Synthetic Brains!

Oh it's coming. We're taking the first baby steps at replicating the human brain. And all you romantic "ghost in the machine" types will have to bow before the crushing weight of materialism! Can't wait to download our brains.

Ten thousand artificial nerve cells have been interwoven in Lausanne, and the researchers aim to increase the number to one million within the next year. Which doesn't mean they're satisfied: The work is scheduled right now to last beyond 2015. By then, unless the project proves too ambitious, Markram and his team hope to be ready for their primary goal: a computer model of an entire human brain -- right now almost a sheer flight of fancy, given the 100 billion cells they would have to engineer.

Sweet