...will 'taste' battlefield (!?)
In their quest to create the super warrior of the future, some military researchers aren't focusing on organs like muscles or hearts. They're looking at tongues.By routing signals from helmet-mounted cameras, sonar and other equipment through the tongue to the brain, they hope to give elite soldiers superhuman senses similar to owls, snakes and fish. . .
Instead of holding and looking at compasses and bulky-hand-held sonar devices, [users] can process the information through their tongues, said Dr. Anil Raj, the project's lead scientist.
In testing, blind people found doorways, noticed people walking in front of them and caught balls. A version of the device, expected to be commercially marketed soon, has restored balance to those whose vestibular systems in the inner ear were destroyed by antibiotics. . .
Sonar is the next step. A lot depends on technological developments to make sonar smaller -- hand-held sonar is now about the size of a lunch box.
"If they could get it small enough, it could be mounted on a helmet, then they could pan around on their heads and they could feel the sonar on their tongues with good registration to what they are seeing visually," Raj said.
Get it "small enough," you say?
Perhaps nanotechnology could help with that, as in MIT's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies program -- "where advanced nanotechnology research will dramatically improve the survival of the soldier of the future."
The potential of these combined technologies is almost limitless. From search and rescue, to undersea exploration, to outer space, to covert surveillance, and obviously to the battlefield -- but also to consumer-oriented applications, such as virtual reality or new paradigms for information processing -- we are living in the future!
[Hat tip to Future Brief]
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog
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