Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / NewStats: 3,194,061 members, 7,953,202 topics. Date: Thursday, 19 September 2024 at 12:25 PM |
Nairaland Forum / Science/Technology / A Worm's Brain Powers A Robot (812 Views)
How To Build A Robot For Beginners / When Inventions Go Wrong: A Robot Meant To Show Love Goes Too Far! / Will A ROBOT Steal Your JOB? Believe It Or Not, This Receptionist Is A Robot! (2) (3) (4)
A Worm's Brain Powers A Robot by Frankenstein: 5:57pm On Jan 05, 2015 |
When you think about it, the brain is really nothing more than a collection of electrical signals. If we can learn to catalogue those then, in theory, you can upload someone’s mind onto a computer, allowing them to live forever as a digital form of consciousness, just like in the Johnny Depp film Transcendence. But it’s not just science fiction. Sure, scientists aren’t anywhere near close to achieving such feat with humans (and even if they could, the ethics would be pretty fraught), but now an international team of researchers have managed to do just that with the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans . C. elegans is a little nematodes that have been extensively studied by scientists - we know all of their genes and their nervous system has been analysed many times. Now a collective called the OpenWorm project has mapped all the connections between the worm’s 302 neurons and managed to simulate them in software, as Marissa Fessenden reports for the Smithsonian. The ultimate goal of the project is to completely replicate C. elegans as a virtual organism, but for now, they’ve only managed to simulate its brain, and they’ve now uploaded that into a simple Lego robot. This Lego robot has all the equivalent limited body parts that C. elegans has - a sonar sensor that acts as a nose, and motors that replace its motor neurons on each side of its body. Amazingly, without any instruction being programmed into the robot, the C. elegans brain upload controlled and move the Lego robot. Lucy Black writes for I Programmer : "It is claimed that the robot behaved in ways that are similar to observed C. elegans. Stimulation of the nose stopped forward motion. Touching the anterior and posterior touch sensors made the robot move forward and back accordingly. Stimulating the food sensor made the robot move forward." This video of the Lego-worm-robot was released by Timothy Busbice, a founder of OpenWorm, showing it moving, stopping and then travelling backwards. Of course, the brain simulation still isn’t exact - for one, the researchers had to simplify the process that triggers an artificial neuron to fire. But the fact that this robot can move, stop before it bumps into something and reverse using nothing more than a network of connections that mimic a worm’s brain, is pretty incredible. Scientists are now working out how to map all the connections in the human brain - something called the connectome. Even if we’re not uploading our brains into computers, just being able to simulate a human brain would help to revolutionise artificial intelligence and computers. And if we could one day get to the point where we can somehow get our minds to escape the vulnerable fleshy meat sacks that currently house them, the opportunities would, quite literally, be mind-blowing. http://www.sciencealert.com/watch-scientists-have-put-a-worm-s-brain-into-a-lego-robot-s-body-and-it-works |
Re: A Worm's Brain Powers A Robot by Nmeri17: 6:30pm On Jan 05, 2015 |
to what end?? I find this saddening and disgusting. human beings trying to outdo God. to what end I ask again?? the end is nigh!! |
Re: A Worm's Brain Powers A Robot by Frankenstein: 7:03pm On Jan 05, 2015 |
Nmeri17:I think you're looking at it from a different angle. No matter what scientists do, they can never outdo God. They're merely modifying what He has already created. This new discovery can help humanity in a lotta ways, mate. |
Re: A Worm's Brain Powers A Robot by Nmeri17: 8:13pm On Jan 05, 2015 |
Frankenstein: it will actually lead humanity to self destruction. I'm not being pessimistic but imagine all the negative things that could be achieved when this process is being successfully repeated on human beings. as if cloning is not bad enough -__- |
Re: A Worm's Brain Powers A Robot by Frankenstein: 9:28am On Jan 06, 2015 |
Nmeri17:Think about the positive aspect...a major advancement in Neuroscience. Biological bots that don't need instructions can help humanity in industries, agriculture and space exploration. |
Re: A Worm's Brain Powers A Robot by Nmeri17: 10:17am On Jan 06, 2015 |
Frankenstein: bro, honestly I have no intentions of arguing with yu. u can stay optimistic all u want. but perhaps if yu were a bit realistic, you'd see things from my perspective and appreciate my point of view do have a nice day. duty calls |
(1) (Reply)
I Need An App That Monitors Conversations / Creating Enough Storage On Iphone 6/6 Plus/6s/6s Plus / Logical Explaination Of Disapearance Of Water From Kara, Ogun River
(Go Up)
Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 17 |