http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/ Engadget Comments for Mad scientists figure out how to write memories to brains, take over Earth http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 10:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 11:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 18th 2009 3:19AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 18th 2009 6:25AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/
(1) Cameron Diaz
(2) Scarlet Johanson]]>Oct 17th 2009 9:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 10:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:57PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 11:31PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/
And besides, do we really think we know enough about the way brains work to feel comfortable writing on the sides of them with a laser without worrying about very serious side effects?]]>Oct 17th 2009 9:20PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/This is such a bullshit statement, it boggles the mind. "You can't have pleasure without pain!!!1" Yeah right. You go right ahead and feel all the pain you want, buddy. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be hanging out in our Sensorama-3000s getting non-stop handjobs from virtual supermodels while downloading the collective knowledge and skill sets of every great thinker in history...while high as a kite.

Seriously though, all they're doing here is messing around with fly brains. Fly brains are a great deal less complex than human brains. It will be quite some time before anything like this could ever be done to a human brain, if ever. Or in the second half of this century if you believe Ray Kurzweil. I wonder if people our age in 1909 could even conceive of many of the things that everyone in 2009 takes for granted?]]>Oct 17th 2009 9:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/
For example. You could enjoy eating peanut butter and jelly more than anything, but the key to that statement is "more than anything." If you never ate anything else, the pleasure you take in eating peanut butter in jelly is non-significant.

The answer, as always, lies in relativity. I think the idea the original poster is getting at is that this may eliminate relativity in some way. Anyway, seems unlikely. I doubt these scientists really have any idea what they imprinted on that fly's brain. ]]>Oct 17th 2009 10:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/
Don't jump to conclusions. If you read the article, the researchers have used this as a model to locate cells that are involved in memory. The researchers are not looking to "create" memories (and it is questionable if they have, in the sense of a memory as we experience them), rather simply to understand the processes involved in memory formation. This has a number of greater roles in a number of diseases, including Alzheimer's disease. If we can understand how memories form in organisms that we don't mind manipulating, we can assume that evolution didn't reinvent the wheel, and thus the mechanisms of memory formation are conserved. In this way, by understanding fruit flies, we can better understand ourselves. This is the basis of all model organism research, which comprises a great majority of biological research.

The point is, don't jump to silly conclusions because an Engadget editor made a joke. Science isn't out to get you, and we scientists do have ethics.]]>Oct 17th 2009 11:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/
Another bullshit statement. Where do you people come from? The last I checked, eating peanut butter and jelly did not involve pain. Although your comments do. The reason you gain pleasure from eating a PB&J is because your body is hungry and needs fuel, and that PB&J satisfies its craving. SATISFACTION ITSELF is what creates the pleasure response...it isn't because you are in pain and need some pleasurable experience to offset that pain or vice versa. Get a grip. The only thing more painful to me than actual physical pain is amateur post-modern philosophical equivocators.]]>Oct 17th 2009 11:30PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/
This "satisfaction" you mention, comes from a lack of hunger, nothing else.
Assume a fresh brain with absolutely no previous knowledge. If you completely eliminate the pain of hunger and starvation, the brain will never even learn to eat, and it will eventually die without having felt anything wrong until the very last moment.
Why? Because since there was no pain to begin with, eating, which would have otherwise eliminated the pain, does not cause any change in the feelings whatsoever, and thus the brain does not see any benefit to eating, and thus it feels no pleasure.]]>Oct 18th 2009 3:44AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Exactly, my point is that we only know pleasure because we know pain at the same time. If life was all massage beds and hand jobs from beautiful Swedish supermodels then those things would become the norm and would cease to be pleasurable. We only percieve things as good or bad as a result of how good or bad they are relative to some baseline. If you think otherwise then you're fooling yourself.
@remotecontrolled
You're right, this work has important and non-scary applications. If we can make the lives of Alzheimer's patients better then wonderful. My concern is not with where this technology is going tomorrow or the day after, but where it is going in a century. I always get a little nervous when someone starts fucking around with people's (or other animals as the case may be) brains, the potential applications down the road are a little nerve wracking to me. The only way we'll avoid the world turning into some Orwellian dystopia is if people pay attention and are willing to look beneath the surface of announcements like this. It's all well and good to accuse me of "jumping to silly conclusions" now, but complacence will be the end of the human race as we know it. I would like to avoid that.
@durrhurr
seriously, you're going to accuse us of being post-modern equivocators? *sigh*.....]]>Oct 18th 2009 4:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/
Yet people do climb the K2 and success is met with great euphoria. The only thing that is plearuble about the summit is the amount of pain you had to go through before. So yes, pain and pleasure are intertwined. ]]>Oct 18th 2009 8:31AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 18th 2009 4:40AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 18th 2009 6:14AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 18th 2009 10:15AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Yeah, my first thought was "Woah ... I know kung fu!"]]>Oct 18th 2009 10:33PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:49PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/
I'd hit that...
]]>Oct 18th 2009 3:04AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/
We're f*cked.]]>Oct 17th 2009 9:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:37PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 11:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:37PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/]]>Oct 17th 2009 9:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 11:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 18th 2009 6:46AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 9:44PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 10:25PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 10:46PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 17th 2009 11:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 18th 2009 3:38AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/17/mad-scientists-figure-out-how-to-write-memories-to-brains-take/Oct 18th 2009 3:45AM