Holy Rat Brains, Batman!
Today, the BBC is running an article entitled [Rat-brained robot does distant art][1]. The idea is that a collection of 50,000 rat neurons in a petri dish at Georgia’s Institute of Technology is controlling a robotic arm at the University of Western Australia in Perth, and directing it to make drawings.
Does this seem just the teensiest bit strange to people?
The scientists describe the rat-brain as ‘semi-living artistic entities”. Somehow this conjures up the image of Vincent Van Gogh’s zombie corpse, staggering around chanting alternately “Brains…” and “Crayons…”.
Of course the real question is “who is funding this mad science, and how can I get in on it?”. Perhaps this technology could be applied to making sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads.
You can check out more on this project at the MEART webpage.