Show Notes 12 May 2023
Story 1: New AI system can translate a person’s brain activity into a continuous stream of text
Source: PsyPost.org Story by Christina Maher
- Side note: PsyPost.org is a psychology and neuroscience news website dedicated to reporting the latest research on human behavior, cognition, and society.
- Neuroscientists at the University of Texas have, for the first time, decoded data from non-invasive brain scans and used them to reconstruct language and meaning from stories that people hear, see, or even imagine.
- In a new study published in Nature Neuroscience, Alexander Huth and colleagues successfully recovered the gist of language and sometimes exact phrases from functional magnetic resonance imaging brain recordings of three participants.
- Language decoding models, also called “speech decoders”, aim to use recordings of a person’s brain activity to discover the words they hear, imagine, or say.
- Until now, speech decoders have only been used with data from devices surgically implanted in the brain, which limits their usefulness.
- Other decoders which used non-invasive brain activity recordings have been able to decode single words or short phrases, but not continuous language.
- The new University of Texas research used the blood oxygen level dependent signal from functional magnetic resonance imaging brain recordings [scans], which shows changes in blood flow and oxygenation levels in different parts of the brain.
- By focusing on patterns of activity in brain regions and networks that process language, the researchers found their decoder could be trained to reconstruct continuous language (including some specific words and the general meaning of sentences).
- Specifically, the decoder took the brain responses of three participants as they listened to stories, and generated sequences of words that were likely to have produced those brain responses.
- These word sequences did well at capturing the general gist of the stories, and in some cases included exact words and phrases.
- The researchers also had the participants watch silent movies and imagine stories while being scanned. In both cases, the decoder often managed to predict the gist of the stories.
- For example, one user thought “I don’t have my driver’s license yet”, and the decoder predicted “she has not even started to learn to drive yet”.
- The researchers started out by having each participant lie inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner and listen to 16 hours of narrated stories while their brain responses were recorded.
- These brain responses were then used to train an encoder – which is a computational model that tries to predict how the brain will respond to words a user hears.
- After training, the encoder could quite accurately predict how each participant’s brain signals would respond to hearing a given string of words.
- The bottom line: Technology that can create language from brain signals could be enormously useful for people who cannot speak due to conditions such as motor neuron disease. At the same time, it raises concerns for the future privacy of our thoughts.
Story 2: SETI Institute has joined forces with VLA to expand the search for aliens
Source: EarthSky.org Story by Paul Scott Anderson
Link: https://earthsky.org/space/seti-very-larger-array-cosmic/
- First, what is SETI? SETI is an acronym for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute. The SETI Institute is a non-profit research organization, located in California’s Silicon Valley close to the NASA Ames Research Center.
- The SETI Institue’s mission is to lead humanity’s quest to understand the origins and prevalence of life and intelligence in the universe and share that knowledge with the world.
- And what is VLA? VLA is an acronym for “The Very Large Array” which is a huge collection of 27 radio telescopes covering 23 square miles (60 square km) in New Mexico. It has already been actively surveying 80% of the sky since 2017 collecting data that will help astronomers search for extraterrestrial radio signals, if any exist.
- On May 1, the SETI Institute announced that the “The Very Large Array” is joining the for search alien civilizations.
- The SETI Institute is leading the new project, in collaboration with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the Breakthrough Listen initiative.
- For its new role in SETI, the Very Large Array is using a new processing system called Commensal Open-Source Multimode Interferometer Cluster (COSMIC). Paul Demorest, scientist and group lead for science support at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory stated:
- “COSMIC operates commensally, which means it works in the background using a copy of the data astronomers are taking for other scientific purposes. This is an ideal and very efficient way to get large amounts of telescope time to search for rare signals”.
- Until now, scientists have used the Very Large Array for many types of radio astronomy. But this is the first time they will use it to look continuously for technosignatures such as artificial radio signals.
- Now, with the combination of COSMIC and the Very Large Array, SETI will increase its sensitivity about a thousand-fold. While previous searches have focused on “regular” types of radio signals, COSMIC can better detect ones not as typical, such as pulsed or transient signals.
- Also, COSMIC can monitor an unprecedented number of radio frequencies, from about 10 million star systems.
