July 1, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – When someone loses part of a leg, a prosthetic can make it easier to get around. But most prosthetics are static, cumbersome, and hard to move. A new neural interface connects a bionic limb to nerve … Read More
May 24, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – This week, I wrote about an external stimulator that delivers electrical pulses to the spine to help improve hand and arm function in people who are paralyzed. This isn’t a cure. In many cases the gains … Read More
May 21, 2024
(Ars Technica) – One of those clinical trials, based at the University of California, San Francisco, has now inadvertently revealed something about how the brain handles language, because one of the patients enrolled in the trial was bilingual, using English … Read More
May 20, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – Reid received the device, called ARCex, as part of a 60-person clinical trial. She and the other participants completed two months of physical therapy, followed by two months of physical therapy combined with stimulation. The results, … Read More
May 20, 2024
(Associated Press) – The Virginia State Police investigator seemed puzzled about what the inmate was describing: “unbearable” conditions at a prison so cold that toilet water would freeze over and inmates were repeatedly treated for hypothermia. “How do you get … Read More
May 20, 2024
May 17, 2024
May 16, 2024
(Bloomberg) – For the first time, Noland Arbaugh explains how Elon Musk’s brain implant, which allows him to control a computer with his thoughts, has changed his life. Noland Arbaugh still doesn’t quite know what happened. He doesn’t know many … Read More
May 16, 2024
(Comment) – On July 5, 1978, a handful of activists rolled their wheelchairs in front of two buses at the Colfax and Broadway transit stop in downtown Denver. They held cardboard signs with “Freedom rider” and “Buses are for everyone” … Read More
May 13, 2024
(ABC News) – In April, the 21-year-old got her old voice back. Not the real one, but a voice clone generated by artificial intelligence that she can summon from a phone app. Trained on a 15-second time capsule of her … Read More
May 9, 2024
(BBC) – A UK girl born deaf can now hear unaided, after a groundbreaking gene-therapy treatment. Opal Sandy was treated shortly before her first birthday – and six months on, can hear sounds as soft as a whisper and is … Read More
May 9, 2024
May 7, 2024
(BBC) – In Canada, people with a disability can have an assisted death, provided they feel they are suffering intolerably and their condition cannot be reversed. Carr has been a vocal opponent of assisted dying for more than a decade. … Read More
May 7, 2024
(The Atlantic) – When George Schappell came out as transgender in 2007, he joined a population at the center of medical and ethical controversy. Schappell was used to this. He had been born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1961 with … Read More
May 6, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – “I did want to leave the hospital, and I did not want to take the medications,” Rob said. Rob’s situation isn’t that uncommon. Doctors said his behavior is consistent with anosognosia, a neurological condition in patients … Read More
May 3, 2024
(New York Times Magazine) – Living with a disability, I shielded myself from dance. Then I met him. Pain turns my body rigid, an inconvenient fortress. I was born with sacral agenesis, a congenital disability that restricts my mobility