I don't know why this has been sitting my bookmarks for all this time without being posted, but it has. It's amazing, and you should watch it now.

That is all.

-CAINE-

Caption: NOAO

This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic Camera on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. vdB 141 is a reflection nebula located in the constellation Cepheus. Sometimes referred to as the ghost nebula, its awkward name is its catalog number in Sidney van den Bergh's catalog of reflection nebulae, published in 1966. Several stars are embedded in the nebula. Their light gives it a ghoulish brown color. North is down and East is to the right. Imaged August 28, 2009.

Image: T.A. Rector/University of Alaska Anchorage, H. Schweiker/WIYN and NOAO/AURA/NSF [high-resolution] Read NOAO Conditions of Use before downloading

In this week's episode, our collective uber-ADD was in full effect. So Tara and I manage to make our way to everything from Spontaneous human combustion, UFO's and paranormal beliefs, to TMNT remakes, future technology, as well as a few other things. All in all, I think it's a fun episode. If you agree, why not Subscribe on iTunes ? Also, I had a sudden burst of inspiration during production. So those of you who make it past the outro music, will be handsomely rewarded. Well, reward might not be the right word. let's just say, something lurks just beyond the closing credits this week, and leave it at that....

In This Weeks Episode: We begin with a brief mention of Mississippi's recent decision to finally ratify the 13th amendment - I make up for last week's Pope song with a bit of wholesome x-tian rap - A Texas man does his best to make a Horseman baby - while a Florida man earns a fine for harassing (not a euphemism)  a baby manatee - an Oklahoma man spontaneously combusted, or not (not) - And Tara discovers the looming Michael Bay TMNT remake - Physicists learn to make ghosts - google glasses are finally starting to look cool - a Russian man gets caught cheating via street view- as well as a few other things along the way.

Our Favorite Things: Tara recommends the website insidedish.com, which allows  restaurant workers to rate their employer. For my pick, I've chosen to recommend Ray Kurzweil's most recent book " How To Create a mind, the secrete to human thought revealed."

Though a number of new artificial limbs have been developed which can be controlled by the brain through both direct and indirect neural interfaces -either by being wired directly into the patient's nervous system or by monitoring electrical fluctuations in the brain via an external controller or interface. Figuring out how to integrate artificial systems directly into the human nervous system to allow for communication both to and from such devices and the brain, remains a difficult problem to resolve. Which is why as exceptional a thing as they still are, even the most advanced modern prosthetic devices are typically capable of delivering either control or sensation, but not both.

One of the promising looking attempts to overcome the current limitation of advanced prosthetic replacements, are experiments being conducted by a Swedish research group called  École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).  Having already had significant success with previous devices, the EPFL now has plans to fit an unnamed man from Rome, with an advanced robotic hand which they described as the first ever to deliver real-time sensory feedback, directly through the recipient's own nervous system.

The planned procedure -which is set to happen later this year in Switzerland-  follows the success of an earlier portable version of the hand that was tested In 2009, on a man who suffered the loss of half of one of his arms in an auto accident. After being temporarily fitted with this earlier version of the device, xxx was reportedly able to manipulate and grasp objects with his new hand, as well as being able to feel the sensation of needles pricked into it's palm. All that despite this earlier version of the prosthetic having only two sensory zones. The current model is capable of transmitting sensory feedback from all of it's fingertips, as well as it's palm and wrist, potentially providing a much more life-like feeling for it's recipient.

According to Dr. Silvestro Micera, who is Head of the Translational Neural Engineering Laboratory at EPFL and Professor at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Italy, the newest version of the device will be attached directly into the patient’s nervous system via electrodes clipped onto the median and ulnar nerves in the arm. The expectation is that this method of attachment should allow for a bidirectional flow of information between the prosthetic and the patient's brain, enabling it's recipient to control the device by thought, while simultaneously receiving tactile sensations from the prosthetic itself, and all in real time.


-CAINE-

Source: independent.co.uk


Speaking of neural computer interfaces. In the above Ted Talk, brain-machine interface scientist Miguel Nicolelis, discusses his own on going research into the science behind said interfaces, using a monkey named Aurora.