Lifeboat Foundation

I’ve been reading Ramez Naam’s fantastic book “Nexus,” which is set in a near-future where a powerful nano-drug allows human minds to connect together. In the story, a group of enterprising neuroscientists and engineers discover they can use the drug in a new way — to run a computer operating system inside their brains. Naam’s characters telepathically communicate with each other using a mental chat app and even manipulate other people’s bodies by gaining control of their brains’ operating systems.

Sounds far-fetched, right?

It might not be as far-fetched as you think. From connecting a human brain to a basic tablet to help a paralyzed patient communicate with the outside world to memory-boosting brain implants and a prototype computer chip that runs on live neurons — the real world progress we’re seeing today is nearly as strange as fiction.

Continue reading “5 Incredible Ways Scientists Are Merging Our Brains With Machines” »

Dean Radin, Ph.D. and Chief Scientist of IONS, the Institute for Noetic Sciences, recently introduced the results of a series of experiments that may provide the missing link between consciousness and matter, turning the tables on materialism and asserting consciousness as a fundamental component of reality itself. Using a variation of the famous double-slit experiment, he and his team hypothesized that the conscious intent of a human mind might be able to collapse a quantum wave function without direct interaction. Simply by concentrating they postulated, meditation might be able to affect and influence quantum particles – the smallest components of matter that form our physical universe. .

Initial experiments used participants 2 meters away from the device. Alternating between asking participants to concentrate on the apparatus, then removing their attention showed astounding results. Fearing that temperature differences or other variables might have influenced the test, they offered the experiment to participants online. Using several thousand robotic control sessions to ensure that a determination could be made for the factor of human consciousness, the results were likewise astounding, with initial trial results of greater than 5 sigma.

Continue reading “Groundbreaking Research Shows Conscious Intention Directly Affects Quantum States; Scientific Basis for Mind of Over Matter?” »

The new BMI stentrode came from the research on sheep; nice to know for the next Trivia night at the local pub.

A group of Australian and American researchers have used sheep to develop and test a new device (original paper) – the stentrode – for recording electrical signals from inside the brain. The research was published in Nature Biotechnology. This new technology removes one of the main obstacles to developing efficient brain-computer interfaces: the need for invasive surgery.

Continue reading “Research using sheep leads to a new device to record and stimulate the brain” »

When the Holiday season kicks off next fall (2017); I have a feeling that I may end up buying a Penny Robot or a BMI controlled drone for my niece & nephews.

The post is also available in: Hebrew :הכתבה זמינה גם ב

A new research out of Arizona State University with DARPA funding.

Continue reading “Farewell Remote Controllers, Hello Brain Controlled UAV’s” »

Summary: Researchers have optimized optogenetics to map the neural circuits of the rodent brain with single neuron resolution.

Source: Max Planck Florida.

Researchers at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience are optimizing optogenetic methods for circuit mapping, enabling measurements of functional synaptic connectivity with single neuron resolution.

Sinais químicos do cérebro visto em tempo real.

Os investigadores injectaram estas células, conhecidas como CNiFERs (baseados em células repórteres fluorescentes modificadas neurotransmissor) no cérebro de ratos 13. Em seguida, eles cortaram uma janela para o cr nio de cada rato para expor seu cérebro e colocar uma tampa transparente em cima do buraco para que pudessem assistir as células acender em tempo real através de um microscópio.

A técnica é uma melhoria em métodos atuais, pois quantifica neurotransmissores diretamente em vez de calculá-los através de seus efeitos. “É um dos testes mais puros que você pode fazer”.

Continue reading “Brain’s chemical signals seen in real time” »

The hard problem of consciousness must be approached through the ontological lens of 20th century physics, which tells us that reality is information theoretic and quantized at the level of Planck scale spacetime. Through careful deduction, it becomes clear that information cannot exist without consciousness – the awareness of things. And to be aware is to hold the meaning of relationships of objects within consciousness – perceiving abstract objects, while enjoying degrees of freedom within the structuring of those relationships. This defines consciousness as language – a set of objects and an ordering scheme with degrees of freedom used for expressing meaning. And since even information at the Planck scale cannot exist without consciousness, we propose an entity called a “primitive unit of consciousness”, which acts as a mathematical operator in a quantized spacetime language. Quasicrystal mathematics based on E8 geometry seems to be a candidate for the language of reality, possessing several qualities corresponding to recent physical discoveries and various physically realistic unification models.

How will we interact with the intelligent machines of the future? If you’re asking Bryan Johnson, founder of startup Kernel, he’ll tell you those machines should be implanted inside our brains.

His team is working with top neuroscientists to build a tiny brain chip—also known as a neuroprosthetic —to help people with disease-related brain damage. In the long term, though, Johnson sees the product applicable to anyone who wants a bit of a brain boost.

Yes, some might flag this technology as yet another invention leading us toward a future where technology just helps the privileged get further in life.

Continue reading “The Tiny Brain Chip That May Supercharge Your Mind” »