First step toward uploading?

From: Brent Allsop (allsop@fc.hp.com)
Date: Fri Aug 25 2000 - 10:34:29 MDT


Extropians,

        There's a great pointer on www.nanodot.org to info about a
grant that his being given to Brown University to fund a project using
nano devices to study, probe, and communicate with the brain on the
neuron scale.

        The most fascinating thing to me is this terse comment:

> The group's proposal is to create a tiny device that would emit
> light to stimulate brain cells and record light from brain cells,
> analogous to a camera.

        Wooow, do brain neurons produce light? And are they sensative
to real light? I have never heard anything like this before. I've
got to do a literature and web search for more information on this.
If anyone has any pointers to more information on this topic please
forward them to me!

        This is fantastic!!! Ability to communicate with neurons at
this scale is always what I've figured would be required before we can
ever understand what is going on in there. This MRI stuff, as
unbelievable as it is, is just a big joke! Can you imagine trying to
figure out what a computer does and how it works without a logic probe
but only using something external like an MRI?

                Brent Allsop



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