‘ between far-flung brain regions, he explained, while short-distance gray matter connections (based on neurons)

constitute ‗local roads‘ within a brain region and its sub-structures.

Their research builds upon a publicly available database called Collation of Connectivity data on the Macaque brain (CoCoMac), which compiles anatomical tracing data from over 400 scientific reports

from neuro-anatomists published over the last half-century.

‗We studied four times the number of brain regions and have compiled nearly three times the number of connections when compared to the largest previous endeavor‘, he pointed out. Our data may open up

entirely new ways of analyzing, understanding, and, eventually, imitating the network architecture of the

brain, which according to Marian C. Diamond and Arnold B. Scheibel is ‗the most complex mass of

protoplasm on earth—perhaps even in our galaxy‘.

The center of higher cognition and consciousness? Core subnetwork

(PNAS)… The brain network they found contains a ‗tightly integrated core that

might be at the heart of higher cognition and even consciousness … and

may be a key to the age-old question of how the mind arises from the brain‘. The core spans parts of pre-motor cortex, pre-frontal cortex,

temporal lobe, parietal lobe, thalamus, basal ganglia, cingulate cortex,

insula, and visual cortex.

Prefrontal cortex: integrator-distributor of information…

By ranking brain regions (similar to how search engines rank web

pages), they found evidence that the prefrontal cortex, while physically

located in the front of the brain, is a functionally central part of the brain that might act as an integrator and distributor of information. Think of it as a switchboard.

As they stated in the PNAS paper, ‗The network opens the door to the application of large-scale network-

theoretic analysis that has been so successful in understanding the Internet, metabolic networks, protein

interaction networks, various social networks, and in searching the world-wide web. The network will be an indispensable foundation for clinical, systems, cognitive, and computational neurosciences as well as

cognitive computing‘.

The findings will also help them design the routing architecture for a network of cognitive computing chips, they suggest.

The research was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Defense Sciences

Office, Program: Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics. Dr. Modha presented the exciting findings of this study in a talk at the Toward A Science Of

Consciousness conference in Tucson in April…

http://news.ufl.edu/2007/07/24/brain-chip/ - The future of medicine: Insert chip, cure disease? …Filed

under Engineering, Health, Research on Tuesday, July 24, 2007. Gainesville, Fla. — Imagine a chip, strategically placed in the brain, that could prevent epileptic seizures

or allow someone who has lost a limb to control an artificial arm just by thinking about it.

It may sound like science fiction, but University of Florida researchers are developing devices that can interpret signals in the brain and stimulate neurons to perform correctly, advances that might someday

make it possible for a tiny computer to fix diseases or even allow a paralyzed person to control a

prosthetic device with his thoughts.

Armed with a $2.5 million grant they received this year from the National Institutes of Health, UF

researchers from the College of Medicine, the College of Engineering and the McKnight Brain Institute have teamed up to create a ‗neuro-prosthetic‘ chip designed to be implanted in the brain. They are

currently studying the concept in rats but are aiming to develop a prototype of the device within the next

four years that could be tested in people.

The initial goal? To correct conditions such as paralysis or epilepsy. ‗We really feel like if we can do this, we‘ll have the technology to offer

new options for patients‘, said Justin Sanchez, director of the UF

Neuroprosthetics Research Group and an assistant professor of pediatric neurology, neuroscience and biomedical engineering. ‗There‘s kind of a

revolution going on right now in the neurosciences and biomedical

engineering. People are trying to take engineering approaches for directly interfacing with the brain. The hope is we can cure more immediately a

variety of diseases‘. Researchers have been able to decode brain activity

for years using electro-encephalo-graphy. Referred to commonly as an

EEG, this technology involves placing a sensor-wired net over the head to measure brain activity through the scalp. But the technology wasn‘t quite

sensitive enough to allow researchers to decode brain signals as precisely as needed, Sanchez said. Now

researchers are focusing on decoding signals from electrodes placed directly into the brain tissue using wires the width of a strand of hair. Sanchez said: ‗(Scientists have) realized that by going inside the brain

we can capture so much more information, we can have much more resolution‘.

The chip UF researchers are seeking to develop, would be implanted directly into the brain tissue, where it could gather data from signals, decode them and stimulate the brain in a self-contained package without

wires. In the interim, UF researchers are studying implantable devices in rats and are evaluating an

intermediate form of the technology - placing electrodes on the surface of the brain - in people.

UF researchers have developed new techniques using surface electrodes to access signals almost as precisely as they could with sensors implanted in the brain, according to findings the researchers

published in May in the Journal of Neuroscience Methods. Developing these techniques is a big step

forward in understanding how to best decode a patient‘s intent from their brain waves and should have broad implications for delivering therapy, Sanchez said.

To gather data about the brain‘s sophisticated cues, which vary from person to person, Sanchez studies

the brain signals of children with epilepsy who are scheduled to undergo surgery to remove the part of the brain that is causing seizures. These patients often must be monitored for several days to weeks with

electrodes placed directly on the brain. Doctors use this to pinpoint the problem area when a child has

another seizure. Because the children already have electrodes in place, Sanchez is able to use the data gathered from them

to understand more about the brain‘s signals in general.

UF researchers are also working on intermediate concepts that could be wearable, like a diabetes pump, Sanchez said. ‗We have intermediate designs that connect to the brain, interpret signals and can wirelessly

send commands to devices. This is another path of technology we‘re pursuing‘.

To create these technologies, Sanchez is in the process of developing a center for brain-machine

interfaces at UF with faculty from the College of Engineering, including Jose C. Principe; John G. Harris; Toshikazu Nishida; and Rizwan Bashirullah.

But several challenges face researchers in bringing these technologies to patients, said Dr. Steven J.

Schiff, a professor of engineering and neuroscience at The Pennsylvania State University and director of the Penn State Center for Neural Engineering.

For patients with epilepsy, who often have to take several medications or undergo surgery for relief from

debilitating seizures, a neuro-prosthetic device could be the best form of treatment, Schiff said, adding that more work needs to be done to understand the mechanics of what causes diseases such as epilepsy

and Parkinson‘s.

‗The challenge is not so much the technology, but to use that technology wisely‘, said Schiff.

The day may not be too far off when patients can control a prosthetic hand or leg just by thinking about it, Sanchez said. ‗It‘s becoming a reality. We‘re designing electronics that we can interface with biological

systems and we can use that to help people‘.

http://www.frontiersin.org/neuroscience/10.3389/neuro.01.007.2008/full - Framework and implications of virtual neurorobotics …Philip H. Goodman, Quan Zou and Sergiu-Mihai Dascalu…

Department of Medicine and Program in Biomedical Engineering and …Department of Computer

Science and Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, USA… Despite decades of societal investment in artificial learning systems, truly ‗intelligent’ systems have yet to

be realized. These traditional models are based on input-output pattern optimization and/or cognitive

production rule modeling. One response has been social robotics, using the interaction of human and robot to capture important cognitive dynamics such as cooperation and emotion; to date, these systems

still incorporate traditional learning algorithms. More recently, investigators are focusing on the core

assumptions of the brain ‗algorithm‘ itself–trying to replicate uniquely ‗neuromorphic‘ dynamics such as

action potential spiking and synaptic learning. Only now are large-scale neuromorphic models becoming feasible, due to the availability of powerful supercomputers and an expanding supply of parameters

derived from research into the brain‘s interdependent electrophysiological, metabolomic and genomic

networks. Personal computer technology has also led to the acceptance of computer-generated humanoid images, or ‗avatars‘, to represent intelligent actors in virtual realities. In a recent paper, we proposed a

method of virtual-neuro-robotics (VNR) in which the approaches above (social-emotional robotics,

neuromorphic brain architectures, and virtual reality projection) are hybridized to rapidly forward-engineer and develop increasingly complex, intrinsically intelligent systems. In this paper, we synthesize

our research and related work in the field and provide a framework for VNR, with wider implications for

research and practical applications.

An overarching societal goal is to understand animal and human intelligence and translate that knowledge into technology for prosthetic, assistive, and decision support applications. Traditional research in this

field considers the brain to be a specially adapted information-processing system, which can be modeled

using mathematical optimization or production rule artificial intelligence systems. Despite many decades of investment in such learning and classification systems, however, this approach has yet to yield truly

intelligent systems. One proposed remedy comes from research in social robotics, which attempts to

augment the understanding of intelligent behavior by capturing the important dynamics of cognition using

robotic interaction with humans (Dautenhahn, 2007 ; Scheutz et al., 2007 ). However, almost all social robotics systems to date continue to incorporate some mixture of existing machine learning and

production rule cognitive systems.

For this reason, investigators are now asking whether critical neural dynamics have indeed been left out of the traditional models. Fortunately, the past two decades of neuroscience research has yielded an

abundance of quantitative parameters that characterize the brain‘s interdependent electrophysiological

genomic, proteomic, metabolomic and anatomic networks. Researchers now have access to over a hundred neuroscience databases , including automated

warehousing collections such as the Allen Brain Atlas (Allen Institute, 2007 ) and a new data-sharing

website sponsored jointly by the U.S. National Science Foundation and National Institutes for Health,

called the Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience. A previous limitation to the use of biologically realistic models has been the computational overhead.

Fortunately, the past decade has witnessed an order of magnitude increase in computation power of

individual computers and cluster configurations with a tremendous drop in cost for system components. A few groups have already reported simulations on the order of one million simplified neural elements using

supercomputer clusters.

Growth in computational technology has also encouraged nontechnical persons to participate across the Internet using ‗avatars‘ in complex virtual reality games and social networking ‗communities‘. …

Thus, taken together, advances in computer technology and interactive 3-D software have set the stage

not only to facilitate supercomputer modeling of realistic brains, but also to promote acceptance by humans that virtual reality projections may be capable of meaningful cognitive interaction.

Realistic brain simulation faces several remaining challenges, however. Developing tenable models to

capture the essence of natural intelligence for real-time application requires that we discriminate features

underlying information processing and intrinsic motivation from those reflecting biological constraints (such as maintaining structural integrity and transporting metabolic products). Furthermore, despite the

large and increasing number of physiological parameters provided by experimental inquiry, most of the

data relates either to the very small scale of individual or small groups of neurons (e.g., intracellular, 2-photon, or unit recordings at discrete recording sites), or at the other extreme, the joint effect of thousands

or millions of neurons over millimeter (optical imaging) or centimeter fields (fMRI and PET). Thus the

architecture and response patterns at the middle scale, or ‗meso-circuit‘, remain largely uncharacterized, requiring that the brain modeler proposes and systematically tests plausible connection patterns and

learning dynamics.

Another challenge in designing neuro-morphic systems is that they must in some way be driven

intrinsically by a motivational influence such that the dynamics that subserve information processing are themselves affected by a drive to accomplish the tasks (with neural learning that reinforces successful

behavioral adaptation). The motivational system must capture ‗the aboutness’ of its own relationship to

other behaving entities (and vice versa) in its environment (i.e., intentionality). Considered together, physiological responsiveness to intrinsic motivation with intentionality should

reflect behaviors consistent with emotional drive rather than by rules or objectives specified under the

traditional information-processing paradigm. This suggests that ‗intelligence’ has evolved most directly as a way to better serve emotional drive (rather than in spite of it).

We therefore hypothesize that the development of truly intelligent systems cannot occur outside the real-

time, emotional interaction of humans with an intentionality-capable neuromorphic system. This does not

exclude the possibility that intelligent systems, once refined, could ultimately be cloned at a point in development where they are ready to learn advanced tasks. Hence, to grow intelligent systems we must

start with minimalist brain architectures that are capable of being driven by intrinsic motivation and

intentionality in scenarios requiring intelligent behavior in a real-world context. One approach to growing human-like intelligence is to recapitulate the way in which children develop cognitive functions over the

first several years of social experience.

Definition of VNR…In testing our hypothesis, it would be relevant not only to grow such intelligent

systems but also to comprehend, at each step, the differential changes in architecture giving rise to novel and intelligent cognition. To address these objectives, in a recent publication, Goodman et al. (2007)

proposed a hybridization of neuro-morphic brain modeling validation using virtually projected robots

interacting with human actors, which we call ‗virtual neurorobotics‘ (VNR). Our proposed definition, open to future collaborative revision, is defined in Table 1…

The definition expands upon the definition of neurorobotics, which alone would imply a biologically

representative robotic control system (criterion 3), and ‗virtual‘, which suggests interaction with a human. To test our hypothesis, we additionally require that the robotic system demonstrate sufficient physical and

cognitive realism that the human accepts the robot as deserving of emotional reward (criteria 1 and 4) in a

real time interactive loop (criterion 2), with a cognitive architecture potentially extensible to larger

cognitive scale (criterion 5).

The components of the real-time loop are further delineated in Table 2 .

Here, we emphasize that the interaction between human and virtual robot be unscripted, of a spontaneous,

action-reaction nature. That is, there is no segmentation of behavioral time into periods wherein the robot

is receptive, waiting, analyzing, and/or taking action. The action-reaction requirement implies also that the system operate nearly in real time…without becoming frustrated about unrealistic robotic response

and losing cognitive and emotional linkage. Of course, the range of behaviors is indirectly constrained by

the sensory and motor capabilities of the robot, the types of behaviors exhibited by the human, and the

context (e.g., background activity).

Research - To-date there is a paucity of literature meeting our criteria (see Related Work, below). Thus

we focus here on our own research as an example of the VNR principles. In that work, we chose an instinctual ―friend vs. foe‖ response wherein a resting dog responds to movement in its visual field with

either (1) a cautious growl while remaining in a lying position, (2) threatening bark while sitting up, or (3)

happy breathing and tail-wagging while fully standing. A human actor was told that he/she is visiting a home with a dog unknown to him/her. As shown in Figure 1 , a robotic dog was projected in pseudo-3D

onto the forward screen, with external sensors that enable its simulated brain to ―see‖ and respond to the

actor‘s movements, in the context of a background scene projected onto the rear screen (for this

demonstration, we used a static image of a suburban neighborhood). The robot‘s eyes (a tracking pan-tilt-

zoom camera) and ears (monaural or spaced stereo microphones) capture the actor‘s movements and voice in the context of the background scene, which is projected independently (and may contain moving

elements, including other animals or actors). The brainstem is a supercomputer running threads that

synchronously (1) capture and preprocess video images, sound, and touch, (2) convert preprocessed

sensory images into probabilities of spiking for each primary neocortical region, (3) upload spike probability vectors to the brain simulator, (4) then from the brain simulator accept motor neuron region

output spike density vectors and trigger corresponding dominant motor sequences (e.g., for the virtual dog

robot: sitting, lying, barking, walking) via the robotic simulator program (Webots/URBI), which makes the corresponding changes in behavior of the projected robot (and incorporates internal sensation such as

balance). The brain simulator is a neuro-morphic modeling program running on a supercomputer,

executing a pre-specified spiking brain architecture, which can adapt as a result of learning (using reward stimuli offered by the ACTOR‘s voice or stroking of the touch pad). Based on successful performance,

researchers iteratively ―plug in‖ alternative or more complex brain architectures. A proposed

enhancement would be to couple live in vivo or in vitro neural tissue (BRAIN SLICE) to the brain

simulation using multielectrode arrays and optical imaging, in order to continuously calibrate and constrain synthetic brain dynamics.

Figure 1. Schematic cartoon of a fully-implemented virtual neurorobotic (VNR) system. - The simple neuromorphic brain consisted of 64 single-

compartment neurons divided into four columns representing pre-motor

regions (precursors to coordinated behavioral sequences), each connected to one of the visual field preferences based on Gabor filter configurations.

According to the probability vector received from brainstem, NCS injected

short (1 ms) step current (3 nA) pulses sufficient to reach the threshold of

−50 mV and generate a single spike. Membrane voltages updated at a frequency of 1 kHz.

The actor in this scenario was told in advance that moving vertically-oriented objects (including body

parts) will pose a threat to the robot, whereas moving horizontally-oriented objects will be perceived as friendly gestures; the actor was free to choose any sequence of movements in response to the perceived

intent of the robot. The robot’s behavioral sequences are triggered when the neuro-morphic brain output

to brainstem has 50 ms of consistent spiking in one pre-motor region compared with another. Periods

without domination of one pre-motor region over another trigger the ROBOT to lie down and growl. In cell rasters, each row represents the timing of action potentials (spikes) of a single neuron; darker gray

markers indicate clustered bursts of spikes. …

Related Work …Social embedded-ness is a key characteristic of the proposed VNR approach, with an emphasis similar to that received initially in the stepwise, ontological development of robotic cognition

and more recently in epigenetic robotics research focused on the interaction between cognitive and

perceptual brain systems. In order to map behavior to robotic cognition, almost all of these models rely on combinations of psychological production rules, fitness functions, and machine learning algorithms.

