- I'm just back from Seoul, South Korea, for the World
Science Forum: Brain Power after spending a few days in Hawaii recovering
from the high energy event. My bet is, the Forum is an event you probably
heard zilch about I sat at one of two press tables and was the only
US journalist as far as I know. The US press wasn't interested, apparently.
-
- But the government-sponsored meeting was clearly a
Big Deal for S. Korea and it revealed developments which can be called
"mind-blowing" in more ways than one.
- Like what?
-
- Robots that learn and beat programmed humanoid mechanical
creatures at games because the able-to-learn robots are thinking, trying,
learning on the spot their "brains" are based on how the
human brain works ( a sort of back-engineering). Brain/computer interfacing
techniques that may sound like sci fi but are already being tested on animals
and , in some cases, humans.
-
- A new effort to map literally and exactly
every neuronal twist and turn of the human brain, much like the human genome
has been mapped ( and that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "mind
reading"). The ways neuroscience can be used for "neuroeconomics
" and " neuro-marketing" terms used by Yale neurobiologist
Daeyeol Lee to describe how neurobiological studies of the brain's reward
system can elucidate " the biological basis of our values and preferences"
( i.e., how knowing how the brain works can help those who want to zero
on in marketing directly to your mind's biology).
-
- In addition to these and other specific revelations,
the forum also clearly put S. Korea's passion for science in the spotlight.
There is an open agenda , a resolve to seize these developments and apply
them to medicine and technology in this technologically savvy Asian country.
-
- An invited gathering of many of the world's top neuroscientists,
the event was held at the uber futuristic W hotel convention center and
open to the public. And they came, by the thousands families with
kids, high schoolers, professionals, other scientists. S. Korea is a place
where scientists are treated with the enthusiasm most Americans only give
to some talentless celebutard or rap star.
-
- Newly-elected S.
Korea President Lee Myung-bak spoke at the opening ceremony
and reminded the audience his country now has the tenth strongest economy
in the world. Ninety percent of all Korean kids go on to college. In 60
years, per capita income went from $100 per year, to $20,000. He also
recalled that he comes from the world of business and entrepreneurialism
-- and he's determined that his country will be a leader in neuroscience
and related technologies.
-
- There's clearly a lot of money in Seoul, by the way.
I visited a state-of-the-art imaging center built with the single-handed
support of one woman, Dr. Lee, who forked over the equivalent of $ 40 million
dollars for the project. The hotel I stayed in, the 5 star W at Walkinghill,
is a curious combination of idealized, caricatured l960ish decor a la Austin
Powers and futuristic high tech details.A huge red bathtub with a TV screen
suspended over it, walls half glass with automatic curtains that open at
the touch of a button to reveal the Han River and , through the misty morning
haze, the outline of seemingly endless super modern high rises on the other
side, rising up like some fantasy futuristic city. In fact, you have to
look hard to find a trace of ancient or even not-so-ancient Korean culture.
This is a city with one foot in tomorrow and the other foot almost totally
there, too.
-
- Which is one reason why the public seemed so smitten
with talks from cutting-edge neuroscientists whom most Americans, I suspect,
would avoid in droves.
-
- There were also some non-scientist speakers. Ron Reagan
Jr. did nothing to conceal his absolute contempt for the disastrous rule
of George W. Bush, the illegal invasion of Iraq and the stupefying waste
of billions of dollars under the neocon regime while so much medical research
into degenerative brain diseases is in need of funding. French sci fi writer
Bernard Weber, whom I'd never heard of before, was greeted by adoration
-- turns out he has a fan club of over 700,000 in S. Korea as he
spoke of using the brain's power of imagination to touch nature, "see"
the future and prepare for true human evolution that is coming.
-
- More highlights from the scientists:
-
- One theme that came up from several researchers
what is consciousness and how do we find, measure and, perhaps, shape it?
Famed University of California at Santa Barbara psychologist Michael S.
Gazzaniga ( who discovered much of what we now know about the differences
between the left and right sides of the human brain) and Nobel Laureate
Gerald M. Edelman, director of the Neuroscience Institute, were among the
Big Brains discussing what is being learned and mapped about our own brains
and the perceptions, ideas, sensations that comprise what we call "
consciousness".
-
- Zang-Hee Cho, Director of the Neuroscience Research Institute
at the Gachon University of Medicine in Seoul, showed examples of 21st
century brain mapping that were so precise, so clear, it was simply startling.
These techniques make the MRI and PET scan images available today in most
U.S. medical centers look like hazy , blurry and downright creakily old
technology.
-
- Japanese neuroscientist Shun-ichi Amari, George Washington
University Hospital neurologist Richard Restak , Medical College of Georgia
neuroscientist Joe Z. Tsien and MIT professor of computational neuroscience
Sebastian Seung talked about making brains smarter (engineered evolution,
anyone?) In fact, Tsien, via genetic engineering, has already created Super
Mice brainiac rodents. Seung, by the way , is a native New Yorker
born to Korean parents . He dresses like a rock star silver high
top shoes, silver studded blazer, long hair and is young and handsome,
as well as being brilliant. He had the crowd mesmerized as he spoke in
Korean ( his first speech in the language).
-
- German neuroscientist Klaus-Robert Muller from the Technical
University of Berlin, Miguel Nicolelis, professor of neuroscience at Duke,
Korean brain researcher Soo-Young Lee and neuroscientist Philip Kennedy,
chief scientist of Neural Signals in Atlanta, Georgia, outlined their accomplishments
linking brains to computers ( Nicolelis has implanted monkeys with electric
terminals in their brains that allow them to use robotic arms by "thinking
" of them, Kennedy has invented an implanted brain chip that is helping
a "locked in" paralyzed young man speak via thinking words that
are instantaneously sounded by a computer, and Muller has come up with
a way to non-invasively make it possible to type without a keyboard by
connecting brain signals to a compute cursor).
-
- Yes, cyborgs are here.
-
- Curiously, back in the U.S. of A. at the same time the
World Science Forum was taking place in Seoul, a succession of American
scientists were speaking at a symposium held by the U.S. National Academies
designed to assess how the government has responded to a 2005 report to
the U.S. Congress that attempted to rally the nation to improve scientific
research . And a whole lot of the speakers weren't happy.
-
- "Not much has happened here, but a lot has happened
elsewhere," said G. Wayne Clough, president of the Georgia Institute
of Technology in Atlanta, who takes over the top position at the Smithsonian
Institution this summer. Former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine,
who chaired the academies' panel that wrote the initial report, listed
progress being made in other countries and criticized U.S. policymakers
for their lack of action in supporting science.
-
- But it was Craig Barrett, former CEO of Intel, who
came up with the best and probably most telling zingers: "There will
be winners and losers, and the losers are the ones who insist on looking
backwards," he said. "We continue to subsidize 19th century technology--like
in the $290 billion farm bill--rather than the 21st century technologies
that will allow us to remain competitive. We're fat, dumb, and happy."
-
- I can tell you the Koreans scientists and public
alike are not dumb, or fat but they seem awfully happy about learning
and working . And they are clearly happy about inviting in , and soaking
in, brains and research from around the world. What they do with the knowledge
they are gaining, when coupled with their clear industriousness and steadily
growing economy, should be nothing short of astounding.
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