1014: Advances In Brain-Computer Interfaces For People With Paralysis

Science Friday

#Science Friday #Society #Audioboom #Useful Science

42:18

“I used to be the largest dairy consumer on the planet. I used to eat so much dairy and meat. The more that I looked into the dairy industry, the more that I saw that it was the singular, most inhumane industry on the planet, that we've all been lied to, including myself, for years. I always believed that the picture on the milk carton, the cow standing next to her calf in the green field with the red barn in the back was true. It’s certainly the complete opposite.” – Richard (Kudo) Couto Richard (Kudo) Couto is the founder of Animal Recovery Mission (ARM), an organization solely dedicated to investigating extreme animal cruelty cases. ARM has led high-risk undercover operations that have resulted in the shutdown of illegal slaughterhouses, animal fighting rings, and horse meat trafficking networks. Recently, they released a damning investigation into two industrial dairy farms outside of Phoenix, Arizona supplying milk to Coca-Cola’s Fairlife brand. What they uncovered was systemic animal abuse, environmental violations, and a devastating betrayal of consumer trust. While Fairlife markets its products as being sourced "humanely," ARM’s footage tells a very different story—one of suffering, abuse, and corporate complicity. Despite the evidence, this story has been largely ignored by mainstream media—likely due to Coca-Cola’s massive influence and advertising dollars.…

11 days ago 19:13

MP3•Episode home

For decades, this technology has looked like a person controlling a cursor on a screen. But this work has advanced, and in a recent breakthrough, a person with paralysis in all four limbs was able to move a virtual quadcopter with extreme precision by thinking about moving it with their fingers.

Another area of BCI research involves speech. Recent work has shown promise in allowing people with vocal paralysis to “speak” through a computer, using old recordings to recreate the person’s voice from before their paralysis.

Joining Host Flora Lichtman to discuss the state of this technology, and where it may be headed, are Dr. Matthew Willsey, assistant professor of neurosurgery and biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan, and Dr. Sergey Stavisky, assistant professor of neurosurgery and co-director of the Neuroprosthetics Lab at the University of California, Davis.

Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

1467 episodes

1014: Advances In Brain-Computer Interfaces For People With Paralysis

Science Friday

published 11 days ago

MP3•Episode home

Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.

Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

1467 episodes

#Science Friday #Society #Audioboom #Useful Science

All episodes

1
1021: Two Steps Forward For Meat Alternatives 16:36

1 day ago16:36

16:36

Scientists bring us a lab-grown chicken nugget and texturally accurate, plant-based calamari. We’ll bite. There’s a movement in the world of science to find alternatives to meat and dairy products that don’t involve killing animals. Two avenues for this are by using animal cells in a lab, or going plant-based. Two breakthroughs in this field of food science were published in journals recently: the largest lab-grown chicken nugget and a plant-based fried calamari that tastes like the real thing. Producer Kathleen Davis joins Host Flora Lichtman to discuss these morsels of research and other science news of the week, including mandatory composting hitting the largest U.S. city, why human wounds heal slower than our primate cousins, and the disinfecting limitations of at-home washing machines. Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters .…

1
1020: How Death Metal Singers Make Their Extreme Vocalizations | Regional Allergies 22:36

3 days ago22:36

22:36

Being able to belt out a tune like Adele or Pavarotti is not just about raw talent. The best singers in the world have to work on their technique—like how to control their breath and develop the stamina to hit note after note for a two-hour concert. But pop stars and opera singers aren’t the only vocalists who have figured out how to harness their voices for maximum impact. Death metal vocalists also train their voices to hit that unique guttural register. And those iconic screams are not as easy to master as they might seem. Vocal scientists at the University of Utah are now bringing death metal singers into the lab to try to understand how they make their extreme vocalizations. What they’re finding is not only insightful for metalheads, but might also help improve treatment for people with some types of vocal injuries. Host Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Amanda Stark, speech pathologist and vocology researcher at the University of Utah, and Mark Garrett, vocal coach and lead singer of the band Kardashev. Read the whole story at sciencefriday.com. Also, we share a follow-up to our story about seasonal allergies based on a listener’s question about her family’s allergies. Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com . Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters .…

1
1019: A New Book On The Horrifying, Creative World Of Insect Zombies 18:45

4 days ago18:45

18:45

It’s zombie season! At least if you’re watching the new season of the fungal thriller “The Last of Us,” airing right now on Max, which chronicles what happens after a fungus turns most of humanity into zombies. It’s fiction for us, but for some organisms on the planet, it’s more like a documentary. The fungus that zombifies humanity in the show is based on Ophiocordyceps , a real fungal group that infects ants , takes over their brains and bodies, and turns them into spore factories. But this isn’t the only example of real-life zombies. Science writer Mindy Weisberger found a whole book’s worth of stories about horrifying and creative zombies and zombie-makers that inhabit the Earth, which she writes about in Rise of the Zombie Bugs: The Surprising Science of Parasitic Mind-Control. Host Flora Lichtman sits down with Weisberger to talk about the creepy and inventive lifestyles of these parasites, and how studying these zombifiers can teach us about ourselves. Read an excerpt from Rise Of The Zombie Bugs. Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com . Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters .…