Notably, this includes models aimed at capturing neuronal epiphenomena such as mirror neuronal

activity. Our proposed approach is different in several ways. First, we focus on understanding brain

physiology at the ‗meso-circuit‘ level, relying on social-emotional robotics to reduce the multitude of potential architectures that could bridge the measurements at the cellular level (e.g., patch clamp and unit

recordings) with those at the scales of millions of cells (e.g., optical and fMR imaging). Second, because

the stipulation of neuro-morphic architecture excludes the use of production rules or hierarchical algorithms as psychological models, any assumptions on motivation, intentionality and behavioral

triggering must emerge from the tissue models themselves, and learning from behavioral reinforcement

must manifest as synaptic change. Third, since realistic social interaction requires temporal coherence between the simulated robotic brain and that of the human actor, the simulation must incorporate the

actual distribution of physiological time constants that characterize membranes, channels, and synapses.

Due to the distinguishing characteristics of the proposed VNR approach, there is limited research work.

Some groups have reported success in navigational tasks using neuro-morphic architectures. Notable endeavors that share similarities with our work include identification of challenges and opportunities in

robot-mediated neuro-rehabilitation, development of prototypes that combine robotics and virtual reality

to assist in the rehabilitation of brain-injured patients and support motor control research, and generation

of artificial brains for virtual robots using a new paradigm based on the epigenetic approach. Wider Implications - The rationale for the virtual paradigm in VNR is rooted fundamentally on

engineering and human-computer interface considerations, and is similar to that put forward by Krichmar

and Edelman (2005) for robotic instantiation of brain-based devices. Certainly, a closed-loop system could incorporate either real or virtual robots. In our VNR framework, however, we emphasize virtuality

for the following reasons: (1) the human actor must find the robotic behavior believable; it is our

impression that refined neuro-robotic avatars are more readily accepted (perhaps due to the popularity of online virtual reality networking) than clumsy, unreliable physical robotic prototypes; (2) as investigators

design and grow more complex neuro-morphic brains, robotic behaviors will require additional sensory,

motor, and emotional sophistication, which in turn may entail major changes in the robot‘s body parts and

dimensions, and degrees of freedom of joints and face - all of which can be accelerated using software (often in just hours) without the delays and costs of added hardware and its engineering; and, (3) at stages

of neuro-robotic development at which it would be important to demonstrate the functionality of a

physical robot, the software API can be compiled and transferred to a prototype of the hardware robotic system (provided that VNR simulator used a realistic control API).

The use of human actors in the VNR approach might be seen as an obstacle in terms of time, resources,

and variability. However, there is no other ‗gold standard‘ for realistic, spontaneous, emotionally intelligent interaction. Moreover, it is human-level cognition that we explore and seek to elucidate in our

modeling and applications. In addition, the parameters for neuronal membranes, channels, and synapses

are given as time constants on the order of milliseconds to seconds, as co-optimized by evolution. This

means that, for example, a system that emulates connected neurons but operates at the temporal scale of microseconds cannot interact with the slower responses of humans. Therefore, both the joint distribution

of known biological time constants and the need for emotionally intelligent responses require the use of a

closed-loop interaction of the brain prototype with an actor. As an alternative, one might consider using animals in place of humans; however, animals rely on many subtle biological sensory cues such as smell,

so will readily accept neither embodied nor virtual robots as socially interactive partners.

The VNR approach opens exciting and promising avenues of future research and application. For

example, within the Webots/URBI environment we are currently developing a social-emotional humanoid robot with functional capabilities motivated by the MDS (mobile, dexterous, social) robot under

development by the Personal Robotics Group of the MIT Media Lab (www.robotic.media.mit.edu). Our

robot will incorporate language understanding and production using corresponding neocortical models based on praise and curiosity. We are also working on a related model of childhood autism. We also plan

to calibrate and constrain synthetic brain dynamics by coupling live in vitro (acute slice or sustained

culture) or in vivo neural recordings to the brain simulation using multi-electrode arrays and optical stimulation and imaging.

The envisioned impact of the proposed approach is wide-reaching.

First, neuroscience research is expected to directly benefit from VNR

in terms of development and validation of new, expandable brain models and architectures as well as study and exploration of various

brain disorders and injuries, including strokes and genetic disorders.

Second, faster progress in a variety of medical applications areas will likely be enabled by VNR-based research, primary in terms of

advancements in neuroprosthetics and new solutions for brain-related

assistive technologies. Third, a diversity of other application areas traditionally propelled by developments in artificial intelligence

could take advantage of VNR method and tools. These include, but are not limited to, decision-making

support driven by human-like behavior and motivation, enhanced robotics-centered navigation and

security, and better understanding in the fields of neural development, neurophysiology, and neuropathology.

Neurobiologists find that weak electrical fields in the brain help neurons fire together

February 2, 2011 by Kathy Svitil Ephaptic coupling leads to coordinated spiking of nearby neurons, as measured using a 12-pipette

electrophysiology setup developed in the laboratory of coauthor Henry Markram. Credit: Image from

Figure 4 in Anastassiou et., Nature Neuroscience, 2011…

The brain - awake and sleeping - is awash in electrical activity,

and not just from the individual pings of single neurons communicating with each other. In fact, the brain is enveloped

in countless overlapping electric fields, generated by the neural

circuits of scores of communicating neurons. The fields were

once thought to be an "epiphenomenon, a 'bug' of sorts, occurring during neural communication," says neuroscientist

Costas Anastassiou, a postdoctoral scholar in biology at the

California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

New work by Anastassiou and his colleagues, however, suggests that the fields do much more - and that

they may, in fact, represent an additional form of neural communication. ‗In other words, while active neurons give rise to extracellular fields, the same fields feed back to the

neurons and alter their behavior, even though the neurons are not physically connected - a phenomenon

known as ephaptic coupling. So far, neural communication has been thought to occur at localized

machines, termed synapses. Our work suggests an additional means of neural communication through the extracellular space independent of synapses‘, says Anastassiou, the lead author of a paper about the work

appearing in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Extracellular electric fields exists throughout the living brain, though they are particularly strong and robustly repetitive in specific brain regions such as the hippocampus, which is involved in memory

formation, and the neo-cortex, the area where long-term memories are held. ‗The perpetual fluctuations of

these extracellular fields are the hallmark of the living and behaving brain in all organisms, and their

absence is a strong indicator of a deeply comatose, or even dead, brain‘, Anastassiou explains. Previously, neurobiologists assumed that the fields were capable of affecting - and even controlling -

neural activity only during severe pathological conditions such as epileptic seizures, which induce very

strong fields. Few studies, however, had actually assessed the impact of far weaker - but very common non-epileptic fields.

‗The reason is simple. It is very hard to conduct an in vivo experiment in the absence of extracellular

fields, to observe what changes when the fields are not around‘, Anastassiou says.. Measuring those fields and their effects required positioning a cluster of tiny electrodes within a volume

equivalent to that of a single cell body - and at distances of less than 50 millionths of a meter from one

another. ‗Because it had been so hard to position that many electrodes within such a small volume of

brain tissue, the findings of our research are truly novel. Previously, nobody had been able to attain this level of spatial and temporal resolution. An unexpected and surprising finding was how already very

weak extracellular fields can alter neural activity. For example, we observed that fields as weak as one

millivolt per millimeter robustly alter the firing of individual neurons, and increase the so-called spike-field coherence‘ - the synchronicity with which neurons fire with relationship to the field. In the

mammalian brain, we know that extracellular fields may easily exceed two to three millivolts per

millimeter. Our findings suggest that under such conditions, this effect becomes significant‘, Anastassiou explains…

What does that mean for brain computation? ‗Neuroscientists have long speculated about this. Increased

spike-field coherency may substantially enhance the amount of information transmitted between neurons as well as increase its reliability. Moreover, it has been long known that brain activity patterns related to

memory and navigation give rise to a robust LFP and enhanced spike-field coherency. We believe

ephaptic coupling does not have one major effect, but instead contributes on many levels during intense

brain processing‘, Anastassiou says. Can external electric fields have similar effects on the brain? … ‗This is an interesting question.. Indeed,

physics dictates that any external field will impact the neural membrane. Importantly, though, the effect

of externally imposed fields will also depend on the brain state. One could think of the brain as a distributed computer - not all brain areas show the same level of activation at all times‘ Anastassiou says.

‗Whether an externally imposed field will impact the brain also depends on which brain area is targeted.

During epileptic seizures, pathological fields can be as strong as 100 millivolts per millimeter - such fields strongly entrain neural firing and give rise to super-synchronized states.‘ And that, he adds,

suggests that electric field activity - even from external fields - in certain brain areas, during specific brain

states, may have strong cognitive and behavioral effects.

Ultimately, Anastassiou, Koch, and their colleagues would like to test whether ephaptic coupling affects human cognitive processing, and under which circumstances. ‗I firmly believe that understanding the

origin and functionality of endogenous brain fields will lead to several revelations regarding information

processing at the circuit level, which, in my opinion, is the level at which percepts and concepts arise.. This, in turn, will lead us to address how biophysics gives rise to cognition in a mechanistic manner - and

that, I think, is the holy grail of neuroscience‘, Anastassiou says.

http://neurosciencenews.com/brain-talk-to-computers-speech-brain-computer-interfaces-bmi-implants

Technique for Letting Brain Talk to Computers Now Tunes in Speech… Patients with a temporary surgical implant have used regions of the brain that control speech to ‗talk‘ to a

computer for the first time, manipulating a cursor on a computer screen, simply by saying or thinking of a

particular sound…says Eric C. Leuthardt, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Scientists have typically programmed the temporary implants, known as ‗brain-computer-

interfaces‘, to detect activity in the brain‘s motor networks, which control muscle movements. ‗The user

can potentially engage the implant to move a robotic arm through the same brain areas he or she once used to‘, says Leuthardt.

His colleagues have recently revealed that the implants can be used to analyse the frequency of brain

wave activity, allowing them to make finer distinctions about what the brain is doing. For the new study, Leuthardt and others applied this technique to detect when patients say or think of four sounds: oo – as in

few; e – as in see; a – an in say; a – as in hat …

When scientists identified the brainwave patterns that represented these sounds and programmed the

interface to recognize them, patients could quickly learn to control a computer cursor by thinking or saying the appropriate sound.

In the future, interfaces could be tuned to listen to just speech networks or both motor and speech

networks. …As an example, he suggests that it may be possible to let a disabled patient use of his or her motor regions to control a cursor on a computer screen and imagine saying ‗click‘ when he or she wants

to click on the screen.

‗We can distinguish both spoken sounds and the patient imagining saying a sound, so that means we are

truly starting to read the language of thought; this is one of the earliest examples, to a very small extent, of what is called reading minds – detecting what people are saying to themselves in their internal

dialogues‘, he says.The next step, which Leuthardt and his colleagues are working on, is to find ways to

distinguish what they call ‗higher levels of conceptual information‘. We want to learn to see if we can not only just detect when you‘re saying dog, tree, tool or some other

word, but also learn what the pure idea of that looks like in your mind. It‘s exciting and a little scary to

think of reading minds, but it has incredible potential for people. … Funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense supported this research.

http://www.cyberwalker.com/article/326/18/2The future of chip technology

New manufacturing techniques will drive the next big breakthrough in chip miniaturization. The current method, optical lithography, uses ultraviolet light to record the image of a circuit on silicon.

Intel intends to replace that with extreme ultraviolet lithography, a laser technology out of the Star Wars

program, which was a U.S. government project to launch a network of laser-armed satellites that would

destroy nuclear missiles fired at the U.S. and its allies. As the cold war ended and government funding dried up, an Intel-led consortium of semiconductor

companies came together to fund extreme ultraviolet research. The first working tool is now available.

BY 2005, commercial machines using the technology have started building the chips that allow 0.07 micron (and lower) chip technology.

IBM has a competing technology considered as Ion beam projection. After these problems are solved,

there will still be some fundamental problems with chip design. Since their birth, microprocessors have been built around a clock. With each tick, the entire state of the

chip changes. The clock-speed of a micro-processor determines how many instructions per second it can

execute. A one-GHz clock-speed represents a billion cycles per second.

‗That is very cumbersome‘, said Steven Hillenius, director of the silicon research department at Lucent Technologies‘ Bell Labs. ‗The clock signal has to be communicating to the whole chip at the same time.

A new design could change that. Instead of having individual binary logic, we will start looking at neural

networks‘, sadi Hillenius. A neural network is a type of artificial intelligence that imitates the brain. If we could make a device that looks more like an animal‘s brain, it would work better in silicon than in carbon.

Instead of counting ones and zeros, a neural network is a series of interconnected processing elements, the

computer equivalent of a brain‘s neurons and synapses. When you compare a super-computer recognizing a fly and producing a reseponse, with a frog doing the

same thing, it becomes very velar that the frog can do it better.

…Biology based computers are ‗the next generation‘. While scientists see evidence that biological-

computers will wok, they just haven‘t found a way to program them. While fascinating strides are being made with living cells, some researchers are going even smaller in the

field of molecular computing. Current computers use switches etched in silicon, but future computers

might use molecules, clusters of atoms. That would mean that molecular electronics – or moletronics –could replace transistors, diodes and conductors. …They have developed a one-molecule ‗on-off‘ switch

that works at room temperature.

Strings of molecules would be assembled together to form simple logic gates that function like today‘s

silicon transistors. The size advantage means a molecular computer would consume very little power… it also has the potential of vaster computing power.

Chemists are engineering transistors made of molecules that will be strung together into nano-circuits.

…the resulting ‗plastic‘ circuits could provide new display technologies. One of the offshoots of molecular computing is DNA computing. Researchers believe that it is possible to

build microscopic ultra-fast devices with awesome computing power out of DNA.

They can be programmed to do nana-assembly, meaning they can be used in construction of ultra-small devices. Miniature medical robots reproducing themselves by the billions that scour a patients body to

assassinate viruses….

http://www.livescience.com/681-brain-cells-fused-computer-chip.html Brain Cells Fused with Computer Chip The line between living organisms and machines has just become

a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed ‗neuro-chips‘ in which living brain cells and

silicon circuits are coupled together. The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological

disorders or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons.

To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000

electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size. They used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells, called

neurons, onto the chip. However, the proteins acted as more than just a

simple adhesive. ‗They also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and

semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be

passed to the silicon chip‘, said study team member Stefano Vassanelli from the University of Padua in Italy.

The proteins allowed the neuro-chip's electronic components and its living cells to communicate with

each other. Electrical signals from neurons were recorded using the chip's transistors, while the chip's capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons.

It could still be decades before the technology is advanced enough to treat neurological disorders or create

living computers, the researchers say, but in the nearer term, the chips could provide an advanced method

of screening drugs for the pharmaceutical industry. ‗Pharmaceutical companies could use the chip to test the effect of drugs on neurons, to quickly discover

promising avenues of research‘, Vassanelli said.

The researchers are now working on ways to avoid damaging the neurons during stimulation. The team is also exploring the possibility of using a neuron's genetic instructions to control the neuro-chip.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12037941/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/brain-cells-fused-computer-chips/ …P. Fromherz / NACHIP / Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry …

A neuron from a rat brain sprawls over a linear array of transistors. The cell's ionic current interacts with

the electronic current in the silicon.

By Ker Than - 3/27/2006 1:01:26 p.m … The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European

researchers have developed ‗neuro-chips‘ in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled

together. The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological

disorders, or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons.

To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of

capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size. They used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells, called neurons, onto the chip. However,

the proteins acted as more than just a simple adhesive.

‗They also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be passed to the silicon chip‘, said study team member Stefano

Vassanelli from the University of Padua in Italy.

P. Fromherz / NACHIP / MPIB …Snail neurons form a network on a silicon chip.

The proteins allowed the neuro-chip's electronic components and its living cells

to communicate with each other. Electrical signals from neurons were recorded

using the chip's transistors, while the chip's capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons. It could still be decades before the technology is advanced enough to treat

neurological disorders or create living computers, the researchers say, but in the

nearer term, the chips could provide an advanced method of screening drugs for the pharmaceutical industry.

‗Pharmaceutical companies could use the chip to test the effect of drugs on

neurons, to quickly discover promising avenues of research‘, Vassanelli said. The researchers are now working on ways to avoid damaging the neurons during

stimulation.

http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55094/...A computer for living cells - Posted by Alla

Katsnelson… 16th October 2008 11:38 PM … In a boost to the field of synthetic biology, researchers have created an RNA-based device that can control

gene expression of target genes, thus regulating molecular processes in living cells, a paper in this week's

Science reports.

The paper ‗shows this design approach for the first time in a biological system‘, Christina Smolke of the California Institute of Technology, the main author on the study, told The Scientist.

For the past decade or so, researchers applying engineering principles to biology have been working to

construct molecular machines that can be inserted into live cells to act as biosensors, drug delivery vehicles, or protein factories for bio-fuel or medicine production, among other functions. Recently, for

example, researchers at Harvard University inserted a DNA plasmid into a living cell that could perform a

simple operation - regulating the level of GFP expression. That device, however, could not receive signals from the cell into which it was encoded, explained Ehud

Shapiro, an expert in bio-molecular computing at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, who co-wrote the

accompanying commentary to this week's Science paper. It could merely perform its one operation,

completely autonomous from the cell's normal processes. "The advance in this work is that they show their computation can actually sense molecules in the cell."

