"It sounds like science fiction: a brain nurtured in a Petri dish learns to pilot a fighter plane as scientists develop a new breed of "living" computer. But in groundbreaking experiments in a Florida laboratory that is exactly what is happening.

The "brain", grown from 25,000 neural cells extracted from a single rat embryo, has been taught to fly an F-22 jet simulator by scientists at the University of Florida.

They hope their research into neural computation will help them develop sophisticated hybrid computers, with a thinking biological component...."

Full story at <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/12/06/1102182227308.html?rats#" target="new" >The Age<a/>