Could brain-machine interfaces be right around the corner?

For most of human history, the field of engineering has been seen as distinct from biological and neural science. It’s a common staple of a certain kind of science fiction novel and has already made the transition to science fact in research laboratories all over the world. It’s a concept so intoxicating that it has attracted the attention of several of the world’s biggest tech barons including Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Using the Neuralink system, about 1,500 tiny electrodes would then be pressed down onto the brain tissue in a bid to detect electrical activity. Worldwide, research scientists kill around 100 million laboratory animals a year, and euthanasia is hardly unique to Neuralink or indeed to neural science as a whole.