From Passwords to Passthoughts: Logging In to Your Devices With Your Mind

A password, a fingerprint, or an iris scan—these are ways to verify that we are who we say we are, allowing us to log in to our devices or enter a high security area. But if we are to move beyond touch screens and keyboards, our methods of authentication will have to change too. That has pushed engineers to find new ways to verify our identities, and to do it directly from the source: the brain.

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Franka: A Robot Arm That’s Safe, Low Cost, and Can Replicate Itself

The robot, also called Franka Emika—“It’s like first and last name,” the developer Sami Haddadin explains—is not the only one ever designed to operate alongside human workers. Indeed, this type of system, known as a collaborative robot, or cobot, is one of the fastest growing segments in the robotics market, with global sales expected to jump from US $100 million in 2016 to over $3.3 billion in just five years, according to one estimate. It’s designed to be easy to set up and program, which is nice. But what makes it special is that, unlike typical factory robots, which are so dangerous they are often put inside cages, this arm can operate right next to people, assisting them with tasks without posing a risk.

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New brain imaging method identifies common brain disorders

New chemical allows for measuring the density of synapses in the entire brain in vivo for the first time, using a PET scan. The technique may provide insights into the diagnosis and treatment of a broad range of disorders, including epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease.

Now a Yale led team of researchers has developed a way to measure the density of synapses in the brain using a PET (positron emission tomography) scan. They used this new imaging technique on baboons and humans, then applied mathematical tools to quantify synaptic density, and confirmed that the new method served as a marker for synaptic density. The method revealed synaptic loss in three patients with epilepsy compared to healthy individuals.

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Human Intelligence Through Brain Scans

Researchers at Yale led a study that demonstrate fluid intelligence (defined by abstract reasoning) can be measured by the functional connectivity of 268 specific brain regions. Emily Finn, co-author of this study, said, “The more certain regions are talking to one another, the better you’re able to process information quickly and make inferences.” Mostly, fluid intelligence had to do with the connections between the frontal and parietal lobes. The stronger and swifter the communication between these two regions, the better one’s score in the abstract thinking test.Earlier, same researchers have demonstrated that a person’s brain activity appears to be as unique as his or her fingerprints. Using brain imaging data, researcher were able to identify individuals.

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Experiment proves Reality does not exist until it is measured

Physicists at The Australian National University have conducted John Wheeler's delayed-choice thought experiment, which involves a moving object that is given the choice to act like a particle or a wave. Wheeler's experiment then asks — at which point does the object decide? Common sense says the object is either wave-like or particle-like, independent of how we measure it. But quantum physics predicts that whether you observe wave like behavior (interference) or particle behavior (no interference) depends only on how it is actually measured at the end of its journey.

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Schizophrenia and the Teenage Brain: How Can Imaging Help?

Adolescence is a dangerous time for the onset of mental health problems. Advances in brain imaging are helping to picture how neural changes in these crucial years can lead to chronic debilitating mental illness.

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Space Telescope Tech Miniaturized to Look into the Brain

Optical technologies previously used to look at the stars in the sky will be miniaturized to look inside the brain, and could lead to new treatments for neurological diseases. The technologies once used to make corrections to space telescopes, along with new lasers, will help answer a fundamental question, according to Prakash Kara, Ph.D., a researcher at the Medical University of South Carolina. Kara is part of a team at MUSC that was awarded a $4 million grant from the National Science Foundation through its Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). The grant will fund collaborative research between MUSC and the University of Alabama at Birmingham to map changes in blood flow when specific neurons in the brain fire.

Dr. Prakash Kara says new equipment funded by the grant will dramatically improve researchers' ability to capture images deep in the brain. (Credit: Sarah Pack)

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Paralyzed man drinks beer using his imagination

A man who is paralyzed from the neck down was able to drink from a bottle of beer by using his imagination. Erik Sorto, 34, has been paralyzed for the last 13 years, but was able to use a robotic arm controlled by his thoughts recently via two silicon chips in his brain, which were able to determine what his intentions were and then send those commands to a prosthetic arm on a table nearby.

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Flying a jet via mind control

Jan Scheuermann, a quadriplegic and pioneering patient for an experimental Pentagon robotics program, continues to break ground in freeing the mind from the body. The 55-year-old mother of two in 2012 agreed to let surgeons implant electrodes on her brain to control a robotic arm. More recently, she flew an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter simulator using nothing but her thoughts, an official said.

 

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X-ray vision with safe, visible light

According to Nature, scientists are honing methods to reassemble scattered light that passes through opaque objects to create a usable image on the other side, enabling see-through (super!) vision of objects.

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