1
1018: Untangling The Mind-Body Connection In Chronic Pain 18:56

5 days ago18:56

18:56

Research suggests that better understanding the psychological and neurological components of chronic pain may lead to better treatments. Chronic pain is remarkably common: Roughly 20% of adults in the US live with it. And people with chronic pain are more likely to have depression, anxiety, and substance abuse disorders. But this relationship between physical and mental health is not as straightforward as you might think, and there’s still a stigma attached to neuro-psychological causes of chronic pain. The latest research suggests that untangling the connections between mind and body is a key part of developing better treatments for people with chronic pain. Now, a new psychological treatment called pain reprocessing therapy has shown initial success in eliminating back pain in research participants. Producer Shoshannah Buxbaum joins Host Flora Lichtman to share her reporting on the intersection of mental health and chronic pain. Transcript for this story will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters .…

1
1017: A Precisely Pointed Laser Allows People To See New Color ‘Olo’ 18:54

6 days ago18:54

18:54

Researchers isolated one kind of cone in the eye and aimed lasers at it to allow subjects to see a super vibrant teal shade they call “olo.” Think about the colors of the world around you—the blue of a cloudless sky, the green of a new leaf, the blazing red of a tulip’s petals. We see these colors because of the way our eyes work. But what if we could change how our eyes respond to light, and present them with light in a form they’d never encounter in the natural world? What would we see? This week, researchers reported in the journal Science Advances that by using precisely aimed laser light, they were able to selectively target just one of the three types of color-sensing cones in the human retina. The cone, dubbed “M” because it responds to medium wavelengths of light, is normally stimulated at the same time as cones that respond to longer wavelength reddish light, or shorter wavelength bluish light. But after mapping the location of the cones in several subjects’ eyes, the researchers were able to target just the M cones with one specific wavelength of green laser light—a condition that would never exist in nature. The result, they say, is a highly saturated bluish-green teal color unlike anything in the real world. The researchers named their new color “olo.” Study author James Fong, a computer science PhD student at University of California Berkeley, and his advisor, Dr. Ren Ng, join Host Flora Lichtman to talk about the project, and the possibility of expanding the limits of human color perception. Transcript for this story will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters .…

1
1016: $8 Billion Of Climate Tech Projects Were Canceled In 3 Months | A Chance To Study A Successful, Growing Wetland 20:52

9 days ago20:52

20:52

How will market uncertainty and a lack of federal support for climate efforts affect the future of clean energy in the United States? Plus, many wetlands are disappearing, but Louisiana’s “accidental” Wax Lake Delta is growing—and informing coastal restoration techniques. $8 Billion Of Climate Tech Projects Were Canceled In 3 Months In the first three months of the Trump administration, officials have been aggressive in cancelling climate change related efforts, from enacting layoffs at large agencies to withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement and rescinding federal funding for green research and infrastructure. Joining Host Flora Lichtman to break down the changes we’re starting to see in climate policy and clean tech on the ground is Casey Crownhart, senior climate reporter at MIT Technology Review . They also talk about other science news of the week, including a Florida-based startup that’s recycling solar panels , an update on the growing measles outbreak in the Southwest, signs of a US science brain drain , humanoid robot participants in the Beijing half marathon , and how bats manage to drink on the fly . In Louisiana, A Chance To Study A Successful, Growing Wetland Amid the rapid erosion of Louisiana’s coast, something hopeful is happening where the Atchafalaya River meets the Gulf. A flow of sediment from a decades-old river diversion has accidentally given birth to new wetlands. While that small delta is dwarfed by what’s washing away all around it, researchers have gained knowledge from Wax Lake Delta that could help save the rest of Louisiana’s coast and contribute to a better understanding of wetland science across the globe. Read more at sciencefriday.com . Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters .…

1
1015: Investigating Cat Behavior Through Genetics 18:57

10 days ago18:57

18:57

With the help of cat owners, a new project investigates cats’ biology and aims to link some of their behaviors to their genes. Calling all cat people: This one’s for you. Despite humans’ long history of welcoming felines into their homes and delis, research on cats lags far behind research on dogs. Now, scientists behind the project Darwin’s Ark are working to close the cat gap by enlisting cat caretakers from across the country to submit a tuft of fur and answer a few questions about their feline’s appearance, personality, and behaviors. Host Flora Lichtman talks about the project, as well as what we do and don’t know about cat genetics, with Dr. Elinor Karlsson, chief scientific officer at Darwin’s Ark, and director of the Vertebrate Genomics Group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard Universities. Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters .…