Smolke and graduate student Maung Nyan Win constructed a three-part device. One part, the ‗sensor‘,

consisted of an RNA aptamer, or stretch of RNA selected to bind to a specific molecular target. Another part, the ‗actuator‘, was made of a ribozyme, or catalytic RNA which cleaves itself upon a

specific signal from the sensor. The third part, a ‗transmitter‘, links the other two together. The self-

cleaving of the ribozyme switches off gene expression of a specified gene - in this case, again, GFP. What makes the system especially powerful is that the three components are modular, which creates

numerous possibilities for signal integration. For example, the same sensor could be attached to two

different actuators, coupling two different responses to a single signal. Alternatively, two different sensors

could be attached to a single actuator, such that the device would regulate gene expression only if both signals were present. The researchers created several such combinations, using the molecules theophylline

and tetracycline as the signals, and were able to regulate levels of GFP expression.

They basically achieved a sophisticated control of the fluorescence molecule, depending on whether or not the aptamer was able to ‗sense‘ the input molecule, Shapiro explained.

Most previous cell engineering attempts have relied on DNA computing or protein systems, but this is the

first demonstration of relatively complex functions being built into an RNA device. ‗The nice thing about

RNA is that this is one molecule we've learned to engineer to a certain extent‘, said Shapiro. Using RNA has several advantages, Smolke explained. First, it's a relatively simple molecule, composed

of just four building blocks, compared with proteins' 20 amino acids. Also, researchers have a better

understanding of how structure relates to function in RNA than in proteins, where structure plays a more complex role. Since RNA primarily folds into a 2-dimensional structure, a few clicks of a computer

mouse can accurately predict how the RNA molecule will interact with other components of the cell.

‗That gives me a very powerful design capability. It's something you can't do with proteins‘, said Smolke.

But the real advances in the field are yet to come, said Shapiro, noting that researchers have been able to

create much more sophisticated devices than Smolke's in vitro. His own group, for example, created a

DNA computer that could deliver a drug molecule upon sensing and diagnosing a disease symptom. ‗Just by comparing what has already been accomplished in vitro, you can see there is more work to do in

vivo. Every year or two there is an advance in this field - they're all exciting, but there's still a long road‘

he said.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id= - What progress is being made toward growing

replacement human organs and tissues? December 29, 1997 … Gail Naughton is president of Advanced Tissue Sciences in La Jolla, Calif., a biotechnology company that

is developing skin substitutes and other human tissue products. Here is her reply.

Thanks to the relatively new field of tissue engineering, the creation of human skin, cartilage and even

entire organs is either already a reality, or is becoming a realistic possibility. Tissue engineering integrates the sciences of biomaterials, cell biology, biochemistry, biomedical engineering and transplantation to

create tissue and organ substitutes.

Starting with a few human cells, tissue engineers simulate the environments that allow cells to develop

into viable tissue. The specific procedure varies by company, but it generally involves seeding the selected cells onto some type of matrix, where they are then are provided with, or begin to excrete, the

proteins and growth factors necessary for them to grow and multiply. Following the structure of the given

matrix--and given the appropriate environment--the cells eventually develop into the desired tissue. Already, a temporary human skin substitute developed through tissue engineering is available in the U.S.

for the treatment of partial or full-thickness burns (commonly known as second- or third-degree burns).

Viable, metabolically active human tissue designed to help treat non-healing ulcers (such as those that frequently occur on the feet of people with diabetes and can result in amputations) is also available in

some countries, and is currently being reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Our company

is also developing small-diameter blood vessels, cartilage and even finger joints.

The primary motivation behind tissue engineering is the ongoing, dire need for available, safe and transplantable organs and tissues. Every year thousands of people die waiting for hearts, livers, lungs and

kidneys simply because there aren't enough transplantable organs to go around. Similarly, the need for

other human tissues such as skin and cartilage is constant, and the availability (or lack thereof) can make a real difference in the lives of burn and accident victims. Current stand-ins for these tissues--such as

cadaver skin or wound dressings--are frequently less than ideal, and result in longer healing times, great

expense and time, significant scarring and extensive pain for the patient. Tissue engineering has the potential to redefine tissue and organ repair and replacement. The future holds

endless possibilities. We have successfully grown not only cartilage, bone and skin but urinary tract and

liver tissue. Tissue engineering will soon address the tremendous number of problems seen by patients

who require replacements of skin, bone and other tissues and organs…

http://tissue.medicalengineer.co.uk/pages/tissue-engineering/advantages-and-disadvantages...

Thousands of people of all ages are admitted to hospitals daily because of the malfunction of a vital organ. Until very recently, it was believed that the only solutions to treat these cases were organ

transplants or replacements by totally artificial parts.

There are several treatment options for organ failure or tissue loss - transplants, reconstructive surgery,

artificial prosthesis or mechanical devices (kidney dialyzers, prosthetic hip joints, mechanical heart valves), but unfortunately, they are imperfect. There's a declining availability of organs, with the need for

multiple surgery in the case of auto-grafts - and mechanical devices do not have the capacity to perform

all functions of an organ. Prosthetic replacements present risks such as thrombosis, an increased susceptibility to infection, limited durability, need for reoperations.

In this context, the emergence of the science called tissue engineering is more than just salutary. The

purpose of tissue engineering is to create tissues in culture for use as replacement tissues for damaged body parts. Within the past 10 years, the creation of bio-artificial tissues has achieved a series of

successes. The science of tissue engineering combines the principles of bioengineering, cell

transplantation, hematology and those of material science/engineering, for the unique goal of generating

bio-artificial tissues and organs. Skin, cartilage and bone have been synthesized in the laboratory, and success has been predicted in the creation of blood vessels, blood and organs such as heart, lungs,

pancreas, and liver. Attempts have been made to create artificial corneas, intestines and heart valves.

Bladders have been bioengineered and implanted in dogs, with total success. The process generally comprises of the isolation of cells from a patient and their growth on three-

dimensional templates or scaffolds (matrices), under the conditions necessary for them to develop into

functional tissue. Then, the tissue-biomaterial construct is implanted into the patient. The biomaterial gradually absorbs, ensuring that only the natural tissue remains in the body, having acquired the shape of

the material. This process completed, the bio-artificial tissue becomes structurally and functionally

integrated into the body. The quality of the scaffold is essential. It has to be extremely malleable,

completely biodegradable, immunologically inert to avoid rejection, and it has to provide the perfect conditions for cell repopulation (to deliver and allow delivery of biochemical factors and vital cell

nutrients). Porosity and pore size is important for cell seeding and for the diffusion of nutrients.

Scaffolds may be constructed out of synthetic materials (such as PLA - polylactic acid, a polyester which

degrades within the body to form lactic acid, PGA - polyglicolic acid, PCL - polycaprolactone) or of natural materials: proteic materials (collagen, fibrin) or polysaccharidic materials (chitosan,

glycosaminoglycans). Development of new materials is one of the focus points of future research.

The seeding of appropriate cells can be performed both in the laboratory and in-vivo. Repopulation of the scaffolding can occur either passively or actively (in which cells are ‗forced‘ onto the matrix). Tissue

growth outside the body implies placing human cells on the scaffold inside a bioreactor - a device that

simulates human body conditions. The cells start secreting growth factors and form a living tissue. The sources and types of cells used vary. Cells can be obtained from the same patient they are intended

for, by a small tissue biopsy (autologous cells). Autologous cells are preferred as they avoid an immune

response in the patient after re-implantation and cause no pathogenic transmission problems. However,

there may be problems with using this type of cells, such as unavailability, in cases of a genetic disease of the patient, of very ill or elderly persons or of patients suffering from severe burns. Donor site infection

and cases of severe pain are two other concerns in harvesting these cells, as well as the fact that culturing

of autologous cells usually takes considerable time. Recently, mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow and fat have been preferred. Stem cells are primary

cells that have the potential to differentiate into a variety of tissue cell types (bone, cartilage, fat,

practically any type of cell in the human body). A large number of mesenchymal stem cells can be harvested, eliminating the disadvantage of a long wait before their utilization. Bone marrow progenitor

cells / mesenchymal stem cells open up possibilities towards growing unlimited supplies of organs.

Allogenic cells are cells harvested from the body of a donor of the same species. There are allogenic stem cells that can be used as well, and have obvious advantages, but since they are most often derived from

embryonic tissue, there are a lot of ethical aspects to consider first.

Stem cells derived from embryonic tissue have an even greater potential to differentiate into other cells

and tissues than stem cells derived from adult bone marrow or fat. Embryonic stem cells are derived from

a human ovum/egg, fertilized or stimulated into growth in a culture medium outside the body.

Undifferentiated embryonic stem cells are taken from the center of the blastocyst (a stage of development of the egg; a blastocyst contains several hundred cells). Another stem cell source is the umbilical cord

blood; even though cells taken from umbilical cord blood are not as versatile as embryonic stem cells, and

not as numerous, their use is less controversial, just as the use of stem cells taken from adults.

Xenogenic cells are another option. These are cells isolated from individuals of another species. Animal

cells have been used quite extensively in attempts to create cardiovascular implants. Xenogenic cells are suitable for use in combination with immunosuppressive drugs. The possibility of breeding animals

whose tissues would be immunologically accepted in humans is also being investigated. However, this

option would raise ethical concerns. Researchers are also seeking to generate human organs in animals

(xenotransplantation); there is research concentrating on genetically engineering pigs to provide organs that would not pose immunorejection problems to humans. However, there's a small risk of viral transfer

from animals to humans. Pig organs are currently used for short-term ‗bridge‘ transplants; patients may

wait safely until a human donor organ or other form of therapy becomes available. To resume, tissue engineering has its advantages and disadvantages. The solutions it provides are long-

term, much safer than other options and cost-effective as well. The traditional transplantation

complications are minimized, and the donor can be the patient himself/herself. The need for donor tissue is minimal, and the elimination of immune-suppression problems is a great advantage. The presence of

residual foreign material is eliminated as well.

The obstacles or challenges tissue engineering has to face are related to cell isolation and preparation, to

biomaterial design, to the optimization of nutrient transport and to transplantation complexity. Active seeding presents some technical difficulties, and there may be obstacles to growing cells in sufficient

quantities, to urging their differentiation into the desired cell type and to ensuring their blood and nutrient

supply after implantation in the body.

Progress has been made in tissue engineering research, and even greater possibilities have been opened up

for the future, including the creation of entire body organs. The key applications of tissue engineering

have been, firstly, the creation of dermal tissue combined with a synthetic epidermal layer, to be used for wound repair until sufficient amounts of the patient's own skin are available for grafting, and, secondly,

living human skin tissue, used to test skin care, chemical and pharmaceutical products for all sorts of

indications. Both mechanical and tissue prosthetic heart valves have been created, as well as tissue-engineered blood vessels without synthetic or exogenous materials. Cartilage tissue for surgical

procedures has been developed, and the creation of ‗bone-on-demand‘ is being currently pursued;

scientists are trying to concentrate bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) complex locally, to stimulate bone

formation when and where needed. Much research focuses on the creation of cardiac tissue to replace scar tissue after a myocardial infarction.

The growth of blood and blood products in the laboratory will soon supply cells for the therapy of blood

disease such as haemophilia. Promising artificial nerve grafts are being developed for peripheral nerve regeneration, as well as nerve guidance channels to bridge the gap between damaged nerve ends. Another

success has been the creation of a lung bud in culture, up to the stage of branching morphogenesis; its

successful implantation and growth in-vivo would mean the elimination of typical organ transplantation problems.

The development of artificial organs is one of the main focus points for future research; a good matrix

system for the development of an artificial liver is under research. The transplantation of healthy insulin-secreting islets into the pancreas is used in the treatment of one of the diabetes types, but researchers are

trying to produce genetically engineered cells that overproduce insulin as well. There is also much future

hope about the development of artificial human thyroid tissues, capable of producing T-cells. Even treatment of sleep disorders is investigated in tissue engineering; there is hope to reverse some of the

symptoms of narcolepsy by transplantation of engineered cells to replace missing hypocretin/orexin-

producing neurons in the brain.

Leaders in the field, such as Joseph Vacanti and Robert Langer, say that we are only at the beginning of a 30-year process that will lead to the effective repair and replacement of human organs. Indeed, research in

the field has fully indicated that tissue engineering is able to provide alternatives for improving health and

the quality of life. Given the medical and market potential of this relatively new science, there is ever-growing interest, both academic and corporate, in its technologies. Therefore, necessity has arisen that

safety and efficacy standards be established, such as quality control and evaluation standards, regulations

regarding the sourcing of cells and tissues, the characterization and testing of materials, as well as preclinical and clinical evaluation. Cohesive strategies that should encompass all stem cell research are

necessary.

PhysOrg.com/news/2011… Provided by Boston College …Multiple genome sequencing yields detailed map of structural variants behind our genetic differences…February 2, 2011 …

Analyzing billions of pieces of genetic data collected from people around the world, Boston College

biologist Gabor Marth and his research team are playing an integral role in the global effort to sequence 1000 genomes and move closer to understanding in fine detail how genetics influence human health and

development.

The most comprehensive map to date of genomic structural variants - the layer of our DNA that begins to distinguish us from one another - has been assembled by analyzing 185 human genomes, Marth and co-

authors from the 1000 Genomes Project team report in the Feb. 3 edition of the journal Nature.

The complexity of the 1000 Genome Project draws on a range of expertise in the Marth bioinformatics

lab… - ‗The tools we have developed are being used to discover a biological reality that we could not see before. There are many challenges and the work is very exciting‘, said Marth, an associate professor of

biology whose group is one of the lead analytic units for the 1000 Genomes Project.

The goal is to understand the genetic make-up of the earth's population by analyzing genome data from as

many as 2,500 individuals in order to provide new insights into the development of the human race and to understand the links between the genome and human health.

The researchers report - the generation of a map of structural variants - those pieces of genetic code that

are the base layer of instructions, also known as the genotype, that ultimately determine our outward appearances and characteristics, or phenotypes. The new map is built upon a range of structural variants,

including 22,025 deletions, or missing pieces of DNA, and 6,000 insertions, pieces of DNA that have

been added along the evolutionary journey, and tandem duplications. The analysis has produced new insights into genetic selection, the introduction of large structural variants

into DNA and structural variant ‗hotspots‘ formed by common biological mechanisms, the team reports…

The map will play a crucial role in new understanding of human variation to understand the world's

population. … ‗The eventual goal of studying the genotype is so we can understand how the specific genetic make-up of

an individual is responsible for an individual phenotype, such as height or weight or susceptibility to

disease. The specific question of the 1000 Genome Project is how much divergence, or how much genetic variation, exists within different populations. That is the question we are trying to unravel. We are

working with some of the world's best research groups. There are engineering, mathematical, and

algorithmic challenges at every level - to make sure our computational tools are performing well, make continuous improvements and process data in a timely fashion to send to our colleagues around the

world‘, said Marth - joint as a co-author on the paper with his BC colleagues Research Assistant

Professor Chip Stewart and doctoral candidates Deniz Kural and Jiantao Wu.

www.gaurdian.co.uk/science...Stem cells research highs and lows - interactive timeline

In 1996 the future for stem cells research looked bright, but fifteen years on its development has been

fraught with troubles In August 2006, two Japanese scientists, Kazutoshi Takahashi and Shinya Yamanaka, published a

remarkable research paper. It described experiments in which skin cells plucked from mice were

reprogrammed into what looked for all the world like embryonic stem cells. The implications of this

biological alchemy were not lost on others. Here was a way to make pluripotent cells - those capable of growing into almost any tissue in the body - without the restrictions and controversy of harvesting them

from embryos.

Since that day, reprogrammed or induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells have carried a weight of expectation. Scientists moved quickly to reprogram cells from patients with diseases as varied as

muscular dystrophy and diabetes. Turn the cells into muscle or pancreatic tissue and they could watch the

disease take hold in a dish. One day, iPS cells might even be grown into fresh organs to replace those damaged and diseased.

Through all of this, a major question mark remained over iPS cells. Were they really identical to

embryonic stem cells and so a worthy replacement? Today, a team led by Joseph Ecker at the Salk

Institute in La Jolla, California, has the answer. And the news is not good. Writing in the journal Nature, Ecker and his colleagues report a meticulous investigation into the

epigenomes of both iPS cells and embryonic stem cells. The epi-genome is a collection of molecular tags

that behave like volume controls, silencing some genes, but turning others up. These controls are what determines a cell's future: whether it grows into a heart cell, a muscle cell, or perhaps a brain cell.

Ecker found that iPS cells carry indelible marks, reprogramming errors that are not seen in embryonic

stem cells. The marks betray the origin of iPS cells, for example reprogrammed fat cells retain a memory of their former identity. What's more, these errors persist when iPS cells are transformed into adult cells.

As yet, the consequences of Ecker's findings are unclear, but the realization that iPS cells differ from

embryonic stem cells may well limit their usefulness. Incomplete reprogramming might cause cells to develop abnormally, a prospect that now must be fully explored. Reprogrammed cells might not be

anything like as versatile as many scientists - and patient groups - had hoped.

