via Carlos' Realm:
Dementia is one of the most devastating possibilities that face the aging. The slow loss of the person while they remain before you, the pain and confusion of the patient, is a heartache that awaits many. The cost, financial and emotional is enormous.
But science holds out a hope for us; a prosthesis for the brain. Professor Theodore W. Berger and his team are working on a silicon chip that can function as the hippocampus, the memory creating area in the brain.
They are currently working on rats; they hope to have a usable variety for humans in as little as 15 years.
15 years, and perhaps, in at least some cases, one of the most demoralizing aspects of getting old will no longer haunt us. To me, that is amazing.