If there was a drug that meant you never had to sleep again, would you take it? Would those who didn’t need to sleep have special advantages over those who did? All that and a side of zombies, in this week’s episode of Meanwhile in the Future.
In the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks, futuristic post-humans install devices on their brains called a “neural lace.” A mesh that grows with your brain, it’s essentially a wireless brain-computer interface. But it’s also a way to program your neurons to release certain chemicals with a thought. And now, there’s a neural lace prototype in real life.
Mesh electronics being injected through sub-100 micrometer inner diameter glass needle into aqueous solution (credit: Lieber Research Group, Harvard University)
Microtransponder’s vagus nerve stimulator uses precisely-timed jolts to help stroke victims relearn movements more quickly
My latest article for Vice Motherboard. It’s about consciousness and a so-called ‘Turing Test’ that superintelligence might one day use on humans:
Biometric technology was once the stuff of sci-fi—how many movies show someone having their hand or eye scanned to get entry into a secured facility? But today biometric tech can be found in millions of people’s pockets—as the fingerprint scanner on an iPhone.
Of course, fingerprint scanning isn’t foolproof. Hackers have stolen fingerprints from photos, and used fake prints to fool Apple’s touch ID. Plus, there’s always the brute force method, like the time a gang in Malaysia cut off a guy’s fingertip—with a machete—to interface with the fingerprint-recognition system on the victim’s Mercedes. Read more
“What are the implications of a technology that wires brains together, that in theory at least permits the existence of hive minds? In fact, you know a lot more about that than you might think. You already are a hive mind. You always have been.” Read more
“The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) announced today that 26 of the nation’s top biomedical researchers will become HHMI investigators and will receive the flexible support necessary to move their research in creative new directions. The initiative represents an investment in basic biomedical research of $153 million over the next five years.”
“Nara is essentially a matchmaking system that finds and understands entities in any data set, from people and places to businesses and abstract concepts, then builds a massive knowledge graph that shows weighted links between those entities. Wilson says Nara inserts users right into that knowledge graph to offer personalized recommendations. Knowing a bit about the user is what allows Nara to light up other things they might like. And the system can scrape public databases to enhance its knowledge.”
