Lifeboat Foundation

Joshua Brown, 40, believed in the power of engineering. He was a former Navy SEAL, a technology consultant, and a Tesla fan. He had posted YouTube videos of himself driving a Tesla Model S on autopilot, taking his hands off the wheel to show how the car could avoid a collision on its own. He had nicknamed his car “Tessy.”

A new theoretical model suggests that quantum entanglement helps prevent the molecules of life from breaking apart.

The driver of a Tesla car died in Florida in May after colliding with a lorry.

Under scrutiny is Tesla’s Autopilot feature, which automatically changes lanes and reacts to traffic.

In a statement, Tesla said it appeared the Model S car was unable to recognise “the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky” that had driven across the car’s path.

Continue reading “US opens investigation into Tesla after fatal crash” »

In my work, I talk a lot about how to reduce fear in the workplace and structure full engagement. The HeartMath Institute’s work brings to light a key component of this type of leadership. When I speak about things like recruiting based on company values, aligning people with an emotionally compelling mission and vision, creating an environment of safety and belonging, frequently recognizing and celebrating achievements so that people know they matter…I am also talking about how to engage the hearts of your people. Engaging the heart is a key component of evolving a “Smart State”. It’s time to consider the heart brain at work.

Christine Comaford is the author of SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.

Something as simple as picking up a cup of tea requires an awful lot of action from your body. Your arm muscles fire to move your arm towards the cup. Your finger muscles fire to open your hand then bend your fingers around the handle. Your shoulder muscles keep your arm from popping out of your shoulder and your core muscles make sure you don’t tip over because of the extra weight of the cup. All these muscles have to fire in a precise and coordinated manner, and yet your only conscious effort is the thought: “I know: tea!”

This is why enabling a paralysed limb to move again is so difficult. Most paralysed muscles can still work, but their communication with the brain has been lost, so they are not receiving instructions to fire. We can’t yet repair damage to the spinal cord so one solution is to bypass it and provide the instructions to the muscles artificially. And thanks to the development of technology for reading and interpreting brain activity, these instructions could one day come direct from a patient’s mind.

We can make paralysed muscles fire by stimulating them with electrodes placed inside the muscles or around the nerves that supply them, a technique known as functional electrical stimulation (FES). As well as helping paralysed people move, it is also used to restore bladder function, produce effective coughing and provide pain relief. It is a fascinating technology that can make a big difference to the lives of people with spinal cord injury.

Continue reading “How brain implants can let paralysed people move again” »

FRIDAY, July 1, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Electrical pulses to the brain may help restore vision in some partially blind patients, German researchers report.

Glaucoma and other types of damage to the eye’s optic nerve typically cause permanent damage. But, the new technique appears to kick-start the brain’s visual control centers, the researchers explained.

A 10-day treatment regimen — entailing upwards of nearly an hour a day of electrical pulses aimed directly into the eye — improved vision among patients who were losing their sight, the researchers said.

Continue reading “Could ‘Zaps’ to the Brain Help Fight Glaucoma?” »

Games to help fight obesity?

Innovative research uses technology to help people with a sweet-tooth lose weight. Researchers believe they can train the brain to better resist temptation and warn people of an unhealthy urge before the temptation occurs.

Specifically, Drexel University psychologists have created a computer game aimed at improving users’ inhibitory control. Additionally, the investigators are also rolling out a mobile app that used in conjunction with the Weight Watchers app, will alert users on unhealthy urges before they strike.

Continue reading “New Gaming Software Hopes to Train Brain to Resist Sweets” »

I thought they already had one.

Alasdair Gray, the acclaimed Glaswegian writer and artist, penned a phrase now engraved on a wall of the Scottish Parliament: “Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.”

Michael Gove, the controversial Caledonian Brexiteer, journalist and Conservative politician, has in turn declared his intention to seek the leadership of the UK Tory Party and thus become the Prime Minister, to “reboot democracy” in a new “start-up nation”.

Continue reading “Michael Gove says Britain needs to create its own DARPA” »

But those don’t address the electrical circuitry at work in the brain, which scientists hope will provide a more precise option for treatment.

“We’ve focused a lot on the chemical side, because in the mid-20th century, we began to develop the first medications that affected neurotransmitters,” said Dr. Darin Dougherty, director of the division of neurotherapeutics and the department of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. “The other side, the electrical, that’s been less exploited as a treatment potential.”

Dougherty and others are working to change that. With funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, scientists are working to build new ways to treat psychiatric disorders, like PTSD, through deeper understandings of the electrical signals in our brains.

Continue reading “Treating psychiatric disorders through neuron stimulation” »