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... The chimpanzee is our closest living relative in evolutionary terms and research suggests our kinship derives from a common ancestor. About five to six million years ago, our evolutionary paths separated, leading to the chimpanzee of today, and Homo Sapiens, humankind in the 21st century. In a new study, stem cell researchers at Lund examined what it is in our DNA that makes human and chimpanzee brains different -- and they have found answers. "Instead of studying living humans and chimpanzees, we used stem cells grown in a lab. The stem cells were reprogrammed from skin cells by our...

ELON Musk's brain chip start-up could begin inserting technology into people's minds later this year. The implants built by California-based Neuralink will one day allow those with physical disabilities to control a computer with their thoughts. Neuralink microchip and wiring next to a human finger for scaleCredit: Neuralink The company released a video last week of a brain-chipped monkey apparently playing video games with its mind. Similar technology could make its way to human test subjects by the end of the year if the start-up meets a previous prediction from Musk. The billionaire Tesla boss tweeted in February: "Neuralink is...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the longest-serving Republican senator and third in the line of presidential succession, said Tuesday that he has tested positive for the coronavirus.</p><p>Grassley announced earlier Tuesday that he was quarantining after being exposed to the virus and was waiting for the results of a test. On Tuesday evening, he tweeted that he had tested positive.</p>

Neuroscientists have successfully hooked up a three-way brain connection to allow three people to share their thoughts – and in this case, play a Tetris-style game. The team thinks this wild experiment could be scaled up to connect whole networks of people, and yes, it's as weird as it sounds. It works through a combination of electroencephalograms (EEGs), for recording the electrical impulses that indicate brain activity, and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), where neurons are stimulated using magnetic fields. The researchers behind the system have dubbed it BrainNet, and say it could eventually be used to connect many different minds...

A Canadian man's license plate can forget about living long and prospering. After receiving multiple complaints, Manitoba resident Nick Troller was forced to hand over his license plate that read "ASIMIL8," a reference to the Borg, a popular alien race from Star Trek. The Borg are villainous cybernetic organisms who assimilate other societies into their own. The phrases "we are the Borg" and "resistance is futile" are printed on the license plate's frame.

The software maker wants OLPC to redesign its XO low-cost PC for children in developing nations. Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has asked the designers of a low-cost Linux laptop intended for children in developing nations to redesign the system so it can accommodate its Windows XP operating system. In a move sure to provoke controversy, Microsoft wants the designers of the XO laptop, available through a non-profit initiative called One Laptop Per Child, to add a port through which the storage capacity required by Windows XP can be added to the system. The XO currently runs on a Red Hat Linux...

The Stanford University Symbolic Systems Program and the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence announced today the Singularity Summit at Stanford, a one-day event free to the public, to be held Saturday, May 13, 2006 at Stanford Memorial Auditorium, Stanford, California. The event will bring together leading futurists and others to examine the implications of the "Singularity" -- a hypothesized creation of superintelligence as technology accelerates over the coming decades -- to address the profound implications of this radical and controversial scenario. "The Singularity will be a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its...

At the onset of the twenty-first century, humanity stands on the verge of the most transforming and the most thrilling period in its history. It will be an era in which the very nature of what it means to be human will be both enriched and challenged, as our species breaks the shackles of its genetic legacy and achieves inconceivable heights of intelligence, material progress, and longevity. For over three decades, the great inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic...