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by creshal 3566 days ago
Amazing maybe, but not really news. Monkeys could pilot the Mercury capsule, too. With several months of intense training, you can make them do a lot of tasks involving pattern recognition. Reliable brain-sensing, on the other hand, is news.
1 comments

Ahem. They didn't pilot the capsule. They were passengers.
I don't know. I saw a pretty compelling documentary about the space capabilities of monkeys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Chimps
Thank you for your opinion, Chuck.
Since people don't seem to get the reference: "Mercury astronauts are passengers, not pilots" was a prejudice against the budding manned space program, spread by among others Chuck Yeager. It seemed to hurt their ego that even a monkey could do it (…after months of training, which included electroshock therapy).