Greenough showed the effects of enriched and deprived environments on cortical connectivity and thickness in a series of studies. This is one of his early studies:

Science. 1972 Jun 30;176(4042):1445-7. Rearing complexity affects branching of dendrites in the visual cortex of the rat. Volkmar FR, Greenough WT.

"Higher-order dendritic branching is considerably greater in Golgistained neurons from the occipital cortex of rats reared in groups in a complex environment than in similar neurons of littermates reared individually in laboratory cages have intermediate amounts of branching, while lower-order branching did not appear to be affected by any rearing environment."

Lobby your local city and county officials to support the installation of fiber infrastructure. Along the Wasatch Front we have the excellent UTOPIA project, which brings fiber to the home. Local cities used bonds to support setting up the infrastructure, and home owners pay for the connection from the street to their house. The fiber infrastructure is treated like a utility and any ISP can compete for your business. I have a symmetric 100 MB connection for about about 1/3 less than Comcast was charging me for a 15 MB connection, and I get MUCH better service.

Along the Wasatch Front we have the excellent UTOPIA project, which brings fiber to the home. The fiber infrastructure is treated like a utility and any ISP can compete for your business - Keeping costs down. It was a great day when I had my symmetric 100 MB connection installed and was able to say goodbye to Comcast.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Biomedical Engineering is one of the fastest growing occupations and has a median income of over $80,000. I think that this NIH study, which was run mainly by people in academia, doesn't fully account for the jobs in industry.

Most researchers will think about this for about 2 seconds and then publish in the journal with the most prestige and highest impact factor that they can. Publishing in high impact journals is a major factor in promotion and tenure for professors, so until universities adapt their policies on promotion and tenure, professors will continue to published in prestigious and expensive closed access journals. When reviewing someone for promotion or tenure, high-level administrators don't have time to read all the journal articles a professor has published, so they really heavily on g-indices and/or h-indices that are based upon journal impact factor scores.

Pretty amazing surgery, but watching the videos shows limited restoration of function. The key is getting the transplanted/regenerating nerves to make the proper connections. The surgery is not going to re-wire the incredible number of connections made during development. Neural prostheses currently offer better dexterity and restoration of function than the nerve transplant. However, it is likely only a matter of time (maybe sever decades) before the neural re-wiring problem is solved.

Tesla Motors

Telsa is planning on an ~$30,000 model in the next few years. If they achieve this price point and maintain the quality of their current models, I think that they will have an all electric car that many people will want

Any wired solution, electrical or optical, must cross the skin therefore presenting a big infection risk. The whole idea behind using wireless devices in neural prostheses is to remove this risk of infection.