1
1014: Advances In Brain-Computer Interfaces For People With Paralysis 19:13

11 days ago19:13

19:13

An evolving technology is changing the lives of people with paralysis: brain-computer interfaces (BCI). These are devices that are implanted in the brain and record neural activity, then translate those signals into commands for a computer. This allows people to type, play computer games, and talk with others just by thinking, allowing more freedom to communicate. For decades, this technology has looked like a person controlling a cursor on a screen. But this work has advanced, and in a recent breakthrough, a person with paralysis in all four limbs was able to move a virtual quadcopter with extreme precision by thinking about moving it with their fingers. Another area of BCI research involves speech. Recent work has shown promise in allowing people with vocal paralysis to “speak” through a computer , using old recordings to recreate the person’s voice from before their paralysis. Joining Host Flora Lichtman to discuss the state of this technology, and where it may be headed, are Dr. Matthew Willsey, assistant professor of neurosurgery and biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan, and Dr. Sergey Stavisky, assistant professor of neurosurgery and co-director of the Neuroprosthetics Lab at the University of California, Davis. Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters .…

1
1013: A Blind Inventor’s Life Of Advocacy And Innovation 19:09

12 days ago19:09

19:09

In Connecting Dots: A Blind Life , inventor Josh Miele recounts his life story and path to becoming an accessibility designer. When inventor and scientist Josh Miele was 4 years old, a neighbor poured sulfuric acid on his head, burning and permanently blinding him. In his new book Connecting Dots: A Blind Life , Miele chronicles what happened afterwards, growing up as a blind kid, and how he built his career as an inventor and designer of adaptive technology. Host Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Joshua Miele, an Amazon Design Scholar and MacArthur Fellow, or “Genius Grant” recipient. They talk about the inspiration for the book, how he grew into his career, and how disabled people need to be included in the technology revolution. Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters .…

1
1012: The Lack Of Science In Road Design Is Deadly 19:17

13 days ago19:17

19:17

Are traffic engineering decisions based on evidence-based research? Not as much as you might think. If you’ve seen a car crash on the side of the road, you might look at it and think that the person at fault is the driver. But how much blame should be shared by the people who designed those roads in the first place? Well, some traffic engineers are calling for the field to accept more blame for the crashes and the tens of thousands of annual fatalities that happen on our roads, including Dr. Wes Marshall, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado Denver. In his book Killed By A Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies our Transportation System , he digs into the standards that have dictated traffic design for decades to find out exactly how much science they’re based on. Spoiler alert: It’s a lot less than you’d think. Host Flora Lichtman sits down with Dr. Marshall to talk about how we got to this point and what a safer version of our streets could look like. Transcript for this segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters .…

1
1011: Possible Signature Of Life Detected On Exoplanet—Maybe | A Colossal Squid Video 24:38

15 days ago24:38

24:38

The Webb Space Telescope picked up traces of dimethyl sulfide on planet K2-18b. On Earth, the molecule comes from microbes and phytoplankton. Also, researchers captured the first confirmed video of a colossal squid swimming in its natural habitat—almost 2,000 feet deep. Possible Signature Of Life Detected On Exoplanet—Maybe In major galactic news, scientists may have detected possible signs of life on a planet right here in our galaxy. Is this one of the best hints we’ve gotten that alien life exists? Host Flora Lichtman gets into it with Anil Oza, the Sharon Begley Science Reporting Fellow at STAT and MIT. They discuss the latest in alien life, the Trump’s administration cuts to the “indirect costs” of science funding, the largest map of a brain yet, and how salmon on anti-anxiety meds make bolder choices. A Colossal Squid Video? That’s A Big Deal This week, scientists announced that they had captured the first confirmed video of a colossal squid in its natural habitat, recorded some 1,968 feet (600 m) below the ocean surface near the South Sandwich Islands. While there have been sightings of the colossal squid before, they have mainly been of individuals entangled with fishing equipment—and much of what is known about the elusive creatures comes from dead specimens. The video was captured by scientists on board the R/V Falkor (too) during an Ocean Census expedition searching for new marine life. As the remotely operated vehicle SuBastian descended towards the ocean floor, its cameras caught sight of a juvenile squid roughly one foot long (30 cm), and captured over a minute of high resolution video. The footage was later analyzed by experts and determined to be a colossal squid. Colossal squid are estimated to grow up to 23 feet (7 m) in length and can weigh as much as 1,100 pounds (500 kg), making them the heaviest invertebrate on the planet. They are not the same as the giant squid, an entirely different species, which can grow to be longer but are lighter and slimmer. Dr. Kat Bolstad, one of the squid experts the researchers sent their videos to for identification, joins Host Flora Lichtman to talk about the sighting. Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters .…