Immaculate creation: birth of the first synthetic cell …17:55 20 May 2010 by Ewen Callaway … For the first time, scientists have created life from scratch – well, sort of. Craig Venter's team at the J.

Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, and San Diego, California, has made a bacterial genome

from smaller DNA subunits and then transplanted the whole thing into another cell. So what exactly is the science behind the first synthetic cell, and what is its broader significance?

What did Venter's team do?

The cell was created by stitching together the genome of a goat pathogen called Mycoplasma mycoides from smaller stretches of DNA synthesised in the lab, and inserting the genome into the empty cytoplasm

of a related bacterium. The transplanted genome booted up in its host cell, and then divided over and over

to make billions of M. mycoides cells.

Venter and his team have previously accomplished both feats – creating a synthetic genome and transplanting a genome from one bacterium into another – but this time they have combined the two.

"It's the first self-replicating cell on the planet that's parent is a computer," says Venter, referring to the

fact that his team converted a cell's genome that existed as data on a computer into a living organism. How can they be sure that the new bacteria are what they intended?

Venter and his team introduced several distinctive markers into their synthesised genome. All of them

were found in the synthetic cell when it was sequenced. These markers do not make any proteins, but they contain the names of 46 scientists on the project and

several quotations written out in a secret code. The markers also contain the key to the code.

Crack the code and you can read the messages, but as a hint, Venter revealed the quotations: ‗To live, to

err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life‘, from James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; ‗See things not as they are but as they might be‘, which comes from American Prometheus, a

biography of nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer; and Richard Feynman's famous words: ‗What I

cannot build I cannot understand‘. Does this mean they created life?

It depends on how you define created and life. Venter's team made the new genome out of DNA

sequences that had initially been made by a machine, but bacteria and yeast cells were used to stitch

together and duplicate the million base pairs that it contains. The cell into which the synthetic genome was then transplanted contained its own proteins, lipids and other molecules.

Venter himself maintains that he has not created life . ‗We definitely have not created life from scratch

because we used a recipient cell to boot up the synthetic chromosome‘, he says. What can you do with a synthetic cell?

Venter's work was a proof of principle, but future synthetic cells could be used to create drugs, biofuels

and other useful products. He is collaborating with Exxon Mobil to produce bio-fuels from algae and with Novartis to create vaccines.

‗As soon as next year, the flu vaccine you get could be made synthetically‘, Venter says.

Ellington also sees synthetic bacteria as having potential as a scientific tool. It would be interesting, he

says, to create bacteria that produce a new amino acid – the chemical units that make up proteins – and see how these bacteria evolve, compared with bacteria that produce the usual suite of amino acids. ‗We

can ask these questions about cyborg cells in ways we never could before‘.

What was the cost of creating life? About $40 million. Cheap for a deity, expensive if you are a lab scientist looking to create your own

synthetic bacterium. ‗This does not look like the sort of thing that's going to be doable by your average

lab in the near future‘,Ellington says. This reminds me of Frankenstein's monster! Are synthetic cells safe?

Yes. Venter's team took out the genes that allow M. mycoides to cause disease in goats. The bacterium has

also been crippled so it is unlikely to grow outside of the lab. However, some scientists are concerned that synthetic organisms could potentially escape into the environment or be used by bioterrorists.

Ellington brushes aside those concerns, noting that the difficulty of engineering cells is beyond the scope

of all would-be bioterrorists. ‗It's not a real threat - unless you are Craig Venter with a crew of 20 post-

docs you're not going to do this‘, he says. However, George Church, a synthetic biologist at Harvard Medical School, is calling for increased

surveillance, licensing and added measures to prevent the accidental release of synthetic life. ‗Everybody

comment - Posted by ru - fri. may 21 2010…Uh Huh, and what about the rest of the cell? … -‗transplanted into the empty cytoplasm‘ is a pretty airy statement. The cell wall, ribosomes, and other

structures are complicated beasts. This is a long way from being a ‗synthetic cell‘ in my opinion. It's an

exciting development, don't get me wrong, but i think it's being mis-sold. …

http://web.mit.edu/be/people/yannas.shtmlResearch Focus

Further information on Prof. Yannas' research can be found in his book, ‗Tissue and Organ Regeneration

in Adults‘. Discovery of induced regeneration of organs in adults. Synthesis of the first biologically active scaffold.

In the 1970s it was discovered in this lab that the dermis, the inner tissue layer of skin, could be

regenerated (synthesized in vivo) in adult animals and later in humans. Regeneration was induced using a highly porous scaffold synthesized as a graft copolymer of type I collagen and chondroitin 6-sulfate, a

glycosaminoglycan.

The discovery of dermis regeneration marked the first time that an adult tissue that does not regenerate spontaneously could be induced to regenerate. Although the mammalian fetus generally can regenerate

injured organs spontaneously, adults mammals do not. When this scaffold was seeded with an appropriate

density of epidermal cells from the patient (extracted from a very small biopsy of the epidermis),

regeneration both of a dermis and an epidermis occurred simultaneously in about 18 days over very large areas of the body. An almost perfect new skin (skin appendages were missing) could therefore be

synthesized in vivo at will without using skin grafts from the patient or from other donors. This discovery

initially became known as ‗artificial skin‘. This development of the middle 1970s and early 1980s is believed to be the first time that a scaffold, a highly porous macromolecular network optionally seeded

with cells, induced synthesis of an organ, and marks the earliest years of the field that eventually, in the

middle to late 1980s, became known as Tissue Engineering. …

The structural requirements of scaffolds with biological activity… The scaffold that induced dermis regeneration (dermis regeneraion template) provided its dramatic

biological activity simply by being in close contact with a fresh wound at the desired anatomical site.

How can a solid-like matrix possess such dramatic activity, not matched by solutions of cytokines or by cell suspensions? Scaffolds were shown to retain their activity provided that their structure incorporated

certain features. The biological activity was rapidly lost when the structure deviated from these

requirements. Scaffolds were observed to have biological activity provided that 1) the identity of cell-binding ligands on

their porous surface was appropriate for binding contractile fibroblasts, 2) the ligand density was

sufficient to bind almost all contractile cells, 3) the structure of collagen had been modified to block

platelet adhesion and aggregation, and 4) the scaffold lost its solid-like structure, degrading to soluble oligopeptides and oligosaccharides, within a period that was roughly equal to the period required for

synthesis of new tissue at the anatomical site where the scaffold had been applied.

Some of these structural characteristics were also required in a scaffold (nerve regeneration template) that induced regeneration of peripheral nerves across unprecedented distances.

The theoretical mechanism of induced skin regeneration… The available data have been analyzed in great

detail and the theoretical mechanism of skin regeneration, induced by the scaffold described above, has been described in detail in the volume Tissue and Organ Regeneration in Adults, New York: Springer,

2001 by I. V. Yannas. It has been shown that a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for inducing

regeneration in an injured anatomical site is inhibition of the spontaneous processes by which an injured

site heals in adults. When injured, almost all organs in adults heal by closure of the injured site, using the processes of contraction and scar formation. Closure is driven mainly by contraction while scar formation

is a secondary process, driven by contraction. According to the theory and as also observed in several

experimental situations, active scaffolds (templates) differ from inactive ones by their ability to severely

block contraction. Application of the theory of regeneration to peripheral nerves, the conjunctiva and the kidney… Although the theory was developed based on extensive data from skin wounds, it was used to

induce regeneration of peripheral nerves in rats and humans and of the conjunctiva in rabbits. Severe

injuries in these organs close primarily by contraction and contractile cells have been observed in injured peripheral nerves and the injured conjunctiva. Studies are currently underway to find out if kidney tissue

can be induced to regenerate using the same theory.

FDA-approved devices based on biologically active scaffolds… The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved use of two of these scaffolds for the treatment of

loss of skin (Integra) and peripheral nerves (Neuragen, a precursor of the scaffold synthesized in this lab).

Integra, the first product of the new field of Tissue Engineering, was approved in 1996 and is currently

used around the world to treat skin loss in massively burned patients (thousands treated so far). It has recently being approved by the FDA to treat patients undergoing plastic and reconstructive surgery of the

skin. Neuragen, approved in 2001, has so far been used with over 1000 patients with paralysis in the US.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080216095724.htm ...From Stem Cells To Organs: The Bioengineering Challenge - ScienceDaily (Feb. 17, 2008) - For more than a decade, Peter Zandstra has

been working at the University of Toronto to rev up the production of stem cells and their descendants.

The raw materials are adult blood stem cells and embryonic stem cells. The end products are blood and heart cells -- lots of them. Enough mouse heart cells that they form beating tissue.

To do this, he has been applying engineering principles to stem cell research. Starting with computer

models of stem cell growth and differentiation (the process by which a stem cell matures into its final

form), Zandstra has moved on to develop more sophisticated culture methods that fine-tune the microenvironments to guide the generation of the different cells types that make up the mature cells in our

tissues: heart cells for the heart or blood cells for blood.

‗If you describe something mathematically, you have a much better understanding of it than if you just observe it, And it's also a powerful way to test many different hypotheses in silico before going into the

lab and doing the much more difficult experiments in vitro‘, he says.

Dr. Zandstra, the Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Bioengineering, held a NSERC Steacie

Fellowship. The Steacie prize - which goes to six select Canadian professors annually - allowed Zandstra to extend his work from mouse to man.

‗There's only so much we can do with mouse cells‘, notes Dr. Zandstra. ‗Now if we can also figure out

how to get human embryonic stem cells to differentiate on command to generate functional adult-like cells, you can begin to think about the kinds of medical conditions you could treat with them‘.

Dr Zandstra's work was discussed at the annual meeting of the American Association for the

Advancement of Science in Boston from February 14 to 18, 2008…

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-03/24/c_13795596.htm... China edges closer to

animal-human organ transplant…by Xinhua writers Wang Aihua, Deng Min…

NANJING, March 24 (Xinhua) - A group of researchers in east China's Nanjing city have voiced confidence that genetically modified pigs would be born later this year to provide much-needed organs

for transplant into human bodies.

Researchers with the Nanjing Medical University said Thursday that pig organs were expected to be put on clinical trials within two to three years, depending on the type of organs concerned.

‗We expect to take pig cornea and skin to clinical test first, probably within two years. Major organs like

heart, kidney and liver could take up to five years‘, Dai Yifan, lead researcher of the project, told Xinhua in an interview.

Dai said the pig organs would have been genetically altered to be compatible with human body, and strict

hygiene supervision would make them free of bacteria or virus. According to Dai, researchers first took out cells from ordinary pigs, modified the gene that causes

immune rejection from human body, and then transfer the modified gene back into cells and replace the

original ones.

He came back to China from the United States last year. At the beginning of this year, thousands of frozen cells taken from genetically modified pigs also arrived in Nanjing.

Dai said his team have started to make such pigs by cloning. Dai said, ‗The piglets will have to be

separated from their mothers immediately after cesarean birth and be raised by our staff in bacteria-free environment. They will also have to pass a series of quarantine inspections to be qualified for organ

transplant‘.

Allan Zhao, Dai's colleague on the team, said they expect to lower the cost of organ transplant with future pig substitutes.

Long waiting lists and few donor responses have long been a disheartening picture when it comes to

human organ transplant around the world, particularly in China. Statistics show there are around 1.5

million patients in China on the waiting list each year for a transplant organ, but the number of donors is only about 10,000, less than one percent of the demand.

Researchers say a major challenge now is to make pig organs compatible with human bodies permanently

or for a long time. ‗They can now ensure there is no acute rejection from human body after transplants, so the key is to work on long-term compatibility‘, Lou said.

In the meantime, some doctors have voiced worries that theoretical feasibility does not necessarily ensure

a clinical success. ‗Theoretically, knocking out relevant genes could be a solution for rejection from human body, but we have to admit animals are still different from human bodies and the success on

monkeys does not necessarily mean success in humans‘, said Doctor Ding Yitao at the Nanjing Gulou

Hospital. ‗Besides, would they bring unknown viruses or diseases to human bodies‘- Ding asked.

http://www.economist.com/node/662364…Jun 21st 2001

With genetic cures for killer diseases still years away, bio-engineers are developing a range of mechanical

organs to replace worn-out parts of the human body. Treating people with heart disease, liver complaints or diabetes could soon become more like repairing a motor car …

Where once they seemed utopian, early promises by genetic engineers to stave off disease, replenish

stocks of organs and rejuvenate populations now appear unacceptable, even intimidating. To work these

miracles of modern medicine, biologists need to explore genetic modification, stem-cell research and xeno-transplantation (use of animal organs in humans). But the public outcry against such research has

resulted in most of it being heavily regulated or banned outright.

Making matters worse, these research tools have proved difficult to use in therapy. Even one of the least controversial, but most valuable, applications of such research - growing healthy adult organs from adult

stem cells - now seems decades off. Without such technology, the shortage of donor organs and the

growing toll of diabetes and heart disease will only get worse. The good news is that a number of companies are seeking remedies for such afflictions that avoid the

political and scientific challenges posed by cloning. They are developing substitute blood and guts using

traditional engineering metals, chemicals and plastics held together with nuts and bolts. Within a couple

of years, repairing patients could be more like fixing worn out motor cars. According to the World Health Organisation, heart disease is the deadliest ailment in the world.

Thousands of patients need new hearts annually; most die waiting. In the next 25 years, as the number of

diabetics worldwide doubles to 300m, the demand for fake pancreases will soar. Add to that an ageing population that is going to need better hearing, eyesight and livers. No surprise that

the bionics industry is enjoying such robust growth.

One of the most eagerly-awaited products is artificial blood. Getting people to donate blood of different types in sufficient quantities is costly and time-consuming for clinics. Much of it goes to waste. After six

weeks, stored blood starts to spoil and must be discarded. Collection clinics must certify each donation to

be free of diseases such as HIV and hepatitis. But as recent tragedies have shown, such tests are far from

foolproof. When labour costs are included, the price of a typical 250-millilitre unit of blood is $200-250. A proposal to filter out white blood cells, which may irritate some patients, could raise the price by a

further $30-40.

Companies that make artificial blood are eager to cater for this demand, which amounts to some 14m

units a year in America alone. The market for artificial blood in the United States is supplied by a Canadian firm called Hemosol and three American companies, Biopure, Northfield Laboratories and

Alliance Pharmaceuticals. Hemosol, Biopure and Northfield manufacture solutions of purified

haemoglobin, the molecule in blood that transports oxygen throughout the body. The Hemosol and Northfield products use haemoglobin that is harvested from human blood, while Biopure uses

haemoglobin purified from cows. Such products are a sort of ‗eau de blood‘, providing haemoglobin‘s

oxygen-carrying capacity without any of its infectious or abrasive ingredients. Alliance‘s product, called Oxygene, takes this a step further. Oxygene contains no animal or human blood

products whatsoever, being a milky emulsion of salt water and a compound called perflubron. The

attraction of perflubron is that its molecules stow oxygen in their core. When they float past oxygen-

starved tissue, the perflubron molecules swap their oxygen for carbon dioxide more readily than does human haemoglobin. After a day or so in the bloodstream, the perflubron evaporates and is exhaled

harmlessly by the patient. All of these blood substitutes are disease-free, cost about the same as natural

blood, and have a shelf life of one to three years. The best thing about artificial blood is that, containing no nasty proteins, it works with all blood types.

Man-made organs are similarly compatible. Some get their universal appeal from the innocuous materials

out of which they are made. Others make themselves acceptable by hiding their potential threats from the body‘s immune system. This special attribute of artificial organs in general - universal compatibility - is

what has kick-started the business and attracted the hot money.

Not without reason. More than 75,000 Americans are waiting for a suitable organ to be donated. Only one

in three will be lucky enough to get a transplant. And those that do will have to remain on a harsh regimen of drugs for the rest of their lives - to prevent their immune systems from rejecting the foreign tissue.

Have a heart - The idea of a totally artificial heart has set medical pulses racing. The first working attempt to make such a device, Jarvik-7, was tried out in several patients during the early 1980s. The problem

with Jarvik-7 was that it required patients to remain constantly tethered to a machine the size of a

refrigerator. Worse still, it caused deaths from clots and infection. Since then, artificial hearts have been

used only as ‗bridges to transplant‘ - to tide patients over while a donor heart was found. That has begun to change. Several American and Canadian firms are now getting regulatory approval for

artificial heart devices that will remain in the body permanently. One device called AbioCor, which is

made by Abiomed of Danvers, Massachusetts, replaces the natural heart entirely. Others, such as the HeartSaver from World Heart of Ottawa, replace or augment only the activity of the left ventricle - the

lower chamber that pumps the blood through the body. Since it is the left ventricle that collapses in most

cases of heart failure, such a ‗left-ventricular assist device‘ often provides enough help to allow the heart to start beating again with much of its natural tissue intact.

