Both stories have been hailed as scientific breakthroughs, but have also sparked inevitable fears about the prospects of lab-grown humans and digital clones. Should we be concerned?<\/p>\n
Scientists in the US have uploaded a fruit fly to a computer simulation, while an Australian lab has taught neurons on a glass chip to play a 90s video game. How long before we are all living in a sci-fi movie?<\/p>\n
It sounds like the opening of a sci-fi film, but US scientists recently uploaded a copy of the brain of a living fly into a simulation. In San Francisco, biotechnology company Eon Systems created a virtual insect<\/a> that knew how to walk, fly, groom and feed in its virtual environment. Researchers in Australia, meanwhile, have taught a petri dish containing 200,000 human brain cells to play the iconic 90s shooter Doom. One experiment has pushed a brain into a computer; the other has plugged a computer into brain cells.<\/p>\n Both stories have been hailed as scientific breakthroughs, but have also sparked inevitable fears about the prospects of lab-grown humans and digital clones. Should we be concerned?<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/7039907b7b58203fe96d1e7daaca4e6424669446\/175_0_1553_1242\/master\/1553.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=2ea93db99d5baced04b1d4b85c6bd1e8\" "\\"A")
Scientists in the US have uploaded a fruit fly to a computer simulation, while an Australian lab has taught neurons on a glass chip to play a 90s video game. How long before we are all living in a sci-fi movie?