In a collaboration that blends biology and robotics, researchers at Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland are unraveling the circuitry in an eel’s spinal cord to help develop a microchip implant that may someday help paralyzed people walk again.  The two-school research team's goal is to make a device that could mimic the signals sent by the brain and coax nerve centers in the lower back into sending 'walking' instructions to muscles in a patient's legs.