Every part of the human body is being studied to see how it can be replicated

artificially. Made from materials such as titanium and Dacron, artificial hearts use

a sensor to gauge the blood flow and a chamber to hold the blood while it is pumped by a battery-powered rotor. Oddly, a pulse is optional. Both the AbioCor

and the HeartSaver generate one to keep the patient happy. The device rests in the

chest cavity adjacent to the real heart. The internal batteries that power the device are recharged through the skin without the need for wires. A magnetic coil laid

against the abdomen induces an electrical current in a matching magnetic coil

stowed inside the patient‘s body. Both Abiomed and World Heart have incorporated additional sensors to monitor such vital signs as heart

rate and blood pressure. The HeartSaver will be able to transmit such data to a local controller using an

infra-red wireless signal. With the control unit linked to the Internet, hospitals will be able continuously

to monitor patients fitted with artificial hearts. Better still, a doctor in a hospital who notices that the device is beating too slowly could send instructions over the Internet to tell it to speed up. World Heart

already has approval for long-term use of its HeartSaver in Europe. The company hopes to start human

trials in Canada before the end of the year. And now that the FDA has approved clinical trials in America,

the first AbioCor could be implanted in a human patient by June. Initially, such a mechanical heart would cost as much as $60,000-100,000, though the price could fall by half once the device goes into mass

production. … The total bill for installing an artificial heart would be considerably less than a donor heart

costs today. The body electric - Despite its ingenuity, the mechanics of the natural heart are relatively straightforward.

Even severed from nerves, it will continue to beat when placed in a bucket of correctly salted water. By

contrast, other organs of the body are more multifunctional. And simulating them requires more complicated equipment.

Take the pancreas. This senses levels of glucose in the blood and releases insulin accordingly. MiniMed,

a firm based in Northridge, California, manufactures external insulin pumps that can be programmed by

patients to deliver appropriate doses of insulin. It is also testing a sensor that can continuously monitor blood sugar levels. Once the company mates these two technologies, the external pump could

automatically gauge and administer microdoses of insulin. MiniMed hopes to make an implantable pump-

and-sensor, thus erasing all evidence of the disease and its cure.

Nature‘s own materials - But designing and building such sensors and chemical pumps is costly. One

alternative is to use nature‘s own equivalents - ie, living cells. Circe Biomedical of Lexington, Massachusetts, is testing an implantable ―bio-artificial‖ pancreas that contains living pancreatic cells

taken from pigs. The patient‘s blood flows through a graft into a membraneous tube that is surrounded by

the pig pancreatic tissue. Through the membrane, the cells detect the level of glucose in the human

bloodstream and release insulin as required. But since the pig cells are encased in a plastic housing, the patient‘s immune system never detects their presence - and therefore never mounts an attack. Every few

months, the supply of pig pancreas cells is washed out and replenished through portholes that are

embedded in the patient‘s abdomen. Circe and other firms are pursuing a similar approach with artificial livers. No mechanical device has yet

come close to replicating the host of chemical actions performed by liver cells. They cleanse the blood,

break down and build complex molecules, and keep the blood volume on an even keel. So the artificial

livers in development use actual liver cells - from pigs as well as from people - to do their chemical work for them. Such machines could be used to support patients in critical condition while they wait for a liver

to be found for transplant.

Artificial livers work in much the same way as do kidney-dialysis machines. Blood is taken from the body, cleaned, treated and then replaced. As blood is collected from the patient‘s body, the fluid portion

(‗plasma‘) is extracted and the blood cells and other solid matter set aside. The plasma is then pushed

through a charcoal column to extract the toxic chemicals. Next, it is oxygenated so that it can do its basic job and then enters a so-called bioreactor.

The bioreactor contains up to 5,000 hollow tubes made of a flexible membrane, clustered together in a

plastic cylinder. Liver cells that have been cultured to grow on the outer surface of these tubes freely

exchange biological molecules and water with blood passing through the membrane. As with the artificial pancreas, the membrane screens the foreign cells from the patient‘s immune system, which never realises

that interlopers are meddling with its blood supply.

VitaGen of La Jolla, California, takes a similar approach, but with an important difference. Instead of pig cells or normal human cells, the firm uses a patented line of cloned human cells that are bred to be

immortal. VitaGen‘s device is being tested in America. Meanwhile, Circe‘s HepatAssist should finish its

clinical trials by the end of 2001.

Spare parts for the body shop - Such technologies for making artificial organs are only the beginning.

Every part of the human body is now being studied to see how it can be replicated artificially or augmented in some way.

- Biomedical engineers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre are developing prototypes of an

artificial lung that can be strapped on a belt, rather like a mobile phone or personal digital assistant.

- A team led by William Federspiel, a veteran of Abiomed‘s artificial heart team, is working on an intravenous oxygenator that exchanges gas with the blood as it passes through a set of hollow fibres.

- A firm called Optobionics, based in Wheaton, Illinois, is trying to create a silicon chip that stimulates

the visual cortex and may help to restore sight to the blind. And various types of substitute cartilage, bone and skin are working their way through clinical trials.

The technical hurdles that such firms have already overcome also lay the groundwork for future

achievements. Most notably, they extend the range and capabilities of membranes that are safe to put inside the human body. They provide means for inserting power supplies within flesh. They allow animal

tissue to be used safely in people. And, best of all, they detach the whole business of organ replacement

from the tricky ethical questions associated with genetics, returning the endeavour to the practical, non-

controversial realm of chemical and electronic engineering.

http://www.teachengineering.org/view_curricularunit.php?url=http://www.teachengineering.org/collectio

n/cub_/curricular_units/cub_biomed/cub_biomed_curricularunit.xml Human beings are fascinating and complex living organisms - a symphony of different functional systems

working in concert. Through a ten-lesson series with hands-on activities students are introduced to seven

systems of the human body - skeletal, muscular, circulatory, respiratory, digestive, sensory, and reproductive - as well as genetics. At every stage, they are also introduced to engineers' creative, real-

world involvement in caring for the human body.

Engineering Connection - Engineers are increasingly involved in design for the human body. Biomedical

engineers create artificial limbs using materials and sensors to replicate natural function and movement. Understanding the muscular system enables engineers to design everyday tools, appliances and products.

Other engineers design medical solutions to improve health and address disorders. This may take the form

of devices, implants, machines, medicines and technologies (diagnostic equipment, pacemakers, surgical techniques, hearing aids, laser eye surgery, ultrasound, amniocentesis, in-vitro fertilization, pain

medicine). Engineers also apply their understanding of DNA to numerous real-world applications. As part

of their design work, engineers create flow charts, prototypes and models, and make technical

presentations, to learn, test and communicate their work.

http://discovermagazine.com/2010/nov/25-bionic-man-who-builds-people...The Bionic Man Who Builds

Bionic People - by Adam Piore… A mountain-climbing tragedy cost him both legs, and the artificial limbs available were not up to snuff, so

Hugh Herr decided to make the limbs he wanted. Prosthetic limb researcher Hugh Herr shows off his

wares in his biomechanics lab at MIT. In those devastating early days after the operation, Hugh Herr had a recurring

dream. He was running through the cornfields behind his parents‘ house in rural

Pennsylvania, going impossibly fast, the sun and the wind on his face, almost

flying. The ineffable sensation of freedom remains vivid decades later. Then the 17-year-old would wake up to the stumps of his legs below his sheets and

remember: Both his limbs had been amputated five inches below the knee. The

doctors said he would never run again. They were wrong. Almost every other day for four years now, Herr, 46, has been

jogging the 1.7-mile wooded loop around Walden Pond in Massachusetts on

specially designed prostheses. ‗I was out just yesterday. It‘s a beautiful run‘, he says. For Herr science is intensely personal. Before his accident, he was a world-class rock climber - but a

C and D high school student who attended vocational school at night and ‗didn‘t know what 10 percent of

100 was‘. Today he has a master‘s degree in mechanical engineering from MIT and a Harvard Ph.D. in

biophysics, and he is walking around on motorized bionic limbs that adjust 500 times a second for angle, stiffness, and torque. He designed them himself.

In early 2011 his company, iWalk - headquartered near the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts -

will release the PowerFoot One, the world‘s first robotic ankle-foot prosthesis, to the general public. With

an electric motor, five internal microprocessors, and a quarter-size inertial measurement unit that tracks and adjusts its location in space, the PowerFoot One is a giant leap over existing prostheses. It reacts to

changing terrain and different walking speeds much like a natural human foot, facilitating a normal gait

and allowing its users to push off the ground with seven times as much power as is possible with the best of its predecessors, all while expending less energy.

Herr, who directs the Biomechatronics group at the MIT Media Lab, spent the last eight years studying

and refining computer models of the human leg to develop the PowerFoot. Bit by bit he has overcome most of its limitations. Still, there remains one stark difference between his invention and the real human

limb: Herr‘s prosthesis does not connect to the central nervous system, so the wearer cannot move it just

by thinking. At least not yet. Sharing an ambition that would have sounded like science fiction just a few

years back, Herr and a handful of other prosthetics engineers are now working to create lifelike limbs that users can control with their minds...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8114920/Bionic-implants-We-have-the-technology.html Bionic implants: 'We have the technology'

As scientists restore sight to a blind man, Richard Gray explains how human beings can now be rebuilt

from top to toe with artificial parts… For the first time in more than a decade, Miikka Terho was able to glance at a clock and read the time. It

was a simple task, but one he had been unable to do since he was robbed of his sight by disease.

Mr Terho, 46, a financial consultant from Finland, was one of three patients who had their sight

temporarily restored using artificial light sensors and microchips placed on the retina at the back of their eyes by doctors in Germany.

This extraordinary melding of man and machine proves that we finally have the technology to create real-

life bionic humans. In the 1970s TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man, Lee Major‘s character had his body rebuilt using bionic technology, leaving him ‗better, stronger, faster‘. Now, cutting-edge research is

producing synthetic body parts to replace damaged tissues, limbs, organs and senses. In most cases it is

used to improve a patient‘s quality of life, but in others it is saving lives.

Here we examine how science can potentially kit out a human being from head to toe to create a real bionic man.

Brain - By far the most important, and also the most complex, organ in the body is the brain. It controls

our movements and our breathing, makes sense of the world and stores the memories that help form our personalities. Damage to the brain from accidents or illnesses such as strokes can be catastrophic, ranging

from paralysis to memory loss. But some scientists believe they may have found a way to repair this

damage - a prosthetic brain. Dr Theodore Berger, from the University of Southern California, has been developing a device that can be

implanted into the brain to restore memory functions, modelling the complex neural activity that takes

place in the hippocampus, which is responsible for forming new memories.

The device – a microchip that encodes memories for storing elsewhere in the brain – has been tested using tissue from rats‘ brains, and researchers are planning trials on live animals. They hope it will provide a

way of restoring memory function in patients who have suffered damage to their hippocampus from a

stroke, an accident or from Alzheimer‘s disease. Eyes - Around one million people in Britain suffer from two of the most common forms of blindness:

macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. But doctors in Germany last week restored sight to three

blind patients by implanting chips lined with electronic sensors – similar to those found in digital cameras – into the back of their eyes. When light hits these sensors, they produce electrical impulses that pass into

the optical nerve behind the eye and into the brain. The patients reported being able to distinguish objects

such as fruit and cutlery, and even read their own name. Miikka Terho was one of the first to have the implant and saw his life transformed over the three-month

trial, before the implant was removed. He went from being completely blind to being able to make out

fuzzy black-and-white shapes that allowed him to read the time.

‗When I first got the implant I could tell I was seeing something, but I couldn‘t really make out what it was – it was like my sight was a muscle that I hadn‘t used in a long time and it needed training to get used

to recognising things again. Later I was able to see people and tell if someone lifted their arm or if

someone was taller than someone else. They were too fuzzy to distinguish faces, but being able to see like that would help me to be more independent and walk in unfamiliar surroundings - to live a more normal

life‘, he says.

Professor Eberhart Zrenner, who led the research at the University of Tuebingen, has already begun work on improving the detail that the patients can see by changing the power supply - currently the chip has an

external supply that must be transmitted through the skin via a magnetic link.

‗We also want to have the implant do some intelligent processing that can help to enhance the contrast

and the graininess of the image‘, he says. A larger trial of the device is now being planned and will include patients from

the UK - but it is by no means the only approach being taken. While most research is aimed at helping

patients who have lost their sight, some scientists hope they may be able to enhance the vision of healthy people, too. Artificial lenses that have microscopic circuits fixed to them could be used to produce

wearable displays that beam maps, computer displays and even zoom functions to the wearer.

Ears - The bionic ear has been around for more than 40 years, and many thousands of patients are already wearing them. Cochlear implants turn sound into electronic pulses that are transmitted to the brain,

allowing the wearer to ―hear‖. Unfortunately, the devices are unable to tune in to specific sounds, so in

noisy environments patients can struggle to hear speech and find music hard to enjoy.

However, scientists at La Trobe University, Australia, have, by studying the way in which the ear transmits information to the brain, produced a device that behaves far more like a human ear.

Heart - Artificial hearts, essentially miniaturized pumps, are often implanted into patients to help their

damaged organs pump blood around their bodies while they are waiting for transplants. And last month doctors in Italy gave a 15-year-old boy the first permanent artificial heart implant. One company in

France, Carmat, has developed a prototype for a fully artificial heart that would replace the organ

altogether. Heart specialist Alain Carpenteir, the doctor behind the device, uses hydraulic pumps to push

blood around the body. It works like a natural heart, where blood is drawn into cavities inside the organ before being pushed out to the arteries. Surgeons plan to perform the first implant in humans in late 2011.

Arm - In July, Patrick Kane, a 13-year-old schoolboy from London, was transformed into a bionic boy

when he was fitted with a prosthetic arm by the Livingston-based firm Touch Bionics. Their revolutionary iLimb Pulse hand means Patrick, who lost his left hand after falling victim to meningitis when he was

nine months old, can even squash grapes between his fingers. ‗It‘s the little things that the hand allows me

to do that have really made the difference. I can open bottles with both hands now, hold my fork and tie my shoelaces‘, says Patrick.

His prosthesis works by using two electrodes that make contact with the skin on his upper arm. When he

tenses a muscle, tiny pulses of electricity from the nerves beneath the electrodes cause the hand to close;

when he tenses another, the hand opens. Researchers are working on prosthetic limbs that will allow wearers even more control. By mapping how

the neural networks are used to control limb movements, they can learn how robotic arms can be

controlled in the same way as a real, natural arm. Some approaches use electrodes implanted beneath the skin; others use ones on top of the skin. By picking up tiny signals from the brain when someone thinks

about moving their arm, the robotic prosthesis can be made to replicate the movement.

Hugh Gill, chief technical officer at Touch Bionics, says: ‗What we‘re looking at is how you can map the signals from the brain so that you can have discrete control of individual digits on a prosthetic hand and

rotate the wrist. The ideal situation is that when you go to reach for an object, the hand responds in the

way you would expect a real hand to. ‗One of the other things a number of people are looking at, and again we are interested in, is adaptive

devices that fit around existing limbs like an arm or a leg and provide additional power.‘.

Muscles - Some researchers are attempting to find ways of replacing individual muscles rather than whole

limbs to provide bionic treatments for people who have suffered serious sporting injuries or lost muscles in accidents. They are using synthetic polymer gels that expand and contract in response to small

electrical currents to create synthetic muscles for replacing heart valves, sphincter muscles and,

eventually, larger muscles.

Scientists at Nasa‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena are aiming to develop an arm powered by

bionic muscles made from these ‗electro-active polymers‘ that would be capable of winning an arm-wrestling contest. Dr Richard Baker, from the University of St Andrews, is also working with polymer

gels, but hopes to produce material that will contract and expand in response to the kind of chemical

signals that are found in the body.

Scientists at the University of Texas have produced artificial muscles that are more than 100 times more powerful than natural muscle, using an elastic metal wire that bends when it is heated and returns to

normal when cooled down.

Tendons - Researchers at Manchester University are developing artificial tendons to help patients who have severed or injured their own. Using finely spun fibres of plastic material, the synthetic tendons

behave just like the natural tissue and can be implanted into a patient to restore movement.

Professor Sandra Downes, from the school of materials at Manchester University, says the implants would encourage the body to heal itself and would gradually break down. The team is about to start pre-

clinical trials and hopes to have bionic tendons on the market within five years.

Claudia Mitchell demonstrates the functionality of her ‗bionic arm‘ … Touch - Even with the most advanced prosthetics available, patients with

robotic arms still suffer from being unable to feel what they are touching. This

important sense allows us to enjoy sensuality, control how hard we grip objects and even helps us form opinions about people we meet, for instance from their

handshake.

Scientists in Italy have been working on a synthetic skin that gives robots a

sense of touch. Although this was initially developed for robots, some researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology are developing ways of

feeding information back from the synthetic skin to patients‘ nerve cells.

http://www.arabbiologists.org/future-vision-bionic-eye-technology.html

Future Vision: Bionic Eye Technology - March 9th, 2011…Author: arnasati

The University of North South Wales (UNSW) Australian Vision Prosthesis Group (AVPG) led by Professor Nigel Lovell said that a working bionic eye could be an Australian first by year 2020…‘if

actions is taken quickly‘.

