University of Utah scientists have used invisible infrared light to make rat heart cells contract.  Sounds interesting but not revolutionary, right?   But they also used infrared light to cause toadfish inner-ear cells to send signals to their brain - which might improve cochlear implants for deafness.

Imagine, if you will, a Borg cube from Star Trek humming along through space, part of a fleet of such cubes, each with millions of drones participating in a spatially non-localized brain of billions.

Now imagine that this collective Borg brain has a headache. The camera zooms inside one of the cubes and we see the source of the problem: a dreadlocked alien has awakened, and he’s raging through the ship, ripping up the neural wiring that connects the Borg drones to one another. Suddenly disconnected from the collective, the drones are waking up and finding themselves for the first time.

Although this rabble-rousing nerve-cutter might sound like the actions of a Klingon, as the camera gets closer we realize it’s actually a human.

Methodological Stuff:

1. Introduction
2: Patterns
3: Patterns, Objectivity and Truth
4: Patterns and Processes

The Pattern Library:

1.       A pattern of Difference