Since the 1970s, scientists have been searching for ways to link the brain with computers. Brain-computer interface (BCI) technology could help people with disabilities send orders to machines.

Recently, two researchers, Jose Millan and Michele Tavella from the Federal Polytechnic School in Lausanne, Switzerland, showed a small robotic wheelchair directed by a person’s thoughts.

In the laboratory, Tavella operated the wheelchair just by thinking about moving his left or right hand. He could even talk as he watched the wheelchair and guided it with his thoughts.

“Our brain has billions of nerve cells (神经细胞). These send signals through the spinal cord (脊髓) to the muscles (肌肉) to give us the ability to move. But spinal cord injuries or other conditions can prevent these weak electrical signals from reaching the muscles.” Tavella says. “Our system allows disabled people to communicate with outside world and also to control the machine.”

The researchers designed a special cap for the user. This head cover picks up the signals from the scalp (头皮) and sends them to a computer. The computer understands the signals and directs the motorized wheelchair. The wheelchair also has two cameras that recognize objects in its path. They help the computer react to orders from the brain.

Prof. Millan, the team leader, says scientists keep improving the computer, software that understands brain signals and turns them into simple orders. “The practical possibilities that BCI technology offers to disabled people can be divided into two kinds: communication, and controlling the machine. One example is this wheelchair.”

He says his team has set two goals. One is testing with real patients, so as to prove that this is a technology they can benefit from. And the other is to ensure that they can use the technology over long periods of time.

A Beijing-based gene firm on Monday announced the world’s first cloned wild arctic wolf, which is listed as endangered in the Red List of Threatened Species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, or the IUCN. Experts said its birth pioneers the breeding of more rare and endangered animals through cloning technology.

“We started the research cooperation with Harbin Polarland on cloning the arctic wolf in 2020. After two years of painstaking efforts, the arctic wolf was cloned successfully. It is the first case of its kind in the world,” Mi Jidong, the company’s general manager of the Beijing-based Sinogene Biotechnology Co said at a press conference in Beijing.

The birth of the world’s first cloned wild arctic wolf is a milestone for the application of cloning technology, which is of great significance to the conservation of rare and endangered animals and biodiversity, experts believe.

He Zhengming, the head of Chinese Experimental Animal Resources Research Institute for Food and Drug Control said that the cloned animals still have the ability to reproduce if they have intact fertilized eggs (受精卵). The cloning technology can copy all genetic information for selective reproduction.

From the world’s first mammal clone “Dolly”, cloning technology has provided the possibility to diversify the populations of some species such as cattle, pigs and horses. When endangered species in some places are identified, cloning of cells preserved from freezing technologies could also generate new life, experts said.

As part of a more concrete step to boost the breeding of more rare and endangered animals through cloning technology, the Sinogene Biotechnology Co and Beijing Wildlife Park built a partnership on gene seed preservation cloning technology applications in rare and endangered wild animals. Enhanced efforts for the protection of endangered wildlife species and their habitats are part of the goals of the country’s national development plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), according to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.

It is hard to imagine humans spending their lives in virtual reality (VR) when the experience amounts to waving your arms about in the middle of the waiting room with a device fastened to your face. But this is where humanity is heading.

Chalmers, an Australian professor of philosophy and neural science at New York University, makes the case to embrace VR in his new book, Reality +. Well-known for explaining “the hard problem” of consciousness, Chalmers sees technology reaching the point where virtual and physical are the same in the sense and people live good lives in VR. In the decades ahead, Chalmers suspects we will replace the clumsy (笨拙的) headsets with brain-computer interfaces that allow us to experience virtual worlds with our full set of senses.

“A common way of thinking about VR is that it is somehow fake ability. I think that’s wrong,” Chalmers explained. “The virtual worlds we’re interacting with can be as real as our ordinary physical world.”

“But there are plenty of risks to be cautious of,” he notes. As fulfilling as virtual worlds may become, people will need real food, drink and exercise, and perhaps even the glimpse of daylight, to keep their bodies from fading away. These are not the only health problems. Some people have raised serious concerns about the risk of psychological damage: If we are better looking and have better clothes and a nicer home in the meta verse (元宇宙), how will we feel when we leave?

“The lure (诱惑) of VR might also cause neglect on a global scale,” Chalmers reveals. Would climate change and other crises facing the physical world lose their urgency? That would be a disaster. He says,“Physical reality is really important. We must maintain a connection to it and care for it responsibly.”