On the surface, it looks like telepathy. Two rats – one in Brazil and another in the USA – are linked in real-time by implants in the same part of their brains, the motor cortex which controls their movements. As one rat presses a lever, its implant records the activity in its motor cortex and converts it into a signal. This is sent to the implant of the second rat, which uses that information to press the same lever.

Although Miguel Nicolelis, the scientist behind the study, tells me that it’s “not the Borg”, he expects that this set-up is the first step towards an organic computer composed of several linked brains. It allows one rat to use the senses of