Robotic Monkey Watch

Separate they are fine. Everyone loves a monkey - cute, furry, sometimes like to fling poo. Robots are usually mild-manner droids or mechanical helpers. They're fine aside from occaisionally trying to steal your Grandma's pills.

But what if they are mixed together?

Like the deranged monsters of the H.G Wells classic, The Island of Dr. Moreau, the hybrid product of monkey and robot is a phenomenon to be feared. But it won't happen. It can't happen, right?

Wrong - it might have already.

Take a look at the below articles and judge for yourself. Just where is all of this heading?

Scientists in North Carolina have built a brain implant that lets monkeys control a robotic arm with their thoughts, marking the first time that mental intentions have been harnessed to move a mechanical object.

The technology could someday allow people with paralyzing spinal cord injuries to operate machines or tools with their thoughts as naturally as others today do with their hands. It might even allow some paralyzed people to move their own arms or legs again, by transmitting the brain's directions not to a machine but directly to the muscles in those latent limbs.

The brain implants could also allow scientists or soldiers to control, hands-free, small robots that could perform tasks in inhospitable environments or in war zones.

In the new experiments, monkeys with wires running from their brains to a robotic arm were able to use their thoughts to make the arm perform tasks. But before long, the scientists said, they will upgrade the implants so the monkeys can transmit their mental commands to machines wirelessly.

"It's a major advance," University of Washington neuroscientist Eberhard E. Fetz said of the monkey studies. "This bodes well for the success of brain-machine interfaces."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A17434-2003Oct12&notFound=true

MESA, Ariz. (AP) - The Mesa Police Department is looking to add some primal instinct to its SWAT team. And to do that, it's looking to a monkey.

"Everybody laughs about it until they really start thinking about it," said Mesa Officer Sean Truelove, who builds and operates tactical robots for the suburban Phoenix SWAT team. "It would change the way we do business."

Truelove is spearheading the department's request to purchase and train a capuchin monkey, considered the second smartest primate to the chimpanzee. The department is seeking about $100,000 in federal grant money to put the idea to use in Mesa SWAT operations.

The monkey, which costs $15,000, is what Truelove envisions as the ultimate SWAT reconnaissance tool.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050419/D89I6I580.html

Project Monkey, anyone?