OT: How Amazing

[QuarianRex]

Originally posted by atari_eric:

quote:

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Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
One good thing is that for people who have not been blind from birth, the brain is already wired and trained to process colour, depth perception, word shapes and all sorts of similar skills.

Simply providing a bridge over some damage to a brain that is ready and waiting for visual info is a much simpler prospect than trying to give someone a sense they have never had the use of before.

I'm not so sure. I think if you gave such a device to someone who didn't have eyes, their brain would learn to use the device using techniques optimized for the device, instead of adapting previous techniques from another organ...

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This is half true. The brain can adapt to just about anything, if you get to it fast enough. If the brain doesn't achieve certain key milestones during development it never will (or at least not up to a completely functional state). An example of this ould be "phantom limbs". Where an amputee can still feel their missing limb. This is quite prevalent among adult amputees because their brains have adopted a configuration that includes the missing limb. The brain essentially still has a 'slot' open for it. Child amputees, on the other hand, never have phantom limb. Their brain is still in development and so the unused portion of the brain devotes itself to other things. Simply, the brain edits out that the limb was ever there. This may mean that adult amputees would be eligible or cybernetic limp replacement but a now-grown child amputee would not.

Of course there could always be workarounds. Using unrelated motor impulses to stimulate the new limb would be posible but awkward (imagine having to control all of your leg movements using kugi-kiri hand gestures).

[Ragnarok-X]

Mankind always developes new technologies. Its just that the time between major steps seems to grow proportional. Im not talking about different engines (i.e. oil -> hydrogen) but rather steps like animals->engines->? and stuff.

I have to admit that, at the current position mankind stands still, is maybe even moving back. I dont know what will be in a few douzen years, but if things not change fundamentally we will go back a few hundred, if not even more, years.
Technology is all good and fine, until certain people decide technology shouldnt be used for human's good.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Originally posted by dogscoff:

quote:

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Last I heard, stem cells were gotten from the unborn.
and I suggest that discussion break off here.

Then you haen't been keeping up to date. Stem cells can now be found in all kinds of places that do not involved aborted foetuses or "the unborn" at all.

Imagine someone in need of a new kidney giving a DNA swab from their mouth, and having stem cells grown from that, and from those stem cells a new organ being grown specifically for them. Since the genetic material would be their own, there would be no (or very little) risk of rejection, which would make the process infinitely more successful. etc...

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Well, that's a load off my mind.

[Randallw]

First off, I like Atrocities have a disability. I am totally deaf in one ear because I have a disease that ruins my hearing. I take comfort at least that if my other ear goes I can still play SE4 (with the sound turned off) and uses the internet, plus I can still read (in fact I can read while blocking my good ear with one finger). Anyway back to the topic. Every month I go to the Library and read Popular Mechanic and Science. Its amazing what technologies are being built. As well as the monkey strapped into a machine so only the bionic arm run from cables in its head moves, there are replicators being built. Not molecular ones, but simple ones printing 3 dimensional shapes. In the future you could have your replicator in your workshop and when you need new cutlery or crockery or maybe furniture you just "print" one out.

[dogscoff]

Yeah, they use those 3D printers to make models of new cars and things. It's really sci-fi looking.

Talking about "printing" 3D objects- I can't remember if it was here or somewhere else but I read about a new type of printer- that "prints" buildings! it's a robot that scoots around and leaves a trail of concrete behind it. It "draws" out the outline of the walls, waits for the concrete to set, then lays the next layer of concrete on top, and the next...

It can only do single-story buildings with domed roofs, but it sounds like a way-cool toy.

[Randallw]

Another technology I keep my eyes out for are Solar Chimneys. Basically you have hot air from green houses rising up the chimney turning turbines. All you need are plenty of space to build Kilometer tall buildings, and 16 hours of sunlight a day, which here in Australia we have nothing but. They've built small prototypes and Last I heard our parliament had allowed it, but I'm not sure what progress has been made since.

Edit: oh, and a year or two ago I read of Mechs being developed to use in construction.

[ March 25, 2004, 07:23: Message edited by: Randallw ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

*sigh* a few solar power satalites are all a country needs...

[ March 25, 2004, 07:59: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]