1
1010: How ‘Science Interpreters’ Make Hidden Science Visible 19:32

17 days ago19:32

19:32

Imagine you’re diving into a cell . You’re paddling around in the cytoplasm, you’re climbing up a mitochondria. If you’re having a hard time picturing this, that’s okay! There are professionals who do this for a living. We wanted to learn more from expert science interpreters , who take the results section of a research paper and translate it into something tangible, like a 40-foot dinosaur skeleton or a 3D animation of cellular machinery too small to see . At a live event in Salt Lake City in March, Host Flora Lichtman spoke with Dr. Janet Iwasa, head of the University of Utah’s Animation Lab and director of the Genetic Science Learning Center; and Tim Lee, director of exhibits at the Natural History Museum of Utah, about how they bring these out-of-reach worlds to life. Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com . Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters .…

1
1009: The Navajo Researcher Reviving A Desert Peach | A New Dino With Blade-Like Horns 32:29

18 days ago32:29

32:29

Bringing back Southwest peach orchards won’t be easy, but researchers are on the lookout for remaining trees—and they need help. And, the newly discovered Lokiceratops is challenging paleontologists’ understanding of how horned dinosaurs evolved and existed together. How A Navajo Plant Researcher Is Reviving A Desert Peach When you think of states known for their peaches, Utah might not be at the top of your list. But there is a variety—the Southwest peach—that grows in this arid landscape, and Native communities have cultivated this tree since the 1600s. But many of the orchards were intentionally destroyed by colonizers hundreds of years ago, and the remaining trees are now scattered across the region. A local scientist and member of the Navajo Nation is on a mission to track down Southwest peach trees so we can learn more about how these peaches are so well-suited to grow in the desert. At a live event in Salt Lake City in March, Host Flora Lichtman spoke with Reagan Wytsalucy, plant scientist and assistant professor at Utah State University Extension in San Juan County, Utah. She researches traditional Native American crops, including the Southwest peach. Meet Lokiceratops, A Giant Dinosaur With Blade-Like Horns The Intermountain West is a dinosaur nerd’s dream because it’s such a hotspot for fossils. Some of the most famous dino fossils in the world, like T. rex , triceratops, and stegosaurus can be found in western North America. So, of course, Science Friday couldn’t go to Salt Lake City, Utah, without digging into some dinosaur science. At a live event in Salt Lake City in March, Host Ira Flatow spoke with the scientists behind the discovery of Lokiceratops , a large dinosaur with impressive horns that was unveiled in 2024. Dr. Mark Loewen, vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Utah and the Natural History Museum of Utah; and Savhannah Carpenter, paleontologist and school outreach coordinator at the Natural History Museum of Utah, discuss how they figured out Loki was a new dinosaur, the process of describing and naming the fossil , and what it taught them about dino evolution. Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com . Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters .…

1
1008: How Interjections Regulate Conversation | Saccharin For Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria 19:07

19 days ago19:07

19:07

We are rounding up your questions about roads. What confounds you about traffic, or how interstates are laid out? Are there certain road design elements that ignite your road rage? Tell us about it: we’ve got a traffic engineer in the passenger seat this week, ready to answer your questions. Call us at (877) 4-SCIFRI or 877-472-4374. In this episode, utterances like “um,” “wow,” and “mm-hmm” aren’t just fillers—they keep conversations flowing. Also, new research suggests the artificial sweetener saccharin could kill antibiotic resistant bacteria. Huh? The Valuable Role Of Interjections Listen carefully to a spoken conversation and you’ll notice that the speakers use a lot of little quasi-words—mm-hmm, um, huh? and the like—that don’t convey any information about the topic of the conversation itself. For many decades, linguists regarded such utterances as largely irrelevant noise, the flotsam and jetsam that accumulate on the margins of language when speakers aren’t as articulate as they’d like to be. But these little words may be much more important than that. A few linguists now think that far from being detritus, they may be crucial traffic signals to regulate the flow of conversation as well as tools to negotiate mutual understanding. That puts them at the heart of language itself—and they may be the hardest part of language for artificial intelligence to master. Read the rest of this article on sciencefriday.com . A Sweet New Treatment For Antibiotic Resistant Infections? Researchers have discovered that the artificial sweetener saccharin has powerful antimicrobial properties. A new study published in EMBO Molecular Medicine suggests that saccharin can actually kill antibiotic resistant bacteria by interfering with DNA replication and cell division. The researchers also concluded that, with the help of traditional antibiotics, saccharin could even be used as an effective wound treatment. Host Ira Flatow talks with study author Dr. Ronan McCarthy, professor in biomedical sciences and director of the Antimicrobial Innovations Centre at Brunel University of London. Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com . Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters .…

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1007: Trump’s Nominee For NASA Administrator Meets Congress 15:39

20 days ago15:39