A U.S. – based company named second sight, may have pulled a fast one on them, having developed

Argus ii – a bionic eye project, which has been fitted to 18 patients worldwide… Ron, a 73 year old patient who was made blind through retinitis pigmentosa…is now a cyborg – having

been implanted with said bionic eye. … ‗For 30 years I‘ve seen nothing at all…Suddenly to be able to see

the light again…is truly wonderful…reveals Ron. The experts explain how it works… ‗The technology uses a camera and video processor mounted on

sunglasses to send captured images wirelessly to a tiny receiver on the outside of the eye. In turn, the

receiver passed on the data via a tiny cable to an array of electrodes which sit on the retina – the layer of specialized cells that normally respond to light found at the back of the eye. …

When these electrodes are stinulated, they send messages along the optic nerve to the brain, which is able

to perceive patterns of light and dark spots corresponding to which electrodes have been stimulated. The hope is that the patients will learn to interpret the visual patterns produced, into meaningful images.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/03jan_bioniceyes

Bionic Eyes - Using space technology, scientists have developed extraordinary ceramic photocells that could repair malfunctioning human eyes.

Rods and Cones. Millions of them are in the back of every healthy human eye. They are biological solar

cells in the retina that convert light to electrical impulses - impulses that travel along the optic nerve to the brain where images are formed. Without them, we're blind.

Indeed, many people are blind - or going blind - because of malfunctioning rods and cones. Retinitis

pigmentosa and macular degeneration are examples of two such disorders. Retinitis pigmentosa tends to be hereditary and may strike at an early age, while macular degeneration mostly affects the elderly.

Together, these diseases afflict millions of Americans; both occur gradually and can result in total

blindness.

‗If we could only replace those damaged rods and cones with artificial ones, then a person who is retinally-blind might be able to regain some of their sight,‘ says Dr. Alex Ignatiev, a professor at the

University of Houston,

Years ago such thoughts were merely wishful. But no longer. Scientists at the Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center (SVEC) in Houston are experimenting with thin, photosensitive ceramic films that respond to light

much as rods and cones do. Arrays of such films, they believe, could be implanted in human eyes to

restore lost vision. ‗There are some diseases where the sensors in the eye, the rods and cones, have deteriorated but all the

wiring is still in place‘, says Ignatiev, who directs the SVEC. In such cases, thin-film ceramic sensors

could serve as substitutes for bad rods and cones. The result would be a ‗bionic eye‘.

The Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center is a NASA-sponsored Commercial Space Center (CSC) at the University of Houston. NASA's Space Product Development (SPD) program, located at the Marshall

Space Flight Center, encourages the commercialization of space by industry through 17 such CSCs. At

the SVEC, researchers apply knowledge gained from experiments done in space to develop better lasers, photocells, and thin films -- technologies with both commercial and human promise.

Below: A schematic diagram of the retina - a light-sensitive layer that covers 65% of the interior surface

of the eye. SVEC scientists hope to replace damaged rods and cones in the retina with ceramic microdetector arrays.

Image courtesy A. Ignatiev.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University, MIT, and elsewhere have tried to build artificial rods and cones before, notes

Ignatiev. Most of those earlier efforts involved silicon-based

photodetectors. But silicon is toxic to the human body and reacts unfavorably with fluids in the eye - problems that

SVEC's ceramic detectors do not share.

‗We are conducting preliminary tests on the ceramic

detectors for biocompatibility, and they appear to be totally stable. In other words, the detector does not deteriorate and

[neither does] the eye‘, he says.

‗These detectors are thin films, grown atom-by-atom and layer-by-layer on a background substrate -- a technique called epitaxy‘, continues Ignatiev. ‗Well-ordered, 'epitaxally-grown' films have [the best]

optical properties‘.

Crafting such films is a skill SVEC scientists learned from experiments conducted using the Wake Shield Facility (WSF) - a 12-foot diameter disk-shaped platform launched from the space shuttle. The WSF was

designed by SVEC engineers to study epitaxial film growth in the ultra-vacuum of space. ‗We grew thin

oxide films using atomic oxygen in low-Earth orbit as a natural oxidizing agent. Those experiments

helped us develop the oxide (ceramic) detectors we're using now for the Bionic Eye project‘, says Ignatiev.

In 1996, during shuttle mission STS-80, astronauts use Columbia's robotic arm to

deploy the Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center's Wake Shield Facility.

The ceramic detectors are much like ultra-thin films found in modern computer chips, ‗so we can use our semiconductor expertise and make them in arrays - like chips in a

computer factory‘, he added. The arrays are stacked in a hexagonal structure mimicking

the arrangement of rods and cones they are designed to replace. The natural layout of the detectors solves another problem that plagued earlier silicon research: blockage

of nutrient flow to the eye.

‗All of the nutrients feeding the eye flow from the back to the front. If you implant a large, impervious structure [like the silicon detectors] in the eye, nutrients can't flow and the eye will atrophy‘, says

Ignatiev. The ceramic detectors are individual, five-micron-size units (the exact size of cones) that allow

nutrients to flow around them.

Artificial retinas constructed at SVEC consist of 100,000 tiny ceramic detectors, each 1/20 the size of a human hair. The assemblage is so small that surgeons can't safely handle it. So, the arrays are attached to

a polymer film one millimeter by one millimeter in size. A couple of weeks after insertion into an eyeball,

the polymer film will simply dissolve leaving only the array behind. The first human trials of such detectors will begin in 2002. Dr. Charles Garcia of the University of Texas

Medical School in Houston will be the surgeon in charge. ‗An incision is made in the white portion of the

eye and the retina is elevated by injecting fluid underneath‘, explains Garcia, comparing the space to a blister forming on the skin after a burn. ‗Within that little blister, we place the artificial retina‘.

These first-generation ceramic thin film microdetectors, each about 30 microns in size, are

attached to a polymer carrier, which helps surgeons handle them. The background image shows human cones 5-10 microns in size in a hexagonal array. Image courtesy A. Ignatiev.

Scientists aren't yet certain how the brain will interpret unfamiliar voltages from the

artificial rods and cones. They believe the brain will eventually adapt, although a slow learning process might be necessary, something akin to the way an infant learns shapes and

colors for the first time.

‗It's a long way from the lab to the clinic‘, notes Garcia.

‗Will they work? For how long? And at what level of resolution? We won't know until we implant the receptors in patients. The technology is in its infancy‘.

Ignatiev has received over 200 requests from patients who learned of the studies from earlier press

reports. ‗I'm extremely excited about this‘, he says. He cautions that much more research is needed, but ‗it's very promising‘.

www.livescience.com/12954-bionic-humans-artificial-limbs-technologies.html...

Bionic human - Scientists are getting closer to creating a bionic

human, or at least a $6 million one. Today, we can replicate or restore

more organs and various sundry body parts than ever before. From

giving sight to the blind to creating a tongue more accurate than any

human taste bud, gentlemen, we have the technology

Bionic eyes – When you're blind, being able to see even the basics of

light, movement and shape can make a big difference. Both the Argus

II Retinal Prosthesis, currently in FDA trials, and a system being

developed by Harvard Research Fellow Dr. John Pezaris record basic

visual information via camera, process it into electronic signals and

send it wirelessly to implanted electrodes. The Argus II uses

electrodes implanted in the eye, which could help people who've lost some of their retinal

function. Dr. Pezaris' system, still in the early stages of research, would bypass the eyes entirely,

sending visual data straight to the brain. Both systems will work best with people who could

once see because their brains will already know how to process the information. ‗The visual

brain depends on visual experience to develop normally‘, Pezaris explained.

Regrown bone - Since the 1960s, researchers have known about proteins that

can prompt bone tissue to grow its own patches for missing or damaged

parts. Unfortunately, that technology never worked perfectly, often growing

the wrong type of tissue or growing bone where bone shouldn't be. In 2005,

researchers at UCLA solved the problem, using a specially designed protein

capable only of triggering growth in specific types of cells. Called UCB-1,

the protein is now used to grow new bone that can fuse and immobilize

sections of vertebrae, relieving severe back pain in some patients. … http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14256-do-we-have-the-technology-to-build-a-bionic-human.html -

More and more of the body is becoming, if not obsolete, then certainly replaceable. But which of our

body parts can be engineered today, and which will we have to make do with? Building bones - Implants that copy the simple structural job of skeletal tissue are the easiest to build.

One UK woman suffering from rheumatoid arthritis was recently left with only two of her original joints

after having the rest replaced by metal and plastic alternatives.

Hips, teeth and vertebral discs can all be replaced, and customised to match the patient. A 3D printer can even be used to tailor-make parts within hours for a perfect fit, useful after accidents. One device prints

‗bone’ using a new porous polymer that is nearly as strong as the real thing. But artificial bones are not

perfect. One idea that may see them match natural bone's strength and lightness is to build implants by zapping titanium powder with a laser. That can makes pores of different sizes in different areas of the

finished product, controlling strength and stiffness in the same way as real bone.

Other recently developed ways to improve implants include making them magnetic to attract drugs or

giving them surface textures able to promote new bone growth. But growing living bone and cartilage to order is probably the best way to tackle the problems with

getting the body to accept man-made materials.

Regeneration game - In the first human trial of this approach, lab-grown cartilage proved able to fix damaged knees. This type of tissue-engineering cultivates cells over a scaffold that is usually based on

compounds found in connective tissue. Ligaments can also be grown this way. Placing a scaffold in the

body allows in-situ growth, a technique that can also work with nerves and returned sight to blind hamsters. In fact, by culturing normal or stem cells it is now possible to grow pretty much any type of

tissue. Some complete organs have already been grown from scratch.

Artificially grown bladders have changed the lives of some spina bifida patients. Even working penises

have been grown, for rabbits, who could ejaculate and successfully mate using them. But growing more complex organs with intricate systems of blood vessels is difficult. One possible

solution involves making a plastic cast of an organ's blood vessels by filling a donated organ with

polymer. The recovered cast is then seeded with cells that grow into blood vessels, after which the organs' new cells are grown over the top. A liver complete with blood vessels has been made this way, but was

not fully functional.

Organs live on - A way to sidestep the problems of growing intricate structures like blood vessels or

alveoli in the lungs is to borrow the structures from donated organs. A process called ‗de-cellularisation‘ chemically strips away cells, leaving connective tissue, including blood vessels, behind. This also has the

advantage that, without living cells, the transplant will not be rejected by the host. First used to replace

heart valves, the technique was this year used to reincarnate a whole rat's heart . After a few electric shocks, the newly grown heart was beating regularly.

Heart helpers - That technique is still far from reaching human hospitals, but cardiac patients are already

spoilt for choice when it comes to replacements. The most common are pacemakers, which take over from the clumps of cells that synchronise heart muscle with pulsing electricity. Scientists have recently

developed a pacemaker powered by the heart itself, saving later operations to change the battery.

Other parts of the body's plumbing network, such as the lymphatic system, are becoming replaceable too.

Last year, mice were implanted with an artificial lymph node made from collagen and cells taken from a gland in newborn mice. This approach could one day be used to rebuild an immune system compromised

by disease like AIDS.

Nervous reaction - The brain's complexity makes it doubtful we will ever recreate it. But some of its functions, and those of other parts of the nervous system can already be replaced by electronics.

The most successful example is the cochlear implant. More than 100,000 people can hear again thanks to

microphone output directly stimulating the cochlea of the inner ear. This approach has limitations, though, so a new design stimulates the nerve connecting the ear to the

brain instead, an approach that should offer better quality hearing and even music to the deaf. Implants

can also help the blind see, by stimulating the retina, optic nerve or the brain's visual cortex. However, the

quality of results varies. Making better bionic eyes hinges on better understanding how the retina and brain process images. Perhaps the most ambitious neural implant yet attempts to replace a whole section

of the brain - the hippocampus - which is involved in spatial and short-term memory. Researchers are

working on an electronic hippocampus that accepts, processes and produces electrical signals just like a real one.

Out on a limb - Other research seeks to replace entire limbs with robotic replacements. Electronics and

motors must simulate bone, muscle and nerves working in unison, and integrate smoothly with the real thing. The Italian CyberHand project aims to let a person control and receive sensation from an artificial

hand just as they would from a real one. Electrodes will connect the nerves that previously served the

missing hand to the robotic prosthetics motors and force sensors.

Some advanced bionic arms require the nerves that once controlled to a missing limb be ‗rewired‘ to a person's chest. When they try to move the prosthetic limb, it causes the chest muscles to twitch, triggering

sensors that control the arm. Rewiring the sensory nerves from a limb in the same way makes it possible

to feel feedback from the arm as if it were real. US defence agency DARPA has made improved prosthetics a priority, with one funded project, the ‗Luke

arm‘, recently unveiling impressive results.

Future imperfect - Despite all these successes and promising leads, the human body is still more complex

than any machine, and we don't have the advantage of an instruction manual. All too often, artificial replacements come with a catch. Organ transplants require lifetime treatment with

immunosuppressant drugs to prevent rejection, while some evidence suggests stem cells treatments can

cause cancer. Electronic devices suffer corrosion, wear and tear, and can require repeated operations to replace

batteries. Powering them using movement or other energy from the body could be the answer.

Electronic implants can also be vulnerable to electromagnetic interference or even remote attacks. Earlier this year researchers used radio waves to hack a pacemaker in a way that could cause a heart attack.

Working out how to encourage a body to grow its own replacements avoids most of these problems.

However, superhuman abilities like controlling machines with your thoughts will always depend on

electronics

http://www.ossur.com/?PageID=15753 …

Artificial Intelligence (AI) - A well-established yet constantly evolving branch of computer science, AI deals with intelligent behavior, learning and adaptation in machines. Numerous branches of AI exist,

including logical AI and pattern recognition, as well as reasoning, inference and learning from

experience. An important aspect of AI is to deduce useful results from information that is often unclear. AI to reduce mental and physical effort

Research on the use of AI in prosthetics is concerned with producing solutions which can reproduce

complex tasks related to human activities. Bionic Technology by Össur incorporates AI to increase the functionality of products that are designed to help reduce mental and physical effort, as well as the

consequential strain to other parts of the body following an amputation.

Stimulating voluntary control of the prosthetic limb

A prosthesis that does some thinking of its own can handle day-to-day occurrences like a change of shoes or the lifting of a heavy bag. Without AI, such events have implications for the function of a prosthesis,

unless there is a prosthetist always on hand to fine-tune it accordingly. AI enhances the safety of the

device, and therefore of the user, and helps to stimulate voluntary control of the prosthetic limb. The outcome is a more adaptive system and more carefree mobility.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/09/21/vbs.cyborg/index.html - Brooklyn, New York... (VBS.TV) - In 1998, Kevin Warwick became what some people call ‗the world's first cyborg‘. To be

exact, Warwick, a professor of cybernetics at Reading University, had a radio frequency ID chip

implanted in his arm. Years before RFID chips became common, this small implant allowed him to turn

on lights by snapping his fingers, or open doors without touching them. Once, after connecting his nerves to an array of electrodes in 2002, he let his wife use her brain waves to

take control of his body. It was the first time the nervous systems of two humans had communicated

electronically. ‗It was quite an intimate feeling‘, he says. This isn't just for fun, Warwick tells Motherboard.tv, VBS' technology channel. He is certain that without

upgrading, we humans will someday fall behind the advances of the robots we're building - or worse.

‗Someday we'll switch on that machine, and we won't be able to switch it off‘, he says, sounding a note of alarm that clashes with the cheery visions of futurists like Ray Kurzweil. That might explain why he has

very little technology at home, and counts ‗The Terminator‘ among his biggest influences.

Warwick doesn't want to turn into a robot: He wants to be a better human. Augmenting human ability, not

turning into an automaton, is, after all, the premise of the ‗cyborg‘. One of the term's earliest uses, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was in a 1960 New York Times article: ‗A cyborg is

essentially a man-machine system in which the control mechanisms of the human portion are modified

externally by drugs or regulatory devices so that the being can live in an environment different from the normal one‘.

Today, the argument for cybernetics may seem more imperative than ever. Already the latest bionic

technologies are allowing deaf children to hear and disabled war veterans to run again. Technologists,

meanwhile, see "augmented reality" applications for smart-phones as doing something similar for our brains, fortifying them for life in a world overflowing with data.

For now, Warwick, who will be awarded the Ellison-Cliffe Medal from the Royal Society of Medicine in

2011, is using his research into brain interfaces and autonomous robots to provide better insight into how memories are formed, and learn how to better treat brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

‗Technology, directly integrated with the brain, can help overcome some problems people have. Brain

implants could keep people fit, making sure, for instance, you don't eat that chocolate cake that you want‘, says Warwick. But the possibilities may also be stranger than we have yet imagined. Someday, says

Warwick, humans could become ‗a curiosity for the machines‘.

'Look at that - that's where we were in historical times‘, they will think to each other.

http://www.science-blogging.com/?p=91 …The latest i-Limb bionic arm unveiled the wireless Bluetooth

connection pulse - Posted by admin …

Recently, the latest wireless technology controlled by a pulse of human bionic arm available, manufacturers claim the Scottish sense bionic technology company, the latest research of this i-Limb

bionic arm uses the latest pulse modulation technique can provide the user with unprecedented comfort.

