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Scientists have invented a type of electronic skin that can “talk directly to the brain”, allowing amputees to feel a human-like sense of touch through prosthetic limbs.

The ground-breaking artificial skin is embedded with sensors for temperature, pressure and strain, which are converted into electrical signals – similar to how nerve impulses communicate with the brain.

The wearable electronic circuit, known as a monolithic e-skin, was developed by a team from Stanford University, who detailed their breakthrough in a study published in the journal Science.

Stanford University’s Zhenan Bao, who was a senior author of the study, told The Independentthat the next-generation technology could also be used to feel objects and sensations while controlling a robotic limb remotely…….

www.independent.co.uk

Scientists invent electronic skin that gives amputees sense of touch

E-skin delivers pleasurable and painful sensations to brain through temperature, pressure and strain sensors
www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk
 
Beneath 1,350 square miles of dense jungle in northern Guatemala, scientists have discovered 417 cities that date back to circa 1,000 B.C. and that are connected by nearly 110 miles of “superhighways” — a network of what researchers called “the first freeway system in the world.”


Scientist say this extensive road-and-city network, along with sophisticated ceremonial complexes, hydraulic systems and agricultural infrastructure, suggests that the ancient Maya civilization, which stretched through what is now Central America, was far more advanced than previously thought.


Mapping the area since 2015 using lidar technology — an advanced type of radar that reveals things hidden by dense vegetation and the tree canopy — researchers have found what they say is evidence of a well-organized economic, political and social system operating some two millennia ago.


The discovery is sparking a rethinking of the accepted idea that the people of the mid- to late-Preclassic Maya civilization (1,000 B.C. to A.D. 250) would have been only hunter-gatherers, “roving bands of nomads, planting corn,” says Richard Hansen, the lead author of a study about the finding that was published in January and an affiliate research professor of archaeology at the University of Idaho……

 
New research suggest that human consciousness occurs earlier than previously thought

bigthink.com

When do humans become conscious — in the womb or after birth?

Neuroscience is beginning to provide clues about the philosophical question regarding the emergence of human consciousness.
bigthink.com bigthink.com

Perhaps the most intriguing evidence of consciousness in early infancy comes from a study conducted by Julia Moser at the University of Tübingen. Moser and her colleagues used second-order (“global”) auditory oddballs to probe for consciousness. Consider a sequence of tones that are clustered together into four groups of four tones, where each tone is either high pitched or low pitched. In the global oddball paradigm, the final tone in the first three groups differs from the preceding three tones (for example, if they are low then it will be high), but the final member of the last group will be identical to the preceding three tones (for example, they might all be low tones). In this scenario, the final tone is not an oddball (that is, outlier) relative to the preceding three tones, but it is an oddball relative to the entire sequence, for anyone who hears the three earlier groups of tones will expect the final member of this group to be an oddball.

Earlier research has suggested that the brain produces a distinctive response to second-order oddballs, which can be roughly thought of as a neural marker of surprise. Further, there is some evidence that this response is produced only when an individual is conscious. Using fetal magnetoencephalography (MEG), Moser and her team discovered that a version of this response could be found not only in newborns but also in 35-week-old fetuses. Again, this result does not provide proof of perceptual awareness in early infancy (let alone in utero), but it is yet another illustration of how neuroscience is beginning to pull back the curtain on infant experience.
 
Another incredible image shows what the National Science Foundation called a "light bridge," which crosses a sunspot's umbra from end to end. The bridges are "believed to be the signature of the start of a decaying sunspot," meaning that area will eventually break apart. The image taken by the telescope shows the light bridge in "remarkable detail," the foundation said.
Click to expand...

www.cbsnews.com

Earth's most powerful telescope just captured stunning images of the sun. Here are the otherworldly photos.

The incredible photos show sunspots and quiet areas on the sun's topmost layer.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com
 

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