Lovestruck cyborgs set the scene for really strange divorce proceedings

RFID Gazette: Love struck couple implant RFid: "Jennifer Tomblin and Amal Graafstra have implanted RFid chips that would allow them unfettered access to each other’s lives. The couple have implanted RFid chip under their skin so that they can access each other’s computers and front doors. The system functions like a key card, a simple swipe of the wrist across an electronic sensor and they are in. The couple believes that their decision is a modern declaration of love. Amal successfully experimented with the chip and six weeks later Jennifer followed suit. Jennifer believes that the implantation has a romantic appeal to it."

Samantha Bee interviews a cyborg

Future Shock! Part One:



Future Shock! Part Two:


Too bad that Comedy Central forces you to watch a commercial first, plus seems to be inordinately demanding on system resources (load the page, fan starts grinding, mac gets hot, typing becomes a slowww procedure.)

Here's a link to the show on SpikedHumor.com.

The classic tale of SpaceChickens vs. Cyborg Monkeys

pluckyCluck.mov (video/quicktime Object) "I will not allow you into my domain if you are not wearing a het!" says the charismatic cyborg monkey chef to our three valiant chicken heroes, in a moment of unsurpassable turgid suspense.

Bravo, I say, Bravo!

Scientist, Police Thyself

Scientist, Police Thyself -- Bhattacharjee 2006 (1205): 3 -- ScienceNOW: "Scientist, Police Thyself

By Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
ScienceNOW Daily News
5 December 2006

"Thanks to advances in synthetic genomics, an aspiring bioterrorist could turn a harmless virus into a deadly strain—or make a killer bug from scratch—by ordering some strands of DNA. Yesterday, an independent group of biologists and security experts confronted this threat by issuing a draft report that lays out options for regulating commercial gene synthesis and academic research in the field.

The group was led by individuals at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, and funded by a $570,000 grant from the Sloan Foundation. The report was presented [in Washington] before an audience of academic scientists, government officials, and industry representatives. Its recommendations for regulating the industry include requiring gene synthesis companies to screen orders, deny services to customers who are not certified by institutional biosafety officers, and maintain a database of orders that can be accessed by federal investigators.

As for supervising research, the report suggests options such as allowing scientists to govern themselves voluntarily through reviews conducted by existing institutional biosafety committees (IBCs) and imposing penalties on institutions and researchers that don't carry out such reviews. And to ensure that terrorists don't get access to scientific information that could be used to develop bioweapons, the report recommends journal editors remove sensitive details from manuscripts--with or without the help of a national advisory group. It also suggests the creation of a restricted database, which would allow researchers to share sensitive information with each other without making it public."

Cyborgs will contain implanted pumps driven by living cells

Another interesting instance of the unity of organisms and machines; here, biological parts that have been machines for eons can now be manipulated by humans to build extremely small machines.

Living heart cells drive microfluid pump - tech - 30 November 2006 - New Scientist Tech: "A tiny pump driven by living heart cells has been developed by researchers in Japan. Future versions could perhaps power medical implants or devices that analyse biological samples, the researchers say.

The pump is made from a hollow sphere of flexible polymer with tubes connected to opposite sides. The sphere is coated with a sheet of cultured rat heart muscle cells and these cells drive the pump with pulsing contractions."

Here is one area where Descartes was right: "The only difference I can see between machines and natural objects is that the workings of machines are mostly carried out by apparatus large enough to be readily perceptible by the senses (as is required to make their manufacture humanly possible), whereas natural processes almost always depend on parts so small that they utterly elude our senses," he wrote in Principles of Philsophy (1644). Now that we can visualize the parts, organisms are demonstrably mechanical, and indeed at the cellular level all processes can be seen as "natural machines."

See also the related articles "Tiny 'hamster wheel' turned by bacteria" (28 August 2006), "Robo-scallop could carry drugs through the body" (24 July 006), and "Fluid chip directs wandering sperm" (22 October 2005).

The metaphor of the cyborg soul rears its head again

It's no wonder that critics often have a knee-jerk tendency to distrust technology without nuanced considerations of research and applications. This article brings to mind the cyberpunk representations of cyborg souls in machines (e.g. Rudy Rucker's idea of a soul being transferred to a Mister Frostee ice cream truck). The metaphor persists in an intriguing way, despite the fact that it would be just as easy here to say "remote control."

