Connect with us

Published

on

Elon Musk said on Wednesday a wireless device developed by his brain chip company Neuralink is expected to begin human clinical trials in six months.

The company is developing brain chip interfaces that it says could enable disabled patients to move and communicate again. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Austin, Texas, Neuralink has in recent years been conducting tests on animals as it seeks US regulatory approval to begin clinical trials in people.

“We want to be extremely careful and certain that it will work well before putting a device into a human but we’ve submitted I think most of our paperwork to the FDA and probably in about six months we should be able to upload Neuralink in a human,” Musk said during a much-awaited public update on the device.

The event was originally planned for October 31 but Musk postponed it just days before without giving a reason.

Neuralink’s last public presentation, more than a year ago, involved a monkey with a brain chip that played a computer game by thinking alone.

Musk is known for lofty goals such as colonizing Mars and saving humanity. His ambitions for Neuralink, which he launched in 2016, are of the same grand scale. He wants to develop a chip that would allow the brain to control complex electronic devices and eventually allow people with paralysis to regain motor function and treat brain diseases such as Parkinson’s, dementia and Alzheimer’s. He also talks about melding the brain with artificial intelligence.

Neuralink, however, is running behind schedule. Musk said in a 2019 presentation he was aiming to receive regulatory approval by the end of 2020. He then said at a conference in late 2021 that he hoped to start human trials this year.

Neuralink has repeatedly missed internal deadlines to gain US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to start human trials, current and former employees have said. Musk approached competitor Synchron earlier this year about a potential investment after he expressed frustration to Neuralink employees about their slow progress, Reuters reported in August.

Synchron crossed a major milestone in July by implanting its device in a patient in the United States for the first time. It received US regulatory clearance for human trials in 2021 and has completed studies in four people in Australia.

© Thomson Reuters 2022


Affiliate links may be automatically generated – see our ethics statement for details.

Continue Reading

Science

A Planet Is Being Born: Astronomers Capture Rare Cosmic Snapshot

Published

on

By

Astronomers have captured a groundbreaking sight: WISPIT 2b, a baby gas giant planet forming within a dusty, multi-ring protoplanetary disk around a young Sun-like star 430 light-years away. Infrared images from the Very Large Telescope show the planet carving a dark path in the rings as it feeds on gas and dust. This rare discovery provides the first direct evidence …

Continue Reading

Science

New ‘Gambling Carnot Engine’ Challenges 200-Year-Old Thermodynamic Law

Published

on

By

Almost 200 years after the Carnot limit defined the maximum efficiency of heat engines, scientists have introduced a microscopic design that seems to break the rule. Called the “Gambling Carnot Engine,” it works by monitoring a single trapped particle and stepping in at just the right instant. This clever feedback process allows the engine to convert nearly all ab…

Continue Reading

Science

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Spots Helmet-Like Rock on Mars, Sparks Geology Debate

Published

on

By

NASA’s Perseverance rover has photographed a helmet-shaped rock on Mars. Nicknamed “Horneflya,” the unusual spherule-covered formation intrigues scientists exploring how water, volcanic activity, or chemical processes shaped the Martian surface. Captured by Mastcam-Z, the discovery adds to Perseverance’s catalogue of strange formations and offers vital insight…

Continue Reading

Trending