Story 3: World’s largest to date zero-emission plane to be developed by Alaska Airlines and ZeroAvia
Source: hydrogenfuelnews.com
Link: https://www.hydrogenfuelnews.com/zero-emission-plane-zeroavia/8558545/
See video here – engine proof of concept January 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf9-vp9G3QA
- Alaska Airlines has teamed up with ZeroAvia to develop a zero-emission plane. In a recent event that took place at ZeroAvia’s Paine Field research and development site, Alaska Airlines presented a Bombardier Q400 regional turboprop to ZeroAvia, which will retrofit the 76-seat aircraft with a hydrogen-electric propulsion system it will design and build.
- Alaska Airlines first formed a partnership with ZeroAvia and invested in the company back in 2021. The purpose of the partnership is to support the development of zero emissions propulsion technology for regional aircrafts. By establishing the viability of region-sized aircraft, both companies will help to expand zero emissions flight technology throughout the industry.
- Zero-Avia will equip the zero-emission plane with a hydrogen-electric engine that uses fuel cells to generate electricity from hydrogen fuel. The generated electricity will then be used to power electric motors that turn the aircraft’s propellers.
- ZeroAvia’s novel, propulsion certifiable ZA2000 system includes the company’s in-house developed High Temperature Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cells and liquid H2 storage. Both are vital to providing the necessary energy density required by commercial operation of large regional turboprops.
- Side note: High Temperature Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cells, also known as High Temperature Polymer Electrolyte Membrane fuel cells, are a type of PEM fuel cells which can be operated at temperatures between 120 and 200°C.
- HT-PEM fuel cells are used for both stationary and portable applications. The HT-PEM fuel cell is usually supplied with hydrogen-rich gas like reformate gas formed by reforming of methanol, ethanol, natural gas or LPG.
- Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Temperature_Proton_Exchange_Membrane_fuel_cell
- At the recent event, the company debuted its breakthrough multi-megawatt modular electric motor system in a 1.8-megawatt prototype configuration. This was demonstrated with a propeller spin aboard the company’s 15-ton HyperTruck ground-test rig.
- A test flight could be ready in 2024.
- According to the news release, aligning ZeroAvia’s powertrain with the airframe of the aircraft will represent a commercially viable zero-emission plane that is not only equipped with fuel cell engine technology, but will be about five times more powerful than anything that has been demonstrated to date.
Story 4: A graphene “tattoo” could help hearts keep their beat
Source: ScienceNews.org Story by Meghan Rosen
Link: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/graphene-tattoo-heart-beat-pacemaker
- Researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago recently applied a graphene “tattoo” stuck to the hearts of rats with abnormally sluggish heart beats.
- Like a futuristic pacemaker, the device delivered electrical signals that kept the heart pumping properly.
- The electronic device is currently a proof of concept, but a version for use in human hearts could be ready for testing within five years, according to Igor Efimov, a cardiovascular engineer at Northwestern University in Chicago.
- Efimov and his colleagues have worked for years creating implantable devices that conform to the body. A main challenge is how to marry rigid electronics with soft, sometimes throbbing tissues.
- For most current pacemakers, doctors thread electrodes on long wires through a vein inside the heart.
- Every time the heart beats, some 100,000 times per day, the wires flex. Enough flexing, and the device eventually breaks, the research leader notes.
- One solution is to use ultrathin materials that ride along with the heart’s movements, like plastic wrap clinging to quivering Jell-O.
- In 2021, Efimov saw something that looked promising: a paper on graphene devices applied to the skin like temporary tattoos.
- Unlike the metal components often used in electronics, graphene is “atomically thin [with a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern].
- The tattoos the researchers developed for heart use sandwich a transparent layer of graphene between sheets of stretchy silicone and ultrathin polymer. Gold tape connects the graphene to wires that run to a power source, which sends electricity through the device.
- Future versions of the tattoo will be wireless, Efimov says, perhaps using a tiny antenna to pick up electrical signals from an external device placed on a person’s chest.
- And one day, Efimov envisions graphene electrodes the size of rice grains injected into heart muscle. Such miniature equipment could perform pacemaker duties without the typical clunky components.
- That all might sound like science fiction, but the technology is almost here, Efimov says. “Now’s the time to develop it.”