GITS-like technology might actually be possible

Those of you who know me know I'm a huge fan of Ghost in the Shell (QJ's prolly sick of me blabbering bout it) and its futuristic ideas of what that would technology do to humans and machines. The idea they had...is goddamned awesome. I can't stop loving the show. And I can't ever get bored of re-watching the series...AND the show. (my GITS collection eats up 25Gb of my HDD)

Sometimes, my friends would share some of their good reads on Facebook...like the one about curing cancer using bicarbonate soda, NASA 'shooting' the moon to verify if there's really water in the Moon, and recently..this. An article about research done make an injured mouse walk again. Now that may sound very boring and rather...unimpressive.. but what's really amazing is how they did it. Using light and algae to control brain activity with great precision, and most importantly, without any side effect. The research aims to find a cure for Parkinson's that will not have side effect on the patients.

What's even more amazing is the technology behind this. Optogenetics have huge potential.

By injecting mice neurons with yet another gene, one that makes cells glow green when they fire, researchers are monitoring neural activity through the same fiber-optic cable that delivers the light. The cable becomes a lens. It makes it possible to “write” to an area of the brain and “read” from it at the same time: two-way traffic.

This two-way traffic could lead to human-machine fusion. Imagine having a prosthetic arm that not only enables you to grip and touch objects, you can actually feel, sense heat and gather information of the object you touch. I can't help thinking of the possibility of cyborgization in the future, just like in GITS.

...wow :D