Remote Control Pigeons

Neiry Pigeon

From Medusa:

Russian neurotechnology company says it can steer pigeon flocks with implanted brain chips

The Russian neurotechnology company Neiry claims to have begun field testing a flock of pigeons with chips implanted in their brains, allowing researchers to steer the birds from the laboratory into the wild and back. According to reporting by Forbes Russia, Neiry says its operators can upload flight patterns to pigeons by stimulating specific areas of the brain. Neiry spokespeople said that through this process, the bird itself “wants” to fly in the directions chosen by researchers. “There’s no training required: Any animal becomes remotely controllable after the operation,” the company claimed.

The surgeries are performed on a production line with a precision-guided setup that inserts electrodes into targeted regions of the brain. Neiry says its researchers “seek a 100-percent survival rate for the birds undergoing the procedure,” though it did not provide current survival figures. The device emits signals that influence the bird’s impulses, prompting it to turn left or right. The bird’s location is tracked by GPS, and the onboard electronics run on solar panels affixed to the bird’s back.

Neiry says its “biodrone” technology has applications for monitoring power transmission lines, gas distribution hubs, and other types of infrastructure.

Magic Touch

Why a gentle touch feels like love
Hannah Fry

Just one of those things that we instinctively know, but we did not consciously know it.

The great porn experiment | Gary Wilson | TEDxGlasgow

Neurochemistry, addiction and high-speed internet porn. Explains a lot of stuff.

Time flies like an arrow,

Fly Brain Imaged at Nanoscale Resolution
HHMI Howard Hughes Medical Institute

fruit flies like bananas. Talking to a neurobiology student last night. They're studying fruit fly brains. These brains have 100,000 neurons and it's pretty well understood how they work. That's for some value of 'pretty well'. This video is an easy introduction.

Artificial brain-controlled limbs as brain therapy to reactivate real limbs

Stolen entire from Brian Micklethwait's New Blog:

About a week ago now, I did a posting here about a monkey that had learned to pay pong using only its brain, with no merely physical contrivance whatever. Well, the other day (which other day is of no consequence) I had a most pleasing conversation with someone called Paolo, who had been reading my blog, pleasing because it’s great to get feedback from such persons. And he referred in particular to this monkey plays pong posting.

He mentioned that, of course, one of the obvious applications of such wizardry is to help crippled people by equipping them with artificial limbs, which they control with pure brain power.

But Paolo then added a tweak to this story, by telling me that the mere process of enabling people to control a piece of machinery with their brains was actually getting them back in control of their own limbs, again. The reason being that if the brain gets no results from sending out body control messages, it in due course simply gives up and forgets how to do it. But if those same messages produce visible results with a piece of machinery, like a some kind of artificial arm which can, I don’t know, get food out of a cupboard or some such thing, then the brain’s enthusiasm for sending out these messages is rewarded and reinforced, in a positive feedback loop. And that can have the effect of the brain eventually getting control of its own body back again, because eventually the messages it sends out get through to the original limb, which has by now begun to recover. Usually, by the time such recovery has begun, the brain has lost interest. But by giving the relevant bit of the brain another reason to be doing it, in a way that’s very visible to the brain, the brain continues with the messages, and the messages eventually get through to their original destination.

So, installing a piece of useful brain-controlled machinery can have the effect not only of replacing immobilised limbs, but of actually bringing those same limbs back to life again.

Remarkable. Again, I’m very possibly telling you things you already know. But even if you did know this, I think you may agree that this is a remarkable development, worth celebrating.