Recently at Stanford University they developed a microchip that mimics the function of the brain’s neural system. The chip has 105 neurons on it, and they expect to make multi-chip computers with 106 neurons. These neuromorphic processors could replace damaged brain tissue or enable silicon retinas that could restore vision.

We already have cochlear implants, artificial hearts and experimental but operating artificial limbs that respond properly to the nervous system. Like the lawyers the sawbones think they know everything. Of course, lawyers know nothing except how to turn off their morality and common sense so that they can get a serial ax murderer off free and think they have achieved something good. The doctors, on the other hand, do know a bit about the human body and at least try to fix our health problems and save our lives. We need to get involved with the doctors.

The medical profession will not trust any group who doesn’t play their game. Even when they don’t have a clue about what’s going on they have been taught that they are the keepers of the keys in all science and can do anything scientific better than anyone else. You may work for a physician as a technician if you keep him informed and let him make the important scientific decisions. If we want to be involved in EMI testing of cyborgs (the science fiction word for cybernetic organisms which were themselves science fiction but are now being created in our hospitals), we need to get into the game early (like ten years ago) so that the MDs don’t create plastic heads filled with Jell-O and articulated arms that measure the local field intensity in every cubic centimeter inside the head to determine if a cell phone is safe to use. Can you imagine needing an $80k fake head, a $70k fake arm, a $70k fake leg and a $100k fake torso in a $300 bikini to make EMC measurements? The test would entail the measurement at only 106 points. Let’s see, 30 measurements over the band from 100kHz to 10GHz times 106 points times 1 second per measurement. Why shucks, that’s only a year for each EMC test.

We need to get the EMC Society board of directors to hold off on their discussions about whether we should spend half our family fortune on a gala boondoggle to Hawaii and talk about the less important issues. Like should we create a technical committee to study the problems associated with cyborg EMC? If so, should we get on the docket at the AMA convention to introduce ourselves to the medical community? Further, should we get on board with ANSII or whoever so that the specifications describing the EMC tests that must be performed are both definitive and can be done with reasonably priced equipment in an afternoon?

As an example, every EMC engineer realizes that you may need a Jell-O head to determine the limits in a specification, but once you know the worst case you can specify equivalent field amplitudes. Using them, you can measure the cell phone in your CISPR anechoic chamber with your log-periodic antenna and spectrum analyzer and get a correct definitive answer as correct and reliable as a full week of measurements with a Jell-O head if all you want to know is whether the damned thing is safe to use.

Of course, none of this will come to pass. As with the airplanes, the auto industry, the Jell-O head affair and immunity testing we will drop the ball. Later the labs will have to buy more gear that duplicates the equipment they already have, which is, after all, good for the equipment makers, especially those in Europe. And the EMC Society movers and shakers will have to get on committees to revise the specs so that the tests can be performed with reasonable equipment in a reasonable time. So you better start saving up your shekels for the Jell-O legs and torsos and making room for the new “Medical EMC” labs and organization in the medical profession – the AMA EMC Society that is going to reinvent the wheel and squeeze us out of the EMC business.