Just saw this article in Londonist about Chinese scientists and their remote-controlled pigeons. Realized that those same Chinese scientists submitted a manuscript about the same topic in early January and it came across my desk. At the time I thought it was completely ridiculous and possibly one of those crazy people manuscripts we occasionally get but then I watched the short movies that accompanied the paper. Utterly insane and scary at the same time. You could see the scientists operating remotes and making the birds fly along a predetermined path in a large room. The birds were definitely the most freaky looking things ever. Imagine a pigeon, staring in that stupid sort of way they do, but now with part of the top of their head cut off and (apparently) exposing a tiny brain which had a small electrode helment sort of strapped on, blinking with different colored lights. (The illustration is much more sanitized than it really was. The brain was sticking pretty far out.) My first reaction was one of horror, as it’s just a short paranoid hop from manipulating pigeons to manipulating humans, interlaced with the sort of fascination a car crash provokes. Then it just turned into, wtf? And why? Too bad I tossed the movies when the paper got rejected.
Here's the article from Reuter's. It appears they had the same reaction as I did.
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