Life Imitates Art

Well, comic-book art anyway. It appears that, according to a story in yesterday’s Post (which I’m still sourcing, even if they have abandoned all pretense of editorial objectivity), scientists have enabled a monkey to manipulate a robot arm with his thoughts. For the moment, the connection’s hard-wired, but they anticipate upgrading to a wireless connection before too long. The ramifications for this are positively astonishing. Robots could be controlled remotely — one can envision incorporating virtual reality gear to do in reality what is now done purely in simulation. Paraplegics may be able to walk again, by bypassing the spinal cord and sending electrical impulses directly to muscles — in fact, that was the jist of a story I wrote back in high school. But most significantly...

... Doctor Octopus need no longer be just a fictional creation.

You know, I wonder if this whole thing isn’t a marketing ploy cooked up by Sony Pictures.