FYI, enjoy your freedom of MIND while you still can (via FuturePundit):
Working with platinum nanowires 100 times thinner than a human hair - and using blood vessels as conduits to guide the wires - a team of U.S. and Japanese researchers has demonstrated a technique that may one day allow doctors to monitor individual brain cells and perhaps provide new treatments for neurological diseases such as Parkinson's.
Writing in the July 5, 2005, online issue of The Journal of Nanoparticle Research, the researchers explain it is becoming feasible to create nanowires far thinner than even the tiniest capillary vessels. That means nanowires could, in principle, be threaded through the circulatory system to any point in the body without blocking the normal flow of blood or interfering with the exchange of gasses and nutrients through the blood-vessel walls...
Already, the researchers note, physicians routinely use arterial pathways to guide much larger catheter tubes to specific points in the body. This technique is frequently used to study blood flow around the heart, for example.
Following the same logic, the researchers envision connecting an entire array of nanowires to a catheter tube that could then be guided through the circulatory system to the brain. Once there, the wires would spread into a "bouquet," branching out into tinier and tinier blood vessels until they reached specific locations. Each nanowire would then be used to record the electrical activity of a single nerve cell or small groups of them.
If the technique works, the researchers say, it would be a boon to scientists who study brain function. Current technologies, such as positron emission tomography (PET) scans and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), have revealed a great deal about how neural circuits process, say, visual information or language. But the view is still comparatively fuzzy and crude. By providing information on the scale of individual nerve cells, or "neurons," the nanowire technique could bring the picture into much sharper focus.
Sounds harmless enough, right?
"In this case, we see the first-ever application of nanotechnology to understanding the brain at the neuron-to-neuron interaction level with a non-intrusive, biocompatible and biodegradable nano-probe," said Roco. "With careful attention to ethical issues, it promises entirely new areas of study, and ultimately could lead to new therapies and new ways of treating diseases. This illustrates the new generations of nanoscale active devices and complex nanosystems."
Likewise, the nanowire technique could greatly improve doctors' ability to pinpoint damage from injury and stroke, localize the cause of seizures, and detect the presence of tumors and other brain abnormalities. Better still, Llinás and his coauthors point out, the nanowires could deliver electrical impulses as well as receive them. So the technique has potential as a treatment for Parkinson's and similar diseases...
Hah, yes, careful attention ethical issues, right! B/c if these guyz can also send electrical impulses to nano-targeted areas of the brain - well, take it away, Randall:
Picture an embedded nanotech computer wired up to feed the mind information as images, sounds, or simply thoughts that suddenly happen. At the extreme the nanowires could be used to take over a person and control them. Picture a "Manchurian Candidate" controlled by a foreign power. Or picture criminals whose nanocomputers monitor their thoughts and send inhibiting messages that prevent violent acts and other forbidden behavior.
Using embedded nanowire sensors to make sense of complex thoughts in brains will remain hard to do for years to come. But I predict that identification of some basic emotions or urges will be easier to accomplish. Once reactive loops to suppress emotions such as hostility or sexual desire reach technical feasibility consider the issues we'll face. Should rapists or pedophiles up for parole be required to submit to nanowire circuitry implants that suppress their sexual desires? One can even imagine a home surveillance system where the parolee can get their sexual desires unlocked only if they present a willing adult to a video camera hooked up to a police station. A parolee's sexual desires could even get automatically deactivated using a GPS monitoring device that activates as they leave home. Or a home transmitter that unblocks their sexual desire circuits could have a reach of only, say, 50 feet around their house and as they move away they lose the signal that allows their sexual desires to work.
Repressive regimes could use embedded nanowire circuits to ensure obedience or as interrogation tools to activate a person's memories and force them to talk...
It's not all scary - not only could we FINALLY have the old Michael J. Fox back, but:
On the bright side embedded nanowires could enable viewing of movies or listening without any external device to carry along. One could have an embedded internet link to allow one to think search requests.
Is THIS the secret to the secret Google cheat codes?? The mInd-pod? Imagine being at a party and cyberstalking people WHILE YOU ARE AT THE PARTY, in the privacy of your own skull!
Who knows - the only thing about this kind of shit that would truly shock me is if we actually figure out some way to settle the aforementioned 'ethical issues' in a meaningful and organized way before shit starts going buck wild. All I know is, if and when I die I will look back on my 24 y/o self and say 'that fool had no idea what was coming, NONE!', and I hope that I will still be a chill enough dude to add '...but, how could he?'