Robot with 'human soul' explores remotely - tech - 21 November 2006 - New Scientist Tech: "Technology that lets a human 'inhabit' the body of a distant robot for remote exploration is being tested in Germany.

The robot sits on top of a wheeled platform and has an extendable arm that it uses to manipulate objects. An operator moves the robot around by simply walking or using a foot pedal and can see out of twin cameras positioned on the robot's head after donning a head-mounted display.

The controller's wrist is also connected to a touch sensitive (haptic) interface that controls the robot's arm. Furthermore, a wearable glove provides control over a three-fingered hand at the end of the robot's arm.

Force-feedback gives the operator a sense of the robot's physical interactions with its surroundings – by providing resistance to the user if the robot is pushing up against or grasping something, for example. Meanwhile, microphones relay surrounding noises to a pair of headphones."

Cyborg Jazz: Sequel (For Lester Bowie)

George Lewis | Sequel (For Lester Bowie): Review in All About Jazz by Kurt Gottschalk.

"2006 has been a good year for [George Lewis]. In April he presented a piece for jazz sextet plus his own laptop as a part of the New York AACM series that showed a new, cinematic side to his computer-driven composing; and in June he played a gorgeous electroacoustic duo with trumpeter Bill Dixon as a part of the Vision Festival. Sequel, subtitled “A Composition for Cybernetic Improvisors,” is the first wholly satisfying recording of Lewis the electronicist."

Cyborg track listing:
"Sequel, A Composition For Cybernetic Improvisors (For Lester Bowie)"; "Calling All Cyborgs (After Sun Ra)."

Mechademia: a new journal, and call for papers on "the limits of the human"

Mechademia: "Mechademia An interdisciplinary journal for Anime, Manga, and the Fan Arts, Mechademia’s subject area extends from manga and anime to game design, fashion, graphics, packaging, and toy industries, as well as a broad range of fan practices related to popular culture in Japan. We are interested in how the academic and fan communities can provide new possibilities for critical thinking and popular writing. Mechademia will appear annually, published by University of Minnesota Press. The first issue is scheduled to appear in Fall 2006."

Issue #1 is Worlds of Anime and Manga (Fall 2006).

Issue #2 is Networks of Desire (Fall 2007).

Issue #3 is Limits of the Human (Fall 2008). There's a call for papers on the website:

"We are currently accepting submissions for this issue, which will investigate the way anime, manga, and related media have probed the contours of human identity and activity. Possible topics include cyborg theory; new fan species; animalism and animalization; undead and the occult; speed and distance; phenomenologies and ontologies, etc. For more information, see the full Call for Papers. Deadline for submissions is Jan 5, 2007."

Dawn of War - Dark Crusade

Dawn of War - Dark Crusade: The latest expansion pack has a new cybernetic race, the Necrons. These "cold, metallic warriers" have lain dormant in crypts buried all over the galaxy for 60 million years (there must be a certain and emphatic willing suspension of disbelief here, of course!). They've come back to rule the galaxy and kill everything. "They do not fear death, for they are already dead. They do not fear destruction, because the regenerative metal of their skeletal frames cannot truly be destroyed...Their technology surpasses that of all known races."

Cyborgs can grow their own knees

Woman has first 'grow your own' knee transplant | News | This is London: "A woman with a damaged knee has become the first Briton to have a revolutionary 'grow your own' cartilage transplant that offers hope for thousands for injured sports enthusiasts.

The treatment uses a 3D implant grown with the patient's own healthy cells which is glued into the damaged knee cartilage."

::: Cyborg Kevin Warwick at the European Futurists Conference Lucerne :::

::: European Futurists Conference Lucerne ::::
Yesterday Kevin Warwick spoke on "Upgrading Humans - Mental Enhancements via Implants" at the "Making Sense of the Future" conference in Lucerne, Switzerland (November 22-24): "Clearly," Warwick explains in his blurb,

"an individual whose brain is part human - part machine can have abilities that far surpass those who remain with a human brain alone. Will such an individual exhibit different moral and ethical values to those of a human? If so, what effects might this have on society?"

Here's a link to Kevin Warwick's bio. Here's a link to running notes on Warwick's keynote posted by writer and Knight Fellow at Stanford University Bruno Giussani.