- Surgeons are preparing to create the first husband and
wife cyborgs: they intend to implant computer chips in a British professor
and his wife to see if they can communicate sensation and movement by
thought
alone.
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- The professor hopes it will show how two brains can
interact;
doctors at Stoke Mandeville hospital, who will perform the surgery, hope
it will lead to new treatments for paralysis victims.
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- In the experiment Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics
at Reading University, and his wife, Irena, will have silicon chips about
2in long implanted in their arms just above the elbow. Each chip will also
have a power source, a tuner and a radio transceiver. They will be
surgically
connected to nerve fibres in the couple's arms.
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- The signals from Warwick will be converted to radio waves
and transmitted to a computer which will re- transmit them to the chip
in Irena. Warwick believes that when he moves his own fingers, his brain
will also be able to move Irena's.
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- They may even be able to communicate anger and
excitement,
because emotions also stimulate nerve activity. "It is like putting
a plug into the nervous system," said Warwick.
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- "If I move my left index finger by sending signals
to move the muscles, those signals will also be transmitted to Irena's
nervous system. We know the signal is transmissable. The question is
whether
it will be recognised in the same way by Irena."
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- The signal could reach Irena's brain as well as her
fingers.
Not surprisingly she is wary, "I have mixed feelings because I'm
worried
about the operation, being under an anaesthetic," she said. "On
the other hand, it is exciting." Apart from the novelty and
excitement,
she does not want her husband to be "linked up to another
woman".
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- Ali Jamous, the surgeon who will lead the operation on
the couple, says the technology may one day help people who are paralysed
by spinal cord damage. "The nerves in the leg below the lesion are
still working but cannot make contact with the brain," he said.
"If
we could transmit that signal from one side of the lesion to the other,
you could bypass the break."
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- With Warwick he aims to connect both motor and sensory
nerves to the chip in the hope that signals from one or both will prove
transmissable. "It should work because the basic science is
good,"
he said.
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- Ian Pearson, who studies emerging technologies for
British
Telecom, says several centres are researching cyborgs: "The aim is
to control computers and other equipment through direct links to the brain.
It is control by thought and I know the military are very
interested."
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- At Massachusetts Institute of Technology in America,
cyborg research is concentrated mainly on wearable computers. These can
be set in clothing fabric like a printed circuit, or worn as a pair of
spectacles that can project images onto the eye.
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- However, Warwick, who hopes to undergo the operation
in September, believes he is in the vanguard: "I think we have a
window
of a few months and we will be the first." Provided he does not fall
out with his wife.
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