"Scientists have connected the brains of lab rats, allowing one to communicate directly to another via cables. The wired brain implants allowed sensory and motor signals to be sent from one rat to another, creating the first ever brain-to-brain interface." [Jen Whyntie at the BBC]

  • hamdinger

    Link is dead?

  • http://www.facebook.com/margaret.reardon.5 Margaret Reardon

    Could I have my brain linked to the brain of someone who knows what they’re doing?

    • http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

      How to know? Perhaps we should call the link a Dunning–Kruger bridge… forever discovering that everyone who thinks they’re infallible are fools, and the wisest are exhausted by constantly fighting their internal impostor syndrome.

      Or, put another way, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

      • Antinous / Moderator

        Turning and turning in the widening Habitrail,
        The rat cannot hear the Pied Piper.

        • http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

          What rough beast slouches toward facebook to be born?

    • http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

      Pro tip: nobody really knows what they’re doing.

  • http://twitter.com/BrerMatt Matt Hoskins

    Brain to Brain interface?

    Are you pondering what I’m pondering, Pinky?

    • oasisob1

      I think so, Brain, but where are we going to get 500 gallons of cheese sauce at this time of night?

    • nachoproblem

      I think so, Brain, but me and Pippi Longstocking? What would the children look like?

  • Cowicide

    Don’t they already do this to humans with television “programming”?

    • howaboutthisdangit

      I was thinking of the “idiot box” of the 21st Century, social media. 

  • ldobe

    I’m just imagining two rats sitting at a miniscule piano, connected by a mess of wires sprouting from their skulls, playing chopsticks.

  • http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki

    A story about mind melding above Spock socks. Irony.

  • http://www.kmoser.com kmoser

    I believe our senses like hearing, touch and vision were the first brain-to-brain interfaces: one person does something, the other sees and/or hears it and responds accordingly. Voila! Brain-to-brain communication via sensory channels.

    • IamInnocent

       Too bad we can’t help but fuck about the simplest things in life.

      • euansmith

        That’s what Civilization is all about.

    • gjbloom

      Indeed.  The exciting bit here is that we may eventually have much higher bandwidth connections between brains.  Right now, a thought has to be abstracted into symbols, then encoded on a stream of air waves or characters, then decoded by the receiving brain, then more-or-less reconstituted in the brain of the receiver.  If we had high-bandwidth brain interconnects, whole thoughts and perceptions might jump from brain to brain at the speed of thought.  As a side-effect, our sense of individuality would be transformed.  Our current notion of individuality is an artifact of the bandwidth bottleneck between our brains.

  • Boundegar

    Am I the only one horrified by this story?  “Scientists do amusing things to the BRAINS OF LIVING ANIMALS”

    • euansmith

      Or to put it another way,  ”Scientists do potentially useful things to the BRAINS OF LIVING ANIMALS”

      • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

        Or even better ”Scientists do potentially useful things for people to the BRAINS OF LIVING PEOPLE”

        If it were for the benefit of the rats, then fair play.

        • euansmith

          Now you’re talking! Better still, “Scientists do potentially Apocalypic things for people to the BRAINS OF UNLIVING PEOPLE”

    • Bradley Robinson

      Well BRAINS OF DEAD ANIMALS wouldn’t exactly work, now would they?

  • Mr. Son

    I for one welcome our new telepathic rat overlords.

    Seriously though, this was so awesome to hear that once I’d gone over the article, I immediately called up my family to share the news. Electronic telepathy! I’m looking forward to what new technologies emerge from this. Games controlled directly by the mind, art tools, communication systems, etc… It’s a marvel!

    • peregrinus

      I can’t wait for some 13 year olds to hack Kim Jong-un and make him dance Gangnam style whilst masturbating in front of the UN.

      • Antinous / Moderator

        He’s besties with Dennis Rodman as of this week. With any luck, we’ll see some makeup and a new hair color.

        • peregrinus

          Aaaaah – Dennis is a trojan horse!  He must have a wired-up Ceti eel or two to slip into KJ-u’s ear – I am so watching the news carefully for the next 3 weeks.

    • euansmith

      Adverts straight from Google to your brain without the need for Glasses.

    • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

      They already have games that you can control via your mind. Seriously: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1880784,00.html

  • Rich Keller

    It’s a hardwired Rat King.

  • peregrinus

    I hereby proclaim myself Great Ned Ludd Leader of UnwiredBrainz.org – proponents and zealots of free will and freedom.

    Our brainz will not be eaten by teeth nor binary codez.

  • euansmith

    “Thank you for agreeing to our terms and conditions. In line with this agreement, your long term memory has now been encrypted and monetized. You can access your memories by entering your PIN. Please have your credit card details to hand…”

    • howaboutthisdangit

      iMemory.  Keep your memories in the cloud.  What could possibly go wrong?

      • peregrinus

        http://boingboing.net/2013/02/28/macworld-uk-apple-censoring-i.html

        A: “Dear, what have you been doing this last half hour?”

        B: “Umm … I don’t know.”

        A: “What do you mean you don’t know?  What have you been doing?”

        B: “Ummm …. nothing.  I mean … I don’t know.”

        A: “You filthy pervert!  Your account is blank!  You filthy disgusting pervert!  I’m having nothing more to do with you!”

        B: “What?!  What did you say?!”

        A: “Hmm?  Nothing.  I don’t know.  What have you been doing this last half hour?”

      • euansmith

         iMemory Mapping; not as accurate as Google Memory Mapping.

  • NickPheas
  • http://echofox3.blogspot.com efergus3

    Next – pleasure center to pleasure center. What one rat does, the other will enjoy also.