Harvard creates cyborg flesh that’s half man, half machine

Harvard creates cyborg flesh that’s half man, half machine

Bioengineers at Harvard University have created the first examples of cyborg tissue: Neurons, heart cells, muscle, and blood vessels that are interwoven by nanowires and transistors.

These cyborg tissues are half living cells, half electronics. As far as the cells are concerned, they’re just normal cells that behave normally — but the electronic side actually acts as a sensor network, allowing a computer to interface directly with the cells. In the case of cyborg heart tissue, the researchers have already used the embedded nanowires to measure the contractions (heart rate) of the cells.

To create cyborg flesh, you start with a three-dimensional scaffold that encourages cells to grow around them. These scaffolds are generally made of collagen, which makes up the connective tissue in almost every animal. The Harvard engineers basically took normal collagen, and wove nanowires and transistors into the matrix to create nanoelectric scaffolds (nanoES). The neurons, heart cells, muscle, and blood vessels were then grown as normal, creating cyborg tissue with a built-in sensor network.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/135207-harvard-creates-cyborg-flesh-thats-half-man-half-machine

that's hot

  On 9/10/2013 at 4:21 PM, MadameChaos said:

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lol

so now finally a hamburger can be created which gives the marketing team feedback about the customer's chewing behaviour

Cool, but I'll be really impressed when they thrown in some shark and alligator

http://youtu.be/u6lgzqsVslA

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Suffice it to say, if you can use a digital computer to read and write data to your body’s cells, there are some awesome applications. If you need a quick jolt of adrenaline, you would simply tap a button on your smartphone, which is directly connected to your sympathetic nervous system. You could augment your existing physiology with patches — a patch of nanoelectric heart cells, for example, that integrates with your heart and reports back if you experience any problems. When we eventually put nanobots into our bloodstream, small pulses of electricity emitted by the cells could be used as guidance to damaged areas. In the case of blood vessels and other organs, the nanoelectric sensor network could detect if there’s inflammation, blockage, or tumors.

This is very cool

  On 9/10/2013 at 4:34 PM, joshuatx said:

Cool, but I'll be really impressed when they thrown in some shark and alligator

 

http://youtu.be/u6lgzqsVslA

Holy shit, that popped into my head before I scrolled down and saw your post.

This, for me, brings up the very interesting question of "would this have been made if science fiction hadn't thought of it?"

In other words: does science fiction shape our world? Pattern Recognition is about--in my reading--how our world now resembles Neuromancer. Now, would it resemble Neoromancer if Neoromancer had never been written?

in 2023 everyone will have a huge dong made of cyborg flesh