Hello Friends, Welcome to another episode
of Engineering today and hope you had a great
time with your friends and family this weekend.
Today we will be discussing two updates, first
Neuralink’s brain chip implanted pig Gertrude
and then Boeing's Starliner.
On Friday, August 28, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk
introduced Neuralink’s brain chip implanted
pig Gertrude on-camera and gained everyone’s
attention right away.
Musk said during the video session - “We
have a healthy and happy pig initially shy
but obviously high energy and, you know, kind
of loving life, and she’s had the implant
for two months,” The Neural chip which is
implanted on Gertrude's brain is about 23
millimeters (0.9 inch) in diameter, which
makes it extremely small, as Musk described
“a Fit bit in your skull with tiny wires,”
The pig had the chip implant for two months,
and now working fine which shows the early
step for curing human with the same implants,
though Musk did not share any scientific data
about his claims of the pigs or the device.
The Neuralink chip implant actually controls
the snout, later, the pig eating off a ***, sniffing
straw which simultaneously triggered blue
spikes on a graph was presented on computer
screen.
The graph actually represents the animal’s
neural activity.
This chip is also easy to remove, which Musk
later proved on the video, when he added Dorothy,
another pig in the “Three little pigs demo”.
Neuralink's founder Elon Musk claimed Dorothy
once had a Neuralink implanted but removed
after some time.
He said: “What Dorothy illustrates is that
you can put in the Neuralink, remove it, and
be healthy, happy, and indistinguishable from
a normal pig.”
Let's discuss what a Neuralink chip is meant
for.
The primary application of Neuralink’s wireless
brain chip is mostly in medical, though Musk
proclaimed, this device, fused with human
intelligence can actually compete with artificial
intelligence.
Musk previously warned about AI, according
to the genius entrepreneur, AI could prove
a threat to human existence as this technology
is surpassing human intelligence.
Neuralink was co-founded by Musk on July 2016.
SpaceX and Tesla's CEO wanted to take human
intelligence to a new level, to be able to
compete with artificial intelligence (AI).
He puts his idea into the corporation to make
something new with it.
The company wasted no time and began working
on that project.
The original idea was to create a powerful,
wireless brain device, which could store and
manage a lot of data in it and insert through
a surgery, which Neuralink’s latest brain
chips offers.
With the help of this chip, scientists are
hoping to cure neurological illness like Alzheirmer’s,
dementia, even this benefits people with paralysis.
As per Musk the company had achieved FDA Breakthrough
Device standardization in July, a program
to expedite the regulatory process for products,
“that provide for more effective treatment
or diagnosis of life-threatening or irreversibly
debilitating diseases or conditions”.
Though acquiring such a designation doesn’t
imply that device is approved by the FDA.
As per Neuroscience experts Neuralink’s
vision to read and stimulate brain activity
in humans is feasible but the timeline seems
to be overly ambitious.
As per Graeme Moffat, a research fellow from
University of Toronto neuroscience said - “Everyone
in the field would be very impressed if they
actually showed data from a device implanted
in a human”.
Musk’s Neuroscience start up Neuralink was
working in shadows for some time until in
July 2019, when the genius entrepreneur first
put a light on Neuralink’s brain chip.
At that time, the chip’s design was primarily
involved in implanting tiny electrode “threads”
into the brain along with a device behind
the ear.
Musk described on Friday, the new device does
not require an ear device rather the chip
will be implanted directly to the brain by
a surgical Robot.
He discussed the capability of Neuralink,
which could interface with brain and help
to cure Alzheirmer’s, dementia, insomnia,
along with spinal cord injuries, hearing loss.
This will allow a person to play video games
or allow a person with injured spinal cord
to walk normally.
Stanford University neuroscientist, Stavisky,
agrees with the undeniable progress the Neuralink
has made from the earlier version of its chip,
and made a comment “Going from that to the
fully implanted system in several pigs they
showed is impressive and I think, really highlights
the strengths of having a large multidisciplinary
team focused on this problem.”
While, Musk made headlines with the Brain
chip device, let us take a closer look of
the surgical robot which will be used to implant
the chip.
The neurosurgical robo, which Neuralink debuted,
is enough catchy with its functionalities.
From a glimpse, the Robot looks like it came
from the future.