A body controlled by wireless technology available bionic arm, the manufacturer claims the Scottish sense bionic technology company, the latest research of this i-Limb bionic arm uses the latest pulse

modulation technique can provide the user with unprecedented comfort. Meanwhile, the bionic arm uses a

special built-in software to achieve a Bluetooth connection.

Fireman Ian Reid - the first bionic arm user lost

his right hand in a car accident 7 years ago. He

said: ‗This bionic arm that has the effect of increased pulse grip arm gripping ability‘. The

bionic arm uses the latest pulse technology… and

claims unprecedented comfort. The bionic arm uses a special built-in software to achieve a

Bluetooth connection

(Ian Reid) is - Reid, , ‗i-LimbPulse arm is an exciting scientific research and technology. It is reported that tactile bionic technology companies in Scotland 2007, launched the first ‗i-Limb‘ bionic

arm, and claimed that this is the world‘s first commercial sale of a bionic arm. Currently, this latest design

has a bionic arm, 5 separate control of the fingers…represents the latest product line, which uses

aluminum as the shell, and the user can carry 90Kg objects.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17912_3-10447375-72.html - February 4, 2010 8:43 AM PST - Robonaut 2:

The offspring of GM and NASA …by Candace Lombardi …(Credit: NASA)

Robonaut 2 built with dexterous humanlike hands is able to work tools typically used by humans.

This is not your average assembly line worker. But Robonaut 2 is expected to be an exemplary co-worker. General Motors and NASA introduced

Robonaut 2, a humanoid robot being jointly developed at the Johnson Space Center in Houston for use in

both the automotive and aerospace industries.

Robonaut 2 is stronger, more dexterous, and more technologically advanced than the original Robonaut, according to NASA. Robonaut,

which was developed 10 years ago by NASA and the Defense Advanced

Research Project Agency, was intended--as its name implies - for use as a robot astronaut.

Robonaut 2, nicknamed R2, seems more destined for a car assembly plant

than the far reaches of space. It can lift 20 pounds with each arm, about

four times that of other humanoid robots, according to NASA. Its nimble hands, fingers, and opposable thumbs also enable it to use the same tools

normally used by human hands.

‗For GM, this is about safer cars and safer plants and development. When it comes to future vehicles, the advancements in controls, sensors and vision technology can be used to develop advanced vehicle safety

systems‘, Alan Taub, GM's vice president for global research, said in a statement.

The auto industry is no stranger to robots, of course. Automakers have long employed nameless, faceless robotic devices--think arms, rather than whole humanoid torsos--to assemble sedans, SUVs, and such. But

those machines are evolving. Ford's RUTH, for instance, uses a soft-touch to test out the interior surfaces

and controls of vehicles.

While a partnership with GM may seem a rather earthbound endeavor for NASA, it is of a piece with the space agency's new road map. On Monday, the Obama administration made it clear that it wanted NASA

to focus more on commercial spaceflight and on collaboration with private industry. Plus, NASA and GM

go way back, having collaborated during the Apollo years on navigation systems and the lunar rover. Does Robonaut 2 pose yet another challenge to skilled U.S. factory workers in need of jobs? GM's Taub

suggested a less dire interpretation of R2's debut. ‗The partnership's vision is to explore advanced robots

working together in harmony with people, building better, higher quality vehicles in a safer, more competitive manufacturing environment‘, he said.

NASA, of course, focused on how the robot might enable the organization to further explore space with

less danger to astronauts. ‗Working side by side with humans, or going where the risks are too great for people, machines like

Robonaut will expand our capability for construction and discovery‘, Mike Coats, Johnson's center

director, said in a statement. …

http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov/default.asp...What is a Robonaut?

A Robonaut is a dexterous humanoid robot built and designed at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas...that can help

humans work and explore in space. …There are currently four

Robonauts, with others in development. This allows us to study

various types of mobility, control methods, and task applications. The value of a humanoid over other designs is the ability to use

the same workspace and tools - not only does this improve

efficiency in the types of tools, but also removes the need for specialized robotic connectors. Robonauts are essential to

NASA's future as we go beyond low earth orbit and continue to

explore the vast wonder that is space. Robonaut 2 or R2, launched to the International Space Station on space shuttle Discovery as part of the

STS-133 mission, it is the first dexterous humanoid robot in space, and the first US-built robot at the

space station. But that was just one small step for a robot and one giant leap for robot-kind.

Initially R2 will be deployed on a fixed pedestal inside the ISS. Next steps include a leg for climbing through the corridors of the Space Station, upgrades for R2 to go outside into the vacuum of space, and

then future lower bodies like legs and wheels to propel the R2 across Lunar and Martian terrain. A four

wheeled rover called Centaur 2 is being evaluated at the 2010 Desert Field Test in Arizona as an example of these future lower bodies for R2.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/robonaut.html...Robonaut 2 To Make Television Debut on Super Bowl Sunday - 02.04.11

Robonaut2 - or R2 for short - is the next generation dexterous robot, developed

through a Space Act Agreement by NASA and General Motors. Credit: NASA.

Robonaut 2, NASA's dexterous humanoid robot, will make its television debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 6, 2011. Millions of viewers will be able to watch the

state-of-the-art robot during a General Motors segment to air during the Super

Bowl pre-game show on the Fox network. Using the latest technology, it's a new humanoid robot capable of working side-by-

side with people. Using leading edge control, sensor and vision technologies,

future R-2s could assist astronauts during hazardous space missions and help GM

build safer cars and plants. The two organizations, with the help of engineers from Oceaneering Space Systems of Houston,

developed and built the current iteration of Robonaut. Robonaut 2, or R2, is a faster, more dexterous and

more technologically advanced robot. Its capabilities include the use of fully-functional hands and arms to do work beyond the scope of prior humanoid machines and is capable of handling a wide range of tools

and interfaces. R2 is capable of speeds more than four times faster than R1, is more compact, is more

dexterous, and includes a deeper and wider range of sensing. Advanced technology spans the entire R2 system and includes: optimized overlapping dual arm dexterous

workspace, series elastic joint technology, extended finger and thumb travel, miniaturized 6-axis load

cells, redundant force sensing, ultra-high speed joint controllers, extreme neck travel, and high resolution

camera and IR systems. The dexterity of R2 allows it to use the same tools that astronauts use and removes the need for specialized tools just for robots.

One advantage of a humanoid design is that Robonaut can take over simple, repetitive, or especially

dangerous tasks on places such as the International Space Station… Almost 200 people from 15 countries have visited the International Space Station, but the orbiting

complex has so far only ever had human crew members – until now.

Robonaut 2, the latest generation of the Robonaut astronaut helpers, launched to the space station aboard

space shuttle Discovery on the STS-133 mission. It is the first humanoid robot in space, and although its primary job for now is teaching engineers how dexterous robots behave in space, the hope is that through

upgrades and advancements, it could one day venture outside the station to help spacewalkers make

repairs or additions to the station or perform scientific work. Now that R2 is unpacked it will initially be operated inside the Destiny laboratory for operational testing, but over time both its territory and its

applications could expand. There are no plans to return R2 to Earth. … www.universetoday.com...Robonaut unveiled …

Robonaut 2, or R2, was finally unleashed from his foam lined packing crate by ISS crewmembers on

March 15 and attached to a pedestal located inside its new home in the Destiny research module. R2 joins

the crew of six human residents as an official member of the ISS crew. … The fancy shipping crate goes by the acronym SLEEPR, which stands for Structural Launch Enclosure to

Effectively Protect Robonaut. R2 had been packed inside since last summer.

Robonaut 2 is the first dexterous humanoid robot in space and was delivered to the International Space Station by Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-133.

‗Robonaut is now onboard as the newest member of our crew. We are happy to have him onboard. It‘s a

real good opportunity to help understand the interface of humans and robotics here in space.We want to see what Robonaut can do. Congratulations to the team of engineers [at NASA Johnson Space center]

who got him ready to fly‘, said Coleman.

ISS Commander Scott Kelly and Robonaut 2 pose together in the Destiny laboratory module. Credit: ESA/NASA …ISS Flight Engineer Cady Coleman and Robonaut 2…

‗It feels great to be out of my SLEEPR, even if I can‘t stretch out just yet. I can‘t wait until I get to start

doing some work!‘ tweeted R2. R2 will function as an astronaut‘s assistant that can work shoulder to shoulder alongside humans and

conduct real work, ranging from science experiments to maintenance chores. After further upgrades to

accomplish tasks of growing complexity, R2 may one day venture outside the ISS to help spacewalking astronauts.

‗It‘s a dream come true to fly the robot to the ISS‘, said Ron Diftler in an interview at the Kennedy Space

Center. Diftler is the R2 project manager at NASA‘s Johnson Space Center.

President Obama called the joint Discovery-ISS crew during the STS-133 mission and said he was eager to see R2 inside the ISS and urged the crew to unpack R2 as soon as possible.

‗I understand you guys have a new crew member, this R2 robot. I don‘t know whether you guys are

putting R2 to work, but he‘s getting a lot of attention. That helps inspire some young people when it comes to science and technology,‘ Obama said.

Commander Lindsey replied that R2 was still packed in the shipping crate – SLEEPR – and then joked

that, ‗every once in a while we hear some scratching sounds from inside, maybe, you know, ‗let me out, let me out,‘ we‘re not sure‘.

Robonaut 2 is free at last to meet his destiny in space and Voyage to the Stars.

‗I don‘t have a window in front of me, but maybe the crew will let me look out of the Cupola sometime‘,

R2 tweeted from the ISS.

The twin brother of the R2 Robonaut and their NASA/GM creators at KSC.

Robonaut 2 and the NASA/GM team of scientists and engineers watched the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery and the first joint Human-Robot crew on the STS-133 mission on Feb. 24, 2011 from the

Kennedy Space Center. Credit: Ken Kremer …

www.gosai.com/science/consciousness...Consciousness in Science— The Age of Information —

Bhaktivedanta Institute — Knowledge Representation… Is There Consciousness Within Science? …An Interview with Ravi Gomatam by

Thomas Beaudry …[Reprinted from Clarion Call Magazine] -

‗As science went further and further into the external world, they ended up inside the

atom where to their surprise they saw consciousness staring them in the face‘… A conference sponsored by the Bhaktivedanta Institute in San Francisco centered on

the study of consciousness within science. The Institutes international secretary, Ravi

Gomatam, shared with us what he calls the third wave of the ongoing interface between science and mysticism.

Can you tell me something about the Bhaktivedanta Institute? The word Bhaktivedanta itself connotes the synthesis of science and consciousness. Vedanta represents

the rational, intellectual side, and bhakti represents the holistic, subjective inner side. The institute

promotes studies and discussions on the need for and development of consciousness-based paradigms to

outstanding problems in science. …Our in-house research is based on specific paradigms for consciousness that are available within the Bhagavat tradition of Vedanta, or theistic Vedanta. We also

offer research fellowships through which academic people can interact with us, and we hold broad-based

conferences and workshops. When we do conferences we recognize that the topic of consciousness is a very difficult one to deal with.

Consciousness has occupied the attention of mankind for thousands of years. As conscious beings we

have wondered about our essential nature, our place and our relationship to the universe in which we find ourselves, our rights, and even what our duties are - especially as we see today so many problems caused

directly and indirectly by the application of science. No one can claim at this point that he has a final

answer to these questions (sic). Consequently our conferences are very broad-based. We bring together a

wide variety of thoughts from different disciplines of science, and we provide a forum for discussion so that some kind of a scientific consensual understanding of consciousness can emerge on its own.

Although we have our roots in India's spirituality, our work itself is very contemporary and highly

objective.

How do you view the evolution of the ongoing interface between modern science and Eastern mysticism?

Capra on one hand should definitely be credited for putting the subject into the center of the stage. His

work was the first wave. His essential point was that the scientific tradition and the mystical traditions are two different approaches to understanding the same reality. He managed to draw some parallels between

the emerging concerns of science and existing world views of Eastern mysticism.

The second wave, the work of Ken Wilber and others, recognized the shortcomings of Capra, Zukav, and the like. They showed that the issues of spirituality…. At best science could point towards the need for

cultivating mysticism, for which we would then have to shift gears. This was the second wave. But the

problem with this approach, although true in the ultimate sense, is that it does not chart specific pathways by which science can come closer to consciousness. Indeed, it even precludes the possibility of an

expanded science that can one day legitimately study consciousness directly. In cleaving the two in this

way, in a sense, Wilber reintroduced a kind of Cartesian dualism. Instead of the mind/body problem, it

became the spirituality versus science problem. This dilemma then formed the motivation for our recent conference—the third wave.

This third wave, as I see it, will begin due to the willingness on the part of scientists themselves to expand

the domain of science in very new ways. The motivation for this is already coming from results in established fields, such as artificial intelligence, molecular biology, theoretical physics, as well as new

emerging fields like engineering anomalies. Through these fields the causal role of consciousness in the

physical world at deeper levels of matter is becoming established. What is required is to sustain this investigation so that a logical framework for discussion of consciousness results naturally within science.

In the process science will doubtless discover a new middle ground between what it now thinks of as

matter and what the mystics describe as consciousness. It will involve discovering levels of subtle matter

presently unknown to science. This new science will become the empiric evidence for, and system by which we can better explain the causal role of consciousness. No doubt, this will require new tools of

theory and experiment. Our own contribution is to facilitate this process of discovery.

That's quite a challenge for science. …In this century the two great leaps science has taken, concern two phenomena. One is Einstein's

integration of space and time into one space-time continuum, which explained the absence of ether drift.

The second great leap was quantum mechanics. It brought us a connection between two seemingly separate realms - physical measuring devices and human observers. The point I am making is that science

has made great steps when apparently disparate phenomena were brought together under one roof. Now

the time is ripe to bring together yet another pair - mind and matter. But this too requires a new conceptualization. This is now what we are attempting - to bring together science and consciousness, and

take another giant step. With the development of quantum mechanics it became clear that the theory had a

fundamental problem. The quantum theory has no ontology. It does not concern itself with what the world

is made up of. It doesn't start with an assumption about the world's makeup and then build a theory. Rather, it talks about probabilistic connections between successive observations not the events

themselves.

As Heisenberg pointed out, ‗Quantum theory no longer speaks of the state of the universe, but our knowledge of the state of the universe‘. For the first time scientists had a theory that ultimately had no

objective foundation. That this may be because quantum theory does not satisfactorily account for

consciousness has been pointed out by the founding fathers of quantum theory, Eugene Wigner and John von Neumann, but this line of reasoning has not been adequately pursued.

There are also other areas within science besides quantum mechanics where consideration of

consciousness has become central. Artificial intelligence is an example, where the initial mood was very

similar to Newtonian hubris. Newtonian physicists thought everything in the world could be explained in terms of laws governing basic motions. Similarly, artificial intelligence researchers thought that all

aspects of human cognition could be explained simply in terms of rules governing our behavior. But soon

A-I researchers found that even the simplest aspects of human cognition could not be reproduced. Now they understand that to succeed in A-I we need a basic understanding of human consciousness. In

psychology too, behaviorism has proven to be insufficient, and what was called introspective psychology

is coming back into fashion.

So our institute is promoting the examination of overtly consciousness-based approaches to these problems within science today. Consciousness has been talked about within science in the past, but

always with a view to explain it away rather than explain it. Accepting that consciousness has a causal

role in the world is a very bitter medicine for scientists to swallow, but they are beginning to do it. And meta-physicists are also beginning to see that while there is undeniable reality to the subjective

dimension, any system claiming to explain it must bear relevance to the objective concerns of empiric

science. This is the challenge: to answer the pressing questions arising in science that call for consideration of consciousness with genuine consciousness-based paradigms.

How did you choose your speakers for the panel?

The first thing I did was contact Sir John Eccles. Eccles is very much known for his open stand that mind is different from the brain. Eccles was described by Libet as one of the five top neuroscientists of the

century. When he says that brain is different from the mind, in the very least you cannot tell him that he

does not know about the brain. He was the first to accept, which he did immediately. Once he agreed, everything else fell into place. We had to choose both theorists and experimenters. Data in this field is

very, very rare. We chose two people to present data that were from opposite camps. Benjamin Libet from

UCSF had data which seems to show that in some cases our apparent actions of free will, such as when our hand moves spontaneously to set the clock, may well be merely action triggered by the brain a full

half second before we desired to lift our hand. According to this data, our free will may well be an

afterthought! There are other ways to interpret his data, and Libet is the first to admit that his data deals at

best with local intentionalities, not global free will. Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunn presented data that shows the opposite, that consciousness has intentionality. These were the experimenters. Although

Pribram and Eccles might consider themselves experimenters as well, they presented no data. The rest of

the panel consisted of theorists of different fields: neuroscience, psychology, physics, artificial

intelligence, mathematics, and philosophy.

You mentioned that there is not much data in this field to draw from. What about the data in

neuroscience? Yes. This point was also raised during the panel discussion. It was Pribram who complained that not

enough of the existing data was sufficiently discussed at the conference. But John Searle came up with the

best rejoinder when he said that the problem of discussing data collected thus far is that all this data was gathered specifically to demonstrate that consciousness does not exist. Therefore how can we speak of

consciousness and use this data? First we need to do new research.

