Neuralink: Elon Musk unveils pig with chip in its brain

In another big stride for Neuralink, Elon Musk's plans to create a working brain-to-machine interface, the billionaire entrepreneur on Saturday unveiled a pig called Gertrude with a coin-sized computer chip in her brain to demonstrate the technology.

Addressing a webcast, Musk said, the chip is kind of like a Fitbit in the skull with tiny wires. As the pig ate and walked around, the activity showed up on a graph tracking her neural activity.

Neuralink applied to launch human trials last year. Musk claims the interface could allow people with neurological conditions to control phones or computers with their mind. Musk argues such chips could eventually be used to help cure conditions such as dementia, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injuries.

The Neuralink device consists of a tiny probe containing more than 3,000 electrodes attached to flexible threads thinner than a human hair, which can monitor the activity of 1,000 brain neurons.