Brain cells fused with computer chip

By Ker Than, LiveScience

The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed "neuro-chips" in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together.

To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size.

They used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells, called neurons, onto the chip.

However, the proteins acted as more than just a simple adhesive. "They also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be passed to the silicon chip," said study team member Stefano Vassanelli from the University of Padua in Italy.

The proteins allowed the neuro-chip's electronic components and its living cells to communicate with each other. Electrical signals from neurons were recorded using the chip's transistors, while the chip's capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons.

It could still be decades before the technology is advanced enough to treat neurological disorders or create living computers, the researchers say, but in the nearer term, the chips could provide an advanced method of screening drugs for the pharmaceutical industry.

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(Commentary:) It could also have more nefarious uses, as evil men use what they've learned in studying these matters to help manufacture the Mark of the Beast, the Antichrist's interface between man and machine, between the spirit of man and the evil spirits and control of the Enemy.

Much of the research that studies how chips and brain cells can work together can and will be put to evil use sooner or later. It's more likely to be sooner than it is later, too. Things are hopping and popping in the spirit realm, just as they are on Earth, building toward climactic events.

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