Muscle-Bound Computer Interface

Forearm electrodes could enable new forms of hands-free computer interaction. Researchers at Microsoft, the University of Washington in Seattle, and the University of Toronto in Canada have come up with another way to interact with computers: a muscle-controlled interface that allows for hands-free, gestural interaction.

A band of electrodes attach to a person's forearm and read electrical activity from different arm muscles. These signals are then correlated to specific hand gestures, such as touching a finger and thumb together, or gripping an object tighter than normal. The researchers envision using the technology to change songs in an MP3 player while running or to play a game like Guitar Hero without the usual plastic controller.

Muscle-based computer interaction isn't new. In fact, the muscles near an amputated or missing limb are sometimes used to control mechanical prosthetics. But, while researchers have explored muscle-computer interaction for nondisabled users before, the approach has had limited practicality. Inferring gestures reliably from muscle movement is difficult, so such interfaces have often been restricted to sensing a limited range of gestures or movements. The new muscle-sensing project is "going after healthy consumers who want richer input modalities," says Desney Tan, a researcher at Microsoft. As a result, he and his colleagues had to come up with a system that was inexpensive and unobtrusive and that reliably sensed a range of gestures.

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GE Introduces Handheld Ultrasound Device

At the Web 2.0 Summit on Tuesday, GE CEO Jeff Immelt showed off a forthcoming hand-held ultrasound device called Vscan, calling it "the stethoscope of the 21st century." The device, which features a clam-shell design, with a small screen on one side and a circular input pad on the other, accepts a cable terminated in an ultrasound sensor. It could easily be mistaken for a cell phone. Immelt didn't provide any pricing information. He described the device as being digitally capable, despite it's lack of WiFi connectivity.

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Free will is not an illusion after all

Champions of free will, take heart. A landmark 1980s experiment that purported to show free will doesn't exist is being challenged.

In 1983, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet asked volunteers wearing scalp electrodes to flex a finger or wrist. When they did, the movements were preceded by a dip in the signals being recorded, called the "readiness potential". Libet interpreted this RP as the brain preparing for movement.

Crucially, the RP came a few tenths of a second before the volunteers said they had decided to move. Libet concluded that unconscious neural processes determine our actions before we are ever aware of making a decision.

Since then, others have quoted the experiment as evidence that free will is an illusion – a conclusion that was always controversial, particularly as there is no proof the RP represents a
decision to move.

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Cracking The Brain's Numerical Code: Researchers Can Tell What Number A Person Has Seen

By carefully observing and analyzing the pattern of activity in the brain, researchers have found that they can tell what number a person has just seen. They can similarly tell how many dots a person has been presented with, according to a report published online on September 24th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

These findings confirm the notion that numbers are encoded in the brain via detailed and specific activity patterns and open the door to more sophisticated exploration of humans' high-level numerical abilities...

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Vote for ideas in Project 10 to the 100

Project 10¹⁰⁰ is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible. Thousands of people from more than 170 countries submitted more than 150,000 ideas. During the review process, 16 "big ideas" are distilled and each are inspired by numerous individual submissions. You can vote to realize one of them here. Voting ends on October 8, 2009.

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Predicting Drug Response from Brain Waves

Brain waves measured using a simple device just one week into treatment can indicate whether a depressed patient should continue taking a medication or be switched to another. The study, which was conducted at nine sites across the U.S., could significantly reduce the time it takes to effectively treat major depression.

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Luxury Bed Maker Hästens Introduces Mindspa iPhone Application

Hästens, the luxury bed maker from Sweden, and NeuroTech, Inc., announced the introduction of the new MindSpa application for the iPhone™ and iPod Touch™, the most recent technological extension of the company’s expertise in the field of sleep and relaxation. The MindSpa application takes the unique capabilities of the iPhone™ and iPod Touch™ to a new level by simultaneously providing auditory and visual neural brainwave entrainment with biofeedback. This is the first iPhone™ application to combine three scientifically proven modalities to provide deep relaxation leading to a calmer mind and better sleep.

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Memories Exist Even When Forgotten

New research by UC Irvine neuroscientists suggests the memory exists – you simply can't retrieve it. scientists discovered that a person's brain activity while remembering an event is very similar to when it was first experienced, even if specifics can't be recalled.

"If the details are still there, hopefully we can find a way to access them," said Jeff Johnson, postdoctoral researcher at UCI's Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory and lead author of the study, appearing Sept. 10 in the journal Neuron.

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Magnetic levitation applied to a mammal

With the aid of a strong magnetic field, mice have been made to levitate for hours at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. The floating rodents could provide a valuable insight into how astronauts are affected by extended spells in zero gravity.

The effects on the health of an animal spending hours or days in such an intense magnetic field are unknown, though rats subjected to a field of 9.4 teslas – just over half as strong as the one used on the mice – suffered no obvious ill effects.

This system is too small to be used on people, but could you build something similar to levitate humans one day? "Theoretically I think you could," says inventor, "but the cost would be prohibitive."

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'Gene cure' for colour blindness

Scientists say they are a step closer to curing colour blindness using gene therapy. A US team were able to restore full colour vision to adult monkeys born without the ability to distinguish between the colours red and green. Nature journal describes the technique used by the researchers at the University of Washington. Although more studies are needed, the same treatment may work for humans who are colour blind, experts believe.

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