In the past 20 years, mice with glowing cables sprouting from their heads have become a staple of neuroscience. They reflect the rise of optogenetics, in which neurons are engineered to contain light-sensitive proteins called opsins, allowing pulses of light to turn them on or off. The method has powered thousands of basic experiments into the brain circuits that drive behavior and underlie disease. As this research tool matured, hopes arose for using it as a treatment, too. Compared with the electrical or magnetic brain stimulation approaches already in use, optogenetics offers a way to more precisely target and manipulate the exact cell types underlying brain disorders.

The Neuralink CEO, Elon Musk, said on Wednesday that the company would soon test its pound-coin-sized implant and brain-computer interface on a second patient. The unnamed patient's surgery is slated for "the next week or so", Musk said. Surgery on a different patient intended to be the second participant in Neuralink's human trial had been scheduled for late June but was delayed when they experienced unspecified health issues contraindicating the procedure. The same day, the company announced that the wires attaching the first Neuralink patient's brain to the implant in his skull had become "more or less very stable" after detaching months ago. "Once you do the brain surgery it takes some time for the tissues to come in and anchor the threads in place, and once that happens, everything has been stable," said the Neuralink executive Dongjin "DJ" Seo during a live stream late on Wednesday on Twitter/X.

Elon Musk's Neuralink has been given a green light to implant its brain chip in a second patient after fixing issues that struck during the first human trial. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the next person on Monday, signing off on the company's planned updates that included embedding some of the device's ultrathin wires deeper into the brain. Neuralink revealed this month that some of 64 threads detached from the first patient's brain, causing the chip to malfunction - nearly ending the trial that began in January. A report by Reuters cited'five people familiar with the matter' had claimed that this issue had been'known about for years' from animal testing. This is a developing story... more updates to come.

Lawmakers have slammed the Food and Drug Administration for ignoring'troubling evidence' of Elon Musk's Neuralink practices and pushing the brain chip to human trials. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) penned a letter to the FDA, criticizing the agency for not expecting the company's long list of animal abuse allegations that span back to at least 2019. The Democrat cited 2022 reports that described employees' complaints of'hack jobs' of animal experiments due to a rushed schedule, causing needless suffering and deaths. The open letter also stated'these alleged failures to follow standard operating procedures potentially endangered animal welfare and compromised data collection for human trials.' Blumenauer is now demanding the FDA explain how it reconciled reports of such lapses with its decision to authorize Neuralink's human trial.

One color-blind artist has had an'eyeborg' antenna implanted directly into his skull to enable him to'hear' color - and his friend has had implants in her feet to allow her to'feel' earthquakes. The two are'transhumanists', a growing movement of people who hope to add new abilities to their bodies using technology - with Elon Musk claiming that technology such as his Neuralink implant could enhance human memories or even allow humans to live forever as man-machine hybrids. The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence has sparked a new interest in the idea of surgically modified humans. In a new documentary due out this year, Cyborg, Neil Harbisson, who is the world's first legally recognized cyborg thanks to his color-hearing implant, says, 'This is happening!' and hopes that technology will allow humans to'self-design' their bodies. Neil Harbisson, the world's first legally recognised cyborg thanks to his color-hearing implant (First Born Films) Hrbisson advocates for'non-human' identities (First Born Films) Director Carey Born said that she had heard of a'cyborg' who had been surgically altered to hear color, emailed Harbisson and decided to make a documentary about'transhumanists' - believing it's important that the tech doesn't fall into the wrong hands.

Elon Musk's Neuralink hit the headlines this morning, after the entrepreneur announced that his firm had implanted a chip in the brain of a human for the first time. Having gained FDA approval, Musk announced that a device called'Telepathy' had been implanted and that the unnamed patient was recovering well. But after Neuralink's early trials saw 1,500 animals killed during rushed experiments, experts have raised serious concerned about the implant's safety. Speaking to MailOnline, Dr Dean Burnett, honorary research associate at Cardiff University, called the human trials'disconcerting and alarming.' 'The speed at which [Musk] has gone from having no involvement in neurosurgical implants to making massive global statements is disconcerting and alarming,' he said.

Elon Musk has left even his most ardent fans terrified after he revealed his tech start-up Neuralink has become the first to successfully implant a microchip into a human brain. The world's richest man said the operation took place on Sunday and'initial results show promising neuron spike detection'. The device - called'Telepathy' will'enable control of your phone or computer, and through them almost any device, just by thinking', he said. But many of his 170 million followers on X, formerly Twitter, accused him of'mind control', creating'cyborgs', and even'playing God'. 'The negative potential of this makes me very uneasy,' one person wrote in a reply to his announcement.

Throughout 2023, it felt like the drama never let up. From Elon Musk's nonstop shenanigans to the constant launches in the generative AI race, the last twelve months was packed with news. Thankfully, it wasn't all bad, and this year saw more winners than before. There were clear frontrunners, like Threads and AI, but we also saw surprises like Apple's Vision Pro headset and the iPhone maker finally embracing several open standards. Of all the things that happened this year, here's the Engadget team's list of tech's biggest winners in 2023.

This summer, a pill intended to treat a chronic, incurable lung disease entered mid-phase human trials. Previous studies have demonstrated that the drug is safe to swallow, although whether it will improve symptoms of the painful fibrosis that it targets remains unknown; this is what the current trial will determine, perhaps by next year. Such a tentative advance would hardly be newsworthy, except for a wrinkle in the medicine's genesis: It is likely the first drug fully designed by artificial intelligence to come this far in the development pipeline. The pill's maker, the biotech company Insilico Medicine, used hundreds of AI models to discover both a new target in the body that could treat the fibrosis and which molecules might be synthesized for the drug itself. Those programs allowed Insilico to go from scratch to putting this drug through the first phase of human trials in two and a half years, rather than the typical five or so.

Elon Musk's brain-implant startup, Neuralink, said it has received approval from an independent review board to begin recruiting patients for its first human trial. The company is seeking people with paralysis to test its experimental device in a six-year study. Neuralink is one of several companies developing a brain-computer interface (BCI) that can collect and analyze brain signals. But its billionaire executive's bombastic promotion of the company, including promises to develop an all-encompassing brain computer to help humans keep up with artificial intelligence, has attracted skepticism and raised ethical concerns among neuroscientists and other experts. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration denied the company's request to fast-track human trials, but in May approved Neuralink for an investigational device exemption (IDE) that allows a device to be used for clinical studies. The agency has not disclosed how its initial concerns were resolved.