2019-08-10_The_Week_Junior_UK

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Scienceand technology

10 August 2019•The Week Juni

GETTY IMAGES

D

octors at the University of

California, San Francisco, in the US,

have developedapieceofsoftware

that can(almost)read minds. The

project, funded byFacebook, hopes

to help people who,due toarange

of medicalconditions, areunable to

communicate with others.

Until now,technologies that have

helped people with theseconditions

to communicate have been too slow to

allowanatural, flowingconversation.

People find these devices frustrating

to use.

This new approach uses brain

signals toconvertaperson’sthoughts

into text. When wewant to speak, the

brain sends signals to makethe lips,

jaw and tongue move in the precise

waytomakeanunderstandable sound.

By detecting these brain signals, the

new softwarewas able to predict what

apersonwanted to say quickly enough

to holdaconversation.

The brain-reading software

wastested on three volunteers

who could all speak normally.They

werebeing treated for epilepsy–a

medicalcondition thatcauses bursts

of electrical activity in the brain that

affect how it works. As part of their

O

n25July,alarge asteroid (rocky

objects that orbit the Sun) flew

right past the Earth–and astronomers

almost didn’t noticeit. The asteroid,

named 2019 OK,wasbetween 53 and

130 metres wide.

one fifth of the distancefromthe Earth

to the Moon. This near miss has led

some people to wonder how well the

systems to provide anearly warning

of asteroids areworking. 2019 OKwas

eventually spotted by the SONEAR

rvatory in Brazil onlyafew hours

reitfl ew past Earth.

hereare severalreasons why the

oid wasn’t spotted sooner.Firstly,

ugh a100-metrelump ofrock

ds big, in spaceterms 2019 OK is

lly rather small. Its surfaceisa lso

so it looksvery faint, even through

erful telescope. Moving unusually

ly at 54,000mph, the space

headed towards Earth from the

tion of the Sun. The Sun’sintense

made it nearly impossible to see

ad of time.To improve detection

e future, NASA is launching an

oid-hunting satellitecalled the

Earth Object Camerain2021.

Asteroid in Earth near miss

treatment for epilepsy,each patient

had electrodes (small metal plates

that carry electric currents) placed

onto the surfaceoft heir brain. Edward

Chang, who led the study,used these

electrodes torecordthe signals in the

patients’brains while they listened to

alist of questions and answered them.

Chang and his team then built

acomputer program that learned

to match the patient’sbrain signals

to the words the patient heardand

the words the patient spoke.Forthe

questions, the softwarematched the

correct words 76% of the time.Forthe

answers, it matched thecorrect words

61% of the time.

In its current form, the mind-

reading softwareworksonly for the

limited set of sentences on which

it wastrained. Scientists hope that

this early system will help them

developamorepowerful

version thatcould

decode thoughts

in real time to give

people their voices

back. Chang said,“We

havearesponsibility

as scientists torestorethat

most fundamental human ability.”

Recording brain

signals.

2019 OK flies

past Earth.

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