Cyborg, Version 1.0

Wow...sci-fi meets the real world as Italian scientists have been able to fuse brain cells with a silicon computer chip. Can anyone say cyborg?

From the story in LiveScience:

They also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be passed to the silicon chip," said study team member Stefano Vassanelli from the University of Padua in Italy.

So they've got the rude beginning of a potentially useable biochemical link between brain cells and computers. It's still a big leap to go from this point to creating a computer interface with a functioning brain, but this is a huge story to a total science geek like the Rantmeister. It seems lately as though science is making gigantic progress in our understanding of our cellular and chemical selves, a sort of Renaissance at the molecular level. Next stop: Johnny Mnemonic and The Matrix.