Not The Onion: RatCar
October 5th, 2010This attempt was a flop, but with endless grant swindles, more quackademics each year and a steady supply of creatures to butcher in the spirit of Dr. Mengele, who knows?
Via: IEEE:
RatCar
“The vehicle moved forward synchronously with a rat when it was placed inside,” says Fukayama, but he adds that the degree to which the car was being controlled by the rat itself was unclear.
Since the rat would be forcibly moved along with the car, measuring its real intentions became a challenging problem. Another difficulty was that only a small percentage of the electrodes actually recorded neural activity, and the recorded neurons didn’t necessarily correlate with target movements.
Related:
DARPA: Cyborg Beetle Piloted by Remote Control
on most weekdays, i go to the office of a client company that is across the road from those guys’ lab in the U of Tokyo engineering school. apparently, this is what passes for science and engineering at the U of Tokyo grad schools. oh, ffs, what a bunch of wankers. the fact that their lab is filled exclusively with Japanese males is quite telling. any decent prof would have a much broader cross-section of researchers applying.