Shock the Monkey

I heard some rather ominous news the other day: researchers at the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina have been able to get monkeys to control robot limbs with - get this – their minds!

Sure. Why not? Just to be thorough, just also teach them to arm heat-seeking missiles, and fire rocket-propelled grenades. Hell, better yet, lets give them the power to shoot Death Rays from their eyes. Plus, ‘Robotic Death Monkey’ would be a pretty radical name for a punk band.

Apparently, nobody heeded my caution months ago about the Senegalese chimps using sharp sticks to hunt for food. I warned you all then about the possible consequences of allowing these clever little bastards develop. But instead, we gave them control of futuristic robotic limbs.
Just fucking perfect!

Now we have the six million dollar monkey to worry about! One sudden movement and he’ll peel you like a banana with his robotic-powered super limbs.

To accomplish this, scientists inserted hair-thin probes into the brains of select monkeys. The technique they used, called "multi-neuron population recordings" was developed to allow a large number of single neurons to be recorded separately, and then combine their information using a computer coding algorithm. Computers then intercepted these electrical impulses and calculated mathematical trajectories in the monkey’s brain, thus activating a robotic arm.

And presto! We have the first of our future robotic-primate overlords.

The monkeys were then able to pick up food and feed themselves*. In fact, they were even able to transmit the monkey’s brain signals over the Internet, remotely controlling a robot arm 600 miles away. Next, I expect they’ll teach them how to pull the pin on a live grenade or point and fire a bazooka.

Honestly, what good can possible come from this experiment?

The scientists claim in their ‘Nature’ journal report that their work could form the basis for a brain-machine interface that would allow paralyzed patients to control the movement of prosthetic limbs. “We envision that this neurochip can become an essential component of the type of hybrid- brain-machine interfaces that may one day be used to restore motor function in paralyzed patients," said Miguel Nicolelis, associate professor of neurobiology. "These activities will serve as the backbone of a new Center for Neural Analysis and Engineering currently being created at Duke."

Yeah, yeah, whatever!

I’m thinking about super-powered, half-monkey half-robot monkey butlers…but I digress.

Medical advances aside; I still think this is still a rather dangerous path for mankind to go down. Take it from Charleston Heston; we’re not ready for the consequences of this dismal future. I, personally, am not ready to make sweet, sweet love to a mutant monkey cyborg lest it should snap my neck like a dry chicken bone with it’s super-strong robotic arms.

Besides, how embarrassing would it be to lose to a monkey while playing 'Tiger Woods PGA Tour' on a Nintendo Wii?

We might as well just end it all now.

Act now before it’s too late.

* Other test monkeys were fatally wounded during the experiment when they used their robotic limbs to masturbate instead.