The difficulty is that science always goes by an operational definition. In order to make any concept

scientific, you must have an operational definition, because then it becomes falsifiable and hence becomes scientific. An operational definition is in itself an interesting concept. What it really means is that you can

propose any phenomena, like Newton proposed gravitation, but it must be eventually correlated to some

adhoc physical measurements. Consciousness, however, is by definition the one that measures, the one that does the observation. So how are you going to give an operational definition of it?

I think the answer lies in seeing that the interaction between consciousness and gross matter involves

subtle levels or realms of matter where other kinds of measurement than the ones that we are presently aware of can be made. The work of Robert Jahn and others are the kind of experiments in which more

precise operational definitions of phenomena that are closer to consciousness than gross matter, namely

mind, can be talked about. If we learn to see other orders of existence between consciousness and gross

matter, such as mind and intelligence, then scientists might be better able to conceptualize the ultimate phenomena.

Why have scientists been so reluctant to discuss consciousness in the past? Did you know that before Rutherford split the atom in 1911 scientists considered the question of what an

atom is a religious question?! For them it was enough that the hypothesis of the atom was useful to

explain certain physical processes. Kekule, who discovered the structure of benzene said, ‗The question

of whether or not atoms exist has little significance from a chemical point of view; its discussion belongs rather to metaphysics‘. But today the study of what's inside the atom is physics!

Similarly, scientists in this century have regarded the issue of what consciousness is as a religious or

metaphysical question. After all, Western science started out as a protest against religion. Since religion went inward, science saw its own task as going outward. But as science went further and further into the

external world, they ended up inside the atom where to their surprise they saw consciousness once again

staring them in the face! Even then scientists thought a hypothesis about consciousness was all that was needed. However, just as

the study of the atom has become what we call physics today, the study of what consciousness is, I feel,

may very soon become the science. William James said… ‗When science comes to eventually understand

consciousness it will be an achievement in the face of which every other achievement of science will pale into insignificance‘.

Many scientists equate mind and consciousness. Yet in your personal presentation at the conference you described mind as subtle matter, different from consciousness. What is your conception of mind, matter,

and consciousness?

In my talk, I approached the issue of consciousness from the perspective of AI. The first step here is to show the need for a new paradigm. That artificial intelligence needs a new paradigm has become apparent

from the variety of intractable problems in cognition we face in areas such as perception, natural language

processing, knowledge representation, and automatic reasoning. We have no general theory of

computation yet that can produce human cognition in machines. A task that comes naturally to a one year old child - recognizing the face of his or her mother - is hopelessly beyond the capacity of

supercomputers. What‘s required, is not just some new hardware/software schemes, but a fundamentally

new technology.

To understand what I mean let's compare electronic computers with mechanical calculators. Both are symbol processing systems. In principle, a mechanical system of gears and levers can be constructed to

reproduce the workings of any electronic computer. In practice, however, this will not be possible. A

mechanical system equivalent to even the simple desktop computer would be so enormous as to fill the entire planet and consume power that all the coal mines on earth cannot supply! This advantage of speed,

power, and size is present in electronic computers because IC chips involve operation of matter at a much

subtler level, obeying laws of a different kind from mechanical systems. You can‘t hope to make smaller and smaller mechanical parts and reach IC technology.

Similarly, AI researchers today think that by making IC chips smaller and smaller we will eventually

come to mind. But I argue that you can't do that. You have to go to another level to talk about mind. I am

postulating different levels of matter. I am suggesting that we have to think of mind as a subtler level of matter that operates much faster and under different laws than IC chips. You cannot reach that level

through nanotechnology.

Professor Bremmerman at UC Berkeley has shown that there are absolute limits to information processing in physical systems regardless of the details of their internal construction. For example, given a computer

of total mass m, the maximum information it can ever process is mc2/h bits/second, where h is the plank's

constant. He has gone on to show that even if we consider a computer that has been in operation for the duration of the entire universe, assuming that it has been in operation for the duration of the present age of

the universe, its total information capacity will not be enough to solve a travelling salesman's problem

involving no more than 100 cities! The conclusion is that the human brain, being a physical device, is

subject to the same absolute limitations, irrespective of its internal construction. If the brain alone was involved in human cognition, we should not be able to carry out the kind of complicated cognitive

operations that we do! Therefore, I have argued that what is involved in human cognition is information

processing involving levels much faster and hence subtler than the brain. If you accept this idea, that there is more to human cognition than the brain function - then there is

already a model of consciousness, intelligence, mind, and brain - in the Vedic texts that closely follows

these requirements. This Vedic model describes mind as a level of matter subtler than the brain.

According to this model, thought is to mind what motion is to objects, or behavior is to the body. That is, thoughts have no intrinsic semantic content. An example of this is when a driver drives a car. The idea of

the journey is not intrinsic to the car's motion, but a superimposition on the part of the driver. Similarly,

meaning is not intrinsic to thoughts of the material mind, but is a superimposition of subjective consciousness.

This idea, that thought is a mechanical output of matter at the subtle level of mind without intrinsic

meaning is a novel idea within Western tradition. If this idea can be shown to be of practical relevance to A-I, then I feel we can go one step nearer to the paradigm of consciousness, otherwise, to ask current

science to jump directly to consciousness is too much. This is a necessary step in what I have mentioned

about the third wave—finding the middle ground between consciousness and matter, and thus expanding

the domain of current science.

What is the difference between Cartesian dualism and the dualism of Vedanta, you are discussing?

Descartes said, ‗I am that that thinks, the soul, or the reason, or the understanding‘. He used all of these terms equivalently. Thinking, reasoning, and soul were all the same for him. This is the problem with

Cartesian dualism—that it lumped into one concept called mind all hierarchic cognitive traits. That is why

Cartesian dualism has no relevance for science, whereas the Vedic pluralism—in terms of consciousness, mind, and body—seems to give ideas about the presence of various levels of hierarchy in matter.

If you see a car moving on the street and you want to know why it's turning left or right, one might say,

‗All you need to do is study the mechanics of the car. The car is a complete system; there is nothing inside‘. But I come and say, ‗no, there is a driver in there‘. Now that is correct, but it's not sufficient. Still

you have to accept that there are several levels of mechanisms within the car, and there is a specific point

at which the driver is coming in contact with the car, the steering wheel and control panel. Descartes was

correct in thinking that there is an irreducible subjective residue that is essentially the self. That is exactly the same as the Vedic idea tat tvam asi, thou art that. But Descartes was not able to distinguish that there

is a subtle material substance called mind that is the point at which consciousness meets matter. There is a

hand and there is a glove. The glove is exactly like the hand but it is a cover. So the mind is very close to consciousness but it is matter.

Vedanta also has a monistic interpretation, monistic idealism if you will. In Shankara's view there is no objective reality to matter. It is all illusion. You hold a very different viewpoint on Vedanta.

Yes. There is a very established tradition of Vedic thought, monism, that is close to idealism. We are

proposing something different, a multidimensional, pluralistic approach to the whole issue of reality. We

are talking about individual consciousness and a supreme consciousness or God. We are also talking about matter as an objective reality, the shadow of consciousness, rather than an illusion or something that

really does not exist. This is theistic Vedanta. The question is which Vedic paradigm can import concepts

that can be shown to be empirically and analytically accountable. I do not think that monism can explain any of the problems of consciousness in science in a way relevant to science simply because, according to

the monistic viewpoint, in the ultimate analysis matter doesn't exist. Therefore the higher realizations of

monism by definition cannot have any bearing on modern science, which studies the domain of matter.

It seems that in attempting to bring consciousness into science, rather than keep the two separate, you are

attempting to bring value into a somewhat valueless technological world view.

I certainly hope so. Today science is totally without a framework for values. Any high-school boy or girl knows how to calculate the force with which a stone he or she throws will hit someone in the face, but

nothing in those equations they use will tell them whether or not to throw it. Given the fact that science is

perturbing our universe in greater and greater proportions, it is essential that we address the absence of values within science. We must note that the changes wrought by science and technology to our

environment are always irreversible. That is to say we cannot go on polluting our environment for years

and then one day suddenly say ‗Oops, that was a mistake, let's take it back.‘. It is easy to destroy

something, but much more difficult to put it back together again. To solve the problem of values we must know what is valuable. Consciousness is the most valuable

commodity. Without consciousness our own bodies as dear as they are to us, are suddenly without value.

This of course is a philosophical argument, but nonetheless a pragmatic one. If we accept it, then, to bring values into science, we need to connect science with what is valuable - Consciousness.

Cairns Smith is well known for his work in the field of chemical evolution. I was quite surprised to hear some of his remarks about consciousness. What is the Vedic view on evolution?

Darwinian evolution is biological. It talks about the needs of the biological system by which evolution

proceeds. But it is inadequate to explain the appearance of the first biological system. Therefore we have

theories of chemical evolution which precede biological evolution. Cairns Smith, as a chemical evolutionist, was pointing out that consciousness is fundamentally different from all other physical

phenomena because it acts back on the system that creates it. Consciousness has a two-way interplay that

Smith called interaction-ism. His realization was that this interaction-ism must be present at the most fundamental level of matter. It cannot evolve suddenly in matter.

He went to the extent of asserting that ‗To say that consciousness evolved from matter is to say that a TV

evolved from a refrigerator. Such things do not happen‘. He therefore postulated what he calls proto-conscious units, which are not themselves conscious, but have the potential for consciousness that

molecules and atoms don't have. However, in doing so he himself is dodging the issue. If proto-conscious

units are not conscious, then they have the same defect as matter in that they can't give rise to

consciousness. If they are conscious, then why not call them consciousness rather than proto-consciousness? This is the same thing that Minsky tried to do in his book Society of Minds. He tried to

show that there are certain things called minds that are not really minds, but when they all get together,

then you get mind. This degenerates ultimately into philosophical emergence, where something comes out

at the top of a structure that is not at the bottom of the structure. So you can see that even materialists invoke some fundamental conscious-like units different from known matter in an attempt to explain

consciousness.

We can congratulate Cairns-Smith for boldly recognizing the conceptual limitations of chemical evolution, but he has not yet taken the next step, which is to postulate consciousness as a separate

ontological category coexisting along with matter. This is what I feel scientists in every field should do to

solve the problem of consciousness in their respective fields. It won't suffice for scientists to assume that once we posit something as non-material that we cannot study it. We simply have to develop new

scientific tools.

As far as the Vedic viewpoint on the different levels of consciousness within different species, I once

explained this to Wigner. According to the Vedas, just as matter has fundamental particles called atoms, so consciousness is full of fundamental particles called cit kana. While every material atom is

unconscious and therefore devoid of individuality, every spiritual particle is conscious, and therefore it

has to be individual. Individuality is a fundamental axiomatic property of consciousness. Material atoms are governed by the laws of physics, and spiritual atoms are governed by love because they are units of

free will.

I explained to Wigner that each unit of consciousness interacts with matter, and we see its capabilities manifest in accordance with whichever material machine or body it interacts with. If you drive a

motorcycle and I drive a bicycle, you may go faster than me only because of the vehicle. It has nothing to

do with you or I, but the vehicles we are using. He asked me if I thought an amoeba had consciousness. I

told him that the Vedas do not say that an amoeba has consciousness, but rather that consciousness has an amoeba body! Just as in each vehicle you see on the road there is a different driver, similarly in each body

there is an individual conscious entity. According to the Vedas, all species exist at all times. Material

bodies do not evolve. But each individual conscious entity evolves, thus acquiring different bodies which correspond with the individual's particular state of conscious evolution.

This paradigm is not contra-intuitive, and different Western schools of thought can be accommodated

within it. Take for example reductionism, which claims that our behavior is essentially controlled by the

physical laws operating on our bodies. The Vedic viewpoint accepts that even though I am a conscious individual transcendent to the body, because I am using this particular body, I am constrained by its

operation according to material laws. Thus reductionism can be accommodated within this framework.

You can talk also of emergence. The more sophisticated my physical structure is, the more I can show my skills. Higher order structures will show higher order properties, not intrinsically but extrinsically because

consciousness can manifest more of its qualities. Dualism is also accommodated because the Vedic

paradigm admits that consciousness and matter are different. Phenomenology, which says that being-ness is an essential aspect of every structure that has consciousness, can be accommodated.

In short this Vedic model is the proverbial elephant of which different portions are being touched by so

many blind men. One blind man says that it is rationalistic, another dualistic, another idealistic monism,

another realism, but no one is seeing the entire elephant of this Vedic paradigm. The elephant is that there are two ontological categories, consciousness and matter, and the two interact to form our world.

Can't you also say that matter is a vitiated form of consciousness, that everything is ultimately consciousness?

…This involves a higher philosophical discussion. I can see that at some level of God consciousness we

can think of consciousness and matter in these terms—as you put it, seeing matter as a vitiated form of consciousness. But presently that vitiated form of consciousness acts differently as matter, and therefore it

can be considered as a separate ontological category.

As the discussion of the conscious self enters the scientific arena it seems that we are at a critical juncture. What is the future of science?

I don't think that I can do better than to quote scientists who are greater than myself, who at the ends of

their careers have given some reflections. I have some favorite quotes. W. Penfield, one of the top

neuroscientists of the century, said in an article called Science, the Ox, and the Spirit: ‗The physical basis of the mind is the brain action in each individual. It accompanies the activity of the

spirit, but the spirit is free. It is capable of some degree of initiative. The spirit is the man one knows. He

must have continuity through periods of coma and sleep. I assume then that the spirit must live on somehow after death. I cannot doubt that many make contact with God and have guidance from a greater

spirit. If he had only a brain and not a mind, this difficult decision would not be his‘.

The tendency to see the human mind in terms of the latest technology of the times is an old one. In earlier times mind was thought of as a steam engine, as a clock, and before that as a catapult. Today the attempt

is to equate mind with the brain. But here is something from Ludwig Wittgenstein from his Last Writings

on the Philosophy of Psychology: ‗Nothing seems more possible to me than that people some day will

come to the definite opinion that there is no copy in the nervous system which corresponds to a particular thought or to a particular idea of memory‘.

Szent-Giorgi, the Nobel laureate biologist, said, …‘I went through my entire scientific career searching

for life, but now I see that life has somehow slipped through my fingers and all I have is electrons, protons, and particles, which have no life at all. So in my old age I am forced to retrace my steps‘.

So I think the great advantage of discussing the notion of the conscious self within our scientific

paradigms is that we can actually enlarge our framework. In order to do that we need help, and I don't think that anyone can deny that the Vedic literatures are the single most vast body of literature that

seriously deals with this topic. From page one to the end it is Conscious(ness) all the way.

Science, as long as it remains bound to empirical reductionism, can say nothing about the Conscious-Self.

Many in the contemporary world have tried to define perception such that it fits into their existing paradigms, but this has only made our problems more acute. Time has come to redefine scientific

procedures such that they explain the conscious self. We need as many new ideas as we can get. If we are

so foolhardy as to reject the entire wisdom preceding us, such as the Vedic paradigm I have presented, then what assurance do we have that our present-day knowledge will not similarly be rejected by future

generations?

Science is rooted in observations, and our conscious self is the very tool by which we observe. Even the

strongest giant cannot lift the platform on which he stands. As great as scientific knowledge is, it cannot explain the conscious self within its present observational framework. To experience it is to observe it.

Google‘s robotic cars unveiled - Oct 10th…Posted by Awesome-o in Robotics …

Out of the blue and in a post titled ―What we are driving at‖ written by Stanford professor Sebastian

Thrun of Grand and Urban Challenge fame (at least to the public

because he is otherwise very well known in research circles), it was unveiled yesterday that Google has been developing robotic cars

for urban environments. And they have been testing these

autonomous vehicles in our cities.

Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus to our Santa Monica office and on to

Hollywood Boulevard. They‘ve driven down Lombard Street,

crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in

all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles. We think

this is a first in robotics research. The self-driving cars come equipped with laser, radar and vision

sensors much like the cars that competed in the Urban Challenge a few years ago. Google has automated

a handful of Priuses and an Audi TT as part of this project. Stanford is also preparing an Audi TTS for

autonomously driving to the top of Pikes Peak. Actually, this project was in the works back in 2007 when Google licensed some of Stanford‘s technology

used in DARPA‘s competitions and also hired professor Thrun who in the past was rumored to be

working on his own technology start up with the aim of mapping cities.

So what should we expect the outcome of such a project to be? First of all, expect near real-time updates of Google maps. Second, expect that these technologies will eventually become available for all cars

which will drastically change the way we commute using our favorite means of transportation.

Autonomous cars promise to eliminate road congestion allowing more cars to share the road by driving closer together. But before any of this becomes a reality, it has to be shown that the robotic vehicles are

safe especially in the early days when these marvels of technology will have to share the road with human

drivers.

www.gaurdian.co.uk/science...How to improve science journalism?... science reporting needs more

context because science itself is a stream of discovery, where every new result builds upon those that

came before it. By presenting every new paper (or worse, every new press release) in isolation, we get a

stilted, jarring view of scientific progress. Flip through the entries and you'll see scientists building on each other's work, refining their techniques

and competing with one another to make the next breakthrough.