Rat flies fighter jet

[simpo two]

Scientists at the University of Florida have taken cells from a rat embryo; grown a brain in a dish; and taught it how to control a jet plane...

http://uk.special.reserve.co.uk/n_3323-news.html

[alexkp]

That's very impressive.

The implications of that could be enormous.

[v8thunder]

"Squeak squeak, this is your pilot speaking"

[simpo two]

And when car speeds are all remote-controlled by satellite, rats will be able to drive cars as well.

[eharding]

Some cobblers on the web said:

"Not bad for 25,000 neurones laid out across a grid of 60 electrodes in a petri dish"

I've had a few hangovers which left me feeling like that.....but I avoid flying when I'm in that state.

[sadako]

What would be interesting would be to feed 25000 artificial neurons into a minsky + papert microworld sim to see if it would do the same thing and prove connectionist theory.

[JonRB]

It's funny - I've been wondering whether to start a thread on this subject all week, ever since the news broke on the Telegraph, The Register, Fark, etc. etc.

[centurion07]

"Reports that the rat brain asked for permission to buzz the control tower appear to be unfounded."

[mybrainhurts]

Have they tested this on Blair and gang...?