The Brazen Hussy Blog
columnist: Sherry Baker

Topic: Social and Cultural Issues
Cyborgs, Science Rock Stars and Seoul

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Report from South Korea and the World Science Forum of Neuroscientists

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by Sherry Baker
(Libertarian)
Thursday, May 8, 2008

The first thing you notice in Seoul is that it is so remarkably futuristic jam-packed with 10 million folks mostly living in remarkably post-modern, the Jetsons-meet-Oz high rises, stacked one beside, behind another beside the Han River. There's a total lack of clutter, litter and just plain junk on the side of the roads instead, flowers are planted by the highway, in nooks and crannies. And the people are different, too.

You can't find a fat one. When I returned to the U.S. and saw the Americans in the Honolulu airport, another traveler looked at me and noted " We're back to the land of fat Americans."

Maybe the S. Koreans stay so remarkably slender because of their diets or genes or they just plain work off any blubber. Heaven knows, they seem industrious and punctual to the second. And enthusiastic.

 Forget the clichs about inscrutable Asians. These folks I just met are gung-ho about learning, life, success and -- of all things science. Yep, science.

 I just flew back Seoul where I attended the World Science Forum: Brain Power, an event sponsored by the S. Korean government. The new president , Lee Myung-bak ,spoke at the opening ceremony and reminded us his country now has the tenth strongest economy in the world. Not only do ninety percent of all Korean kids go on to college but S. Koreans are the highest population of foreign nationals accepted into U.S. higher learning institutes. In 60 years, per capita income has soared from $100 per year, to over $ 27,000. Lee Myung-bak and is a businessman and entrepreneur and he's smart. His game plan isn't secret -- he's determined that his country will be a leader in neuroscience and related technologies.

And that sucking sound you hear is S. Koreans sucking up every bit of info and knowledge they can get from scientists in the U.S. and other countries. Watch their industrious, focused and, frankly, booming economy turn this knowledge into new technologies that will bring sci fi to life sooner than later. I can almost guarantee that the World Science Forum was an event you probably heard absolutely nothing about until you read this. Yet there were some of the Biggest Brains of the world there, including a Nobel Laureate. I sat at one of two press tables and was the only US journalist attending as far as I know. The US press wasn't interested, apparently.

After all, it is "just" neuroscience.. You know, the brain and how it works, how it can be altered, healed, made smarter and interfaced with machines. Yes, whether you know it or not, cyborgs are being developed humans combined on some level with machines, brains that can operate computers by thinking a thought.

We heard about robots that beat similar programmed humanoid mechanical creatures at games because the able-to-learn robots are thinking, trying, learning on the spot and about a project to map 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"). There was discussion about ways neuroscience can be used for "neuroeconomics " and " neuro-marketing" based on " 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). And much more.

This invited gathering of many of the world's top neuroscientists, was held at the uber futuristic W hotel convention center and open to the public. Thousands showed up --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 rock stars or some "American Idol" hopeful.

I couldn't even imagine most people I know planning on visiting a neuroscience forum because, well, they found it exciting, rewarding and interesting but the Koreans clearly did.

An important theme discussed by several researchers was 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 in California, were among the scientists 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 21^st century brain mapping that are amazingly clear and precise. In fact, they 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 what can be done to transform regular brains into super smart brains. (engineered evolution, anyone?) Tsien has already created Super Mice brainiac rodents -- via genetic engineering.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, mousse-spiked hair and is young and handsome, as well as being brilliant. He had the crowd mesmerized, especially the teen girls, as he spoke in Korean ( his first speech in the language) .

And then there were the scientists who could be thought of as the "daddies" of the coming cyborgs. 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).

There were also some non-scientist speakers. Ron Reagan Jr. did nothing to conceal his absolute contempt for King George W. Bush , the neocon led illegal invasion of Iraq and the horrifying waste of not only lives but billions of dollars that would have been far better spent 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 adoring crowds. It turns out he has a fan club of over 700,000 in S. Korea and he delighted the crowd with his description of using the brain's power of imagination to touch nature, "see" the future and prepare for true human evolution that he claims is coming.

A strangely synchronistic event of sorts was happening in the U.S. 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 most of the speakers were in scientific snits.

"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. 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.

Craig Barrett, former CEO of Intel, who came up with the biggest snit of all: "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 left Seoul thinking the U.S. better get off its dumbed down fat backside and support the amazing researchers we have in this country. And we need to get rid of the intellectually numbing, financially disastrous and just plain rotten Bush regime ASAP. The future is not going to wait . Some nations, like S. Korea, are diving right into it. Isn't it time we got up from our TV screens, read a book, listened to ideas, championed knowledge and set out for a better future ourselves?

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2008 Sherry Baker, all rights reserved.
Published: Thursday, May 8, 2008
Last modified: Thursday, May 8, 2008

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