The brightest take on this week’s science
Hey, and welcome back to Spark!
This week, we’re sharing the story of Casey Harrell, a 47-year-old with ALS, who can no longer move most of his body.
Thanks to a cutting-edge brain implant, his family can finally hear his voice again.
Also in this issue:
👞 A weird global pattern in the way humans walk
🪼 31 haunting new deep-sea species
🔬 A microscope mystery
Scroll on to spark your curiosity!
LOW-KEY GENIUS
Brain Implant Lets Man With Severe Paralysis Speak Again
Casey Harrell using a brain-implant interface, with his wife and daughter nearby. (UCD)
One of the great things about science is the way it can transform lives.
An experimental brain implant has now given Casey Harrell, a man with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), his voice back.
For nearly two years, Harrell’s brain has been hooked up to a brain-to-text decoder.
He is part of a preliminary clinical trial in the US to test the safety and feasibility of this device.
The digital ‘mouthpiece’ that turns Harrell’s thoughts into speech is designed to sound like his old voice.
"It is very sweet to have the ability to look at my wife's eyes when she hears my voice," Harrell has shared through the brain-computer interface.
You can see heartwarming footage of Harrell using the system by clicking the link below.
HEADLINES
This Week in Science
LOOK OUT
A Strange Global Pattern in The Way Humans Walk
A still image from one of the experiments, showing position of people (red dots) and recent movement (the orange lines). (Echeverría-Huarte et al. CC-BY-ND)
Scientists have discovered a weird way that humans walk.
When wandering through a space, our brains make oddly similar decisions about where to go.
We have a left-turn bias, researchers have found.
Across a variety of age groups, cultural settings, and spaces, an international team of scientists found that left turns are more common than right turns.
"This was completely unexpected as, at least instinctively," says engineer Claudio Feliciani.
“When people walk around randomly, you imagine people turn as their needs suit them with little sign of an overall preference.”
But that may not be true after all…
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ZOOM ZONE
Microscope Mystery: What Do You See?
(Macku et al., Proceedings of SPIE, 2011)
A) Amethyst
B) Snow
C) Cookie
D) Solar panel
Answer at the bottom.
LOOK DOWN
31 Haunting New Deep-Sea Species Discovered
A potentially undescribed siphonophore. (ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute)
An expedition to the deep ocean has turned up 31 new species, stretching from the sunlit surface down to the dark abyss.
Scientists are only just starting to understand these habitats, some of the largest on Earth.
The creatures that live here are haunting and hypnotic.
Ghostly gossamer worms. Gently pulsating jellies. Twinkling glass squid.
The photos and videos are breathtaking. See for yourself…
WOW FACTOR
Science Fact of The Week
Earth-like planet formation. (Nemes Laszlo/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)
Earth is still cooling off from its hot and violent birth roughly 4.54 billion years ago.
Each and every second, roughly 47 terawatts of heat flow from our planet’s interior to the surface.
That’s equivalent to the energy of several thousand nuclear power plants.
DOPAMINE HIT
Before You Go…
Try not to smile at this beluga….
(Marco De Luca/iStock/Getty Images Plus)
Microscope answer: Solar cell
Solar panel cells are not as smooth as they appear to the human eye. There’s more texture than you might think. The topography looks like a bunch of pyramids, and these shapes help trap light and reduce reflection.
That’s all for today… see you next week!
- Carly
