Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2001/10/06/reg_telepathed_by_captain_cyborg/

Reg telepathed by Captain Cyborg critics

The Wonders of Science!

By Andrew Orlowski

Posted in Bootnotes, 6th October 2001 00:50 GMT

Did Captain Cyborg implant a dog tracking chip?
Reg jealous of my success, claims Captain Cyborg

What's this? A buzzing behind my right ear? Why, that's got to be the embedded e-mail relay implanted in my skull. It turns me into a futurisitic fusion of man and POP3 Server!

And it's buzzing again....



From: David Ellis
Subject: Capt. Cyborg Stands on the Shoulders of Monkeys


While he is spouting his nonsense, real scientists are making real progress with implants, using real science. One was the Kennedy/Bakay experiment at Emory University a couple of years ago, in which two paralyzed patients given special brain implants were able to control the movements of a cursor to click on buttons ("I want a drink", "Turn off the light", etc.) -- just by willing it.

Real scientists at Duke and MIT recently did something similar, using monkeys:

"A group of scientists describe today in Nature their success at harnessing the ultimate instrument of remote control: the brain. Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University and his colleagues wired the brains of owl monkeys to mechanical arms such that the animals' thoughts controlled the robots' actions. Going one step further, they demonstrated that these thought signals could travel over the Internet and manipulate a robotic arm sitting 600 miles away in co-author Mandayam Srinivasan's laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It was as if the monkey had a 600-mile-long virtual arm," Srinivasan said. The hope is that such work might lead to prosthetic limbs that are as easy to use as the ones they replace." (http://www.sciam.com/news/111600/3.html )

It occurs to me that if we wired those monkey brains direct to Kev's cerebral cortex, we might get him to do something to deserve all that media coverage, for a change.

Loved your latest missive. You are the free world's only ABK (Anti-Ballistic Kev) shield. Keep it up.

David Ellis



Congratulations on your scientific analysis and bloody mindedness. We should never take anything for the truth unless we can verify it ourselves.


First principle of scientific research. That Captain Cyborg won't get back to you casts aspersions and doubts over his claims far more readily than if he did reply.

Keep up the good work

Phil Thomas



Subject: Cyborg on a budget


Dear The Register,

It strikes me that the good Professor Warwick could have saved himself and others time and money by shoving that pet-tagging chip up his arse.

Ben Gladwyn