London.
Oxford University Medical School, Brain Research Centre.
Professor Adams, 43 years old, sat in front of the computer and watched a briefing published by his colleagues from the far East.
His brows were furrowed, his eyes filled with disbelief and deep suspicion, which then turned into slight irritation, but in the end, he calmed down and opened his email client.
He planned to ask his partner, Mr. Ezio, when the system for motor nerve anastomosis would be ready.
After the email was sent, he started to wait. After waiting for five minutes, he looked at the time again. Unable to determine whether the other party was in front of or behind the computer, he thought for a while and picked up the phone.
The phone rang once and he picked it up: "Man, right now, I'm almost at your door."
Professor Adams was startled for a moment, then stood up and walked towards the coffee machine.
Not long after, the office door opened.
…
"Have you seen the announcement from your colleague?" Professor Adams handed his friend a cup of coffee, then sat down in front of him and looked at him with burning eyes.
"I see - put less sugar." Professor Ezio took a sip of coffee, put down the cup, and breathed out softly: "The progress of the Joint Brain Science Center of West China and Provincial Communications is indeed a bit fast."
"I remember they were only established for half a year, right?" Professor Adams pointed to his computer monitor. The briefing above said clearly - "A bumper harvest has been achieved within half a year of establishment."
"Yes, but being established for half a year does not mean that it is incapable."
Professor Adams showed some disbelief.
How can there be so many shortcuts in brain nerve research? What's more, although that hospital is quite famous, it is still clinical and dental, and brain science is purely at the student level in front of people like me.
Seeing the expression on his old friend's face, Professor Ezio knew that this old man might have some wrong understanding of the "mysterious Eastern power".
But then he thought about it, if he hadn't met Ye Ming as a peer reviewer at that time, and then maintained a very candid and uninterrupted communication, I'm afraid he would have thought that this progress was too fast and too "magic" .
——It took them less than ten days from announcing the anastomosis of motor nerves in mice to announcing that a blind dog could see again!
This rate of progress is terrifying!
For ordinary people, especially those who have paid attention to new materials and neuroscience in the past six months, they may think this is nothing - because under the publicity of bad media, this GTRGD material has become a universal Neural materials seem to make the whole world enter cyberpunk in the next second.
But in the industry, we know that there are still too many problems to be solved to truly complete the application - for example, signal conversion is a big problem that takes time to accumulate.
For countless years before, people only used various methods to collect electromyographic signals and electroencephalographic signals, and then conducted statistical analysis. With the continuous advancement of experimental equipment - such as electrodes, such as signal analysis, such as various algorithms ——The scientific community has been able to realize a bionic arm that is not flexible at all.
For vision, it only realizes the expression of mosaic-like light signals.
In addition to signal conversion, there are also material difficulties and surgical difficulties.
In short, brain science was a thorny road that would take the scientific community decades or even hundreds of years to navigate half a year ago.
But now, the Brain Science Center opposite... is like sitting on a bulldozer, no matter what is in front of it, just rush towards it and have fun.
All the thorns were crushed by them in an instant.
Miracles can be achieved with great force - this is how the inventor of the GTRGD material opposite described himself.
Ezio found it particularly suitable.
"Dude, don't be anxious. Their visual nerve progress this time is just a tentative experiment. The current main task is still to collect feedback signals. Well, there is only preliminary progress."
"What?" Professor Adams became even more anxious when he heard this: "Are they going to make cyborgs?"
"...I told you not to worry." Ezio said and took out a USB flash drive: "This is the direct decoding of the motor nerve signal of the mouse that I want to get. With it..."
Professor Adams was startled, then stood up and stared at the USB flash drive in Ezio's hand, "Where did it come from? Is it accurate?"
"Of course I got it through the back door." Professor Ezio said proudly: "My system is correct, and the materials are correct, but this is missing. Then, don't look at me like that, and don't ask me too much. Much—I might not have time for the next month, so don’t bother me.”
Professor Adams grabbed the USB flash drive: "What do you want to do?"
"I want to complete a test of a new material based on the driver chip."
As he spoke, Ezio stood up and stared at his old friend before turning around: "Man, let's go over there after I finish my work. The two of us are isolated, so we can discuss academic issues."
…
United Brain Science Center.
Professor Tang Zhigao and others walked into the conference room while chatting with a doctor in a white coat.
As several professors took their seats easily, Ye Ming and Mo Gu sat at the back.
"Dean Qi." Professor Tang looked at the leader of the medical school with a smile: "It's just a small achievement now. When the integrated hybrid chip comes out, that will be the arrival of a big era that will change the entire world of brain science."
"That's right!" Dean Qi nodded with a smile, looking away from Mo Gu and Ye Ming: "I don't understand chip design, but I can probably think of its operating principle - let's take the optic nerve as an example. Now let's let Experimental dogs have visual perception, but I think it is a very large and cumbersome collection of systems. Can integrated chips completely integrate it into artificial eyeballs?"
"Theoretically, it's possible." Professor Tang smiled, and then looked at Ye Ming: "Ye Ming, tell me."
"Okay." Ye Ming nodded, looked at Dean Qi, thought for a moment and said: "Dean Qi, although in theory, artificial eyeballs can complete the control of eye muscles through nerve signal connections - of course, the integration aspect is also No problem, it’s nothing more than camera + battery + chip.”
Dean Qi nodded.
"But there is a problem with this design, which is that you have to dig out your eyes to charge them every day."
Ye Ming smiled slightly: "This is a bit too scary."
Dean Qi was startled, then laughed.
Everyone also laughed.
Indeed, if you install a sci-fi "simulated prosthetic eye", although it is a bit difficult, it is not impossible. After all, whether it is a camera, a chip, or a battery, it can be highly integrated.
But the camera consumes power!
In addition, converting camera signals also requires considerable power consumption and computing power.
"So, under the current conditions, our plan is to use head-mounted glasses to collect and integrate light fields to integrate natural light. Of course, we can also virtualize light - so that we can Put computing capabilities externally instead of integrating them into hybrid chips."
"The advantage of this is that the prosthetic eye can last a long time."
Ye Ming smiled as he spoke.
"Moreover, we can also complete visual restoration and holographic simulation in one step!"
