Podcasts: All in the Mind, Philosopher's Zone
Two recent podcasts from ABC Radio National, the Australian public radio network echoed themes I discussed in recent blogs. One touches on brain and device interfaces, the other on practices in medical biology.
All in the Mind: Neural engineering: the cutting edge of prosthetics
Presenter: Natasha Mitchell
Guests: Glen Lehman, others
Release Date: July 30, 2011
On July 10, 2011 ("Hoping for Holodecks and TheMeaning of Life") I blogged about advances in mind machine integration. The July 20 episode of All In the Mind explores similar developments even more vividly. In particular, the interview with Glen Lehman, a Retired Sergeant first class in the United States Army, is an arresting first-person account of what it is like to adapt to and live with a prosthetic arm integrated with and controlled by one's thoughts. Tragically, Lehman's arm was blown off by a grenade while serving in Iraq just ten days before he was scheduled to return home.
Lehman talks about what it was like to learn how to think about arm and hand movements which then actually happened because his prosthetic arm is linked to his nervous system. The arm senses and interprets electrical signals from his brain and is programmed to carry out the imagined action. The show also includes interviews with medical experts who explain some of the science involved.
Around the same time as I heard this podcast news reports highlighted another technological breakthrough linking machines to human brains. Scientists hooked up EEG and muscle sensors to a driver of a car and detected the driver's intention to brake, then applied the brakes faster than the driver could have done so without this aid. Here is a reference from Scientific American magazine's website:
Fast Brake: Drivers' BrainWaves Show Intent to Stop Before the Act
By John Matson, August 1, 2011
Scientific American also summarized this research in a 60-Second Science podcast on August 3, 2011 presented by Karen Hopkins:
Although the human brain is immensely complex, our limited knowledge is already enabling science fiction like strides in linking the brain to mechanical extensions. I wonder just how far and how fast this will go. Sensing muscle movement is one thing, and while not simple, is probably simpler than detecting other kinds of higher mental processes. But it seems only a matter of time before we see mind-machine interfaces that capture and respond to our inner thoughts. Vulcan Mind Meld, anyone?
Philosopher's Zone: The ethics of Kevin Rudd's Heart
Presenter: Alan Saunders
Guest: Ian Kerridge, Associate Professor, Bioethics, University of Sydney
Release Date: August 6, 2011
In the same blog noted above, my discussion of the Radiolab podcast explained "Modifying cow genetics so they bleed human blood useful for transfusions is another example of bioengineering for medical applications, and there are many more."
This week's Philosopher's Zone featured an interview with a medical ethics expert who talked about issues involved in Xenotransplantation which means: "Xenotransplantation is when you take living cells, tissues and organs from one species and transplant them into another" (quote from the show's webpage). As the show notes, this is actually not new but it does raise many interesting questions about how humans use animals and what it means when some barriers between species begin to get a little fuzzy.
I'm certainly no medical expert, but it seems to me that many of the ethical issues can be sidestepped by use of advanced mechanical devices such as artificial hearts. Even when that is not feasible today, more such solutions will probably emerge in the future.
