DNI Created?, Article in this month's Popular Science Options

[Moonstone Spider]

This is interesting. I was reading Popular Science today in the Library. Now I don't have the article right here in front of me so I might mistake a name or two but here's the gist of it:

At Duke University they've devised a new kind of probe with a flexible tip capable of reading a single neuron without damaging the brain. With a large number of these implanted in the brain, they can scan patterns and control machinery with the brain alone.

They've got rats which are now capable of activating their feeder merely by thinking about it, and in their greatest triumph so far, a monkey which can operate mechanical arms with it's brain alone by watching a video screen and moving the cursor around by thinking. The article is already talking about cyberlimbs controlled by this DNI (It frankly sounds like a VCR 0 to me) for the crippled, but stress that of course this is still developmental, years of study, yada yada. They want to reduce the number of probes actually in the brain, and if possible develope a network of external probes that can slip over the head and remove the need for surgury ('Trodes anyone?). Even so this is interesting stuff from a Shadowrun perspective.