Dr Greenberg likens it to designing a television set that can be thrown into the sea and will not only continue to work but will do so for decades to come.Second Sight has succeeded by building on several decades of research into implantable devices and other neural interfaces, such as pacemakers and cochlear implants.
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There is huge demand for hidden methods, like implants or injections".
Brain research on monkeys typically involves appalling suffering, including invasive surgery so that restraining and recording devices can be implanted in their heads (these implants can easily become infected).
According to Vicki Croke, an American reporter who is nothing if not thorough, about 4,000 kinds of contraceptive implants have been used in 100,000 animals worldwide.A bison in San Francisco, she reports, received an epididymectomy, which stops him from reproducing but keeps his status as a dominant bull.
It can be used to make such things as prototype cars, hearing aids, customised dolls and medical implants.
Using neurotransmitters to reach cells is a much more subtle approach than the current method of transmitting electrical pulses (such as that employed by cochlear implants).
Among those revealed at the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference held in London this summer were long-life USB memory sticks, superfast racing-yacht keels, ultra-high bandwidth optical fibres, improved cochlear implants and a cancer-biopsy analyser that matches a human pathologist's tumour-spotting skills.How can evolution help improve a USB stick?
Advances in medicine now offer greater promise for the technique, especially as Carticel implants, which in 1997 became the first cell therapy to be given approval in America, show signs of providing long-term benefits.Over 14,000 patients in America have been treated with Carticel, which uses the patient's own cartilage cells to repair damaged knees.
When it arrived, the proselytisers promised, everyday objects cars, household appliances, food, clothing, pets, medical implants, tools and toys would be connected to the internet via smart chips capable of sensing and sharing information about themselves and their surroundings.The savings for society, the interested parties claimed, would be incalculable.
