20minutos.es has this one in their daily gallery. It's Shandong University in Qingdao, China, and they say they've worked out how to place electrodes in the dove's brain such that they can direct where it flies.
Dove? Or pigeon?
Anyway, I sort of doubt it. The decisions on where and how to fly roll through the bird's brain really fast. They may be able to tell it to turn left one time, lowering its left wing or whatever, but they surely can't direct it as if with a joystick or Wii controller.
The picture is striking, because it looks like these guys are just rudely cutting into the bird's skull, inserting their controller, and then covering the whole wound up with a hot glue gun. (It's probably not actually glue, but still.) It just doesn't seem like there would be enough bogus science involved to justify hurting the animal.
03-01-2007, 06:07 AM
Threaded Mode