Woke design studio, in partnership with Musk’s
Neuralink provided the surgeon robot’s superior
look.
The structure of the robo is made of Polycarbonate
with clean white coloured look, containing
three major parts: the head, the body and
the base.
Not having a complex design, the robot’s
head is more like a helmet, which will actually
holds the patient’s head.
The interior of the head is colored mint-blue,
offers an “anthropomorphic” style.
Woke says, this look keeps patient away from
the invasive type procedure.
It has an in-built high quality camera and
sensors, which will map the patient’s head
and guide the surgeon needle.
For, sterile operation, it has single use
disposable bags.
The body of the surgeon robot carries rear
assembly, which is responsible for the motion
of the robot after the surgery has done.
Lastly, the base part of the Robot keeps it
steady during the procedure.
Notably this part also contains the control
system of the robot.
With neat arcing lines and smooth surfaces,
this bot is a combined creation of both advanced
hardware and soothing elements.
As per Neuralink “While the patient may
not be awake to see the machine in action,
it was still important to design a non-intimidating
robot that can aesthetically live alongside
the iconic machines in Musk’s portfolio",
they also added "it was also needed to meet
a long list of medical requirements regarding
sterility and maintenance, and provide safe
and seamless utilization for its operation.”
Friday’s event on Neuralink's headquarters
at California was mainly based for recruiting
rather than fundraising.
The company has already raised more than $150m
in funding, founder Elon Musk has donated
$100m himself.
The current workforce of Neuralink is 100
people, but as per Musk soon they could expand
upto 10,000.
The co-founder of Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Musk
wants to bring experts to work in to this
field, accelerate the ideas in neuroscience
to use it as practical application for a better
future.
That's all related to Neuralink today; let
us share some news about Boeing's Starliner
now.
World’s largest aerospace manufacturer,
Boeing made a statement on this Friday, August
28 to take another operational flight test.
Scheduled time is no earlier than December,
as for now.
In December 2019, during the operational flight
test 1, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner faced
failure.
Boeing, as a part of NASA’s Commercial crew
program conducted that test flight mission.
On December 20, the Starliner launched successfully
from Cape Canaveral, to dock with International
Space Station, but later burned into a different
orbit shortened the eighth day mission into
just two days.
On Friday, Boeing talked about a second orbital
flight test called OFT-2, will be launching
to the International Space Station.
First, the Company will ensure that the new
space vehicle will be able to take astronauts
to the space station and vice versa, and then
it could actually start launching astronauts
in the middle of 2021.
Boeing has currently focused in Starliner’s
first crewed mission to space station.
This crew flight test will include NASA’s
Mike Fincke, Nicole Mann and Boeing astronaut
Chris Ferguson.
After having a successful crewed flight test,
Boeing could start flying Operational Crewed
missions at the end of 2021.
Earlier NASA stated that Boeing’s Starliner
1 would be the first operational crewed flight
to bring NASA astronauts Jeanette Epps, Sunita
Williams and Josh Cassada to the space station.
All the CST-100 missions were decided to be
launched using United Launch Alliance’s
Atlas V rocket.
The crew flight test mission at first scheduled
in the middle of this year, now delayed because
of Boeing’s OFT-2 test.
During OFT-1 in December 2019, a technical
problem caused the space vehicle unable to
reach to the Space Station, later burned in
the wrong orbit, after two, days the spacecraft
successfully landed at white Sands Space Harbor.
Boeing and NASA decided to investigate the
situation independently to figure what lead
this mission to failure.
In July of this year, the reason came to light
as both of the groups found two major software
errors; some glitches and also an unchecked
drop in communications during the test are
the issues behind the failure.
Later, NASA investigator also found total
80 “corrective actions” in Boeing’s
flawed test flight.
Boeing so far tackled 75% of that, and now
adding some finishing work in next OFT-2 mission.
Boeing’s brand-new Starliner offers “additional
on-orbit experience for the operational teams
prior to flying missions with astronauts,”
NASA stated.
Beoing’s Starliner Spacecraft 3 “Calypso”
will be back on Starliner 1 mission.
For OFT-2 mission, Boeing will all the necessary
tests, currently the software team just finished
all the modification on system and now preparing
a to take an end to end rehearsal test with
Starliner and Atlas V. Hardware team will
make sure to left 0% of corrective actions
for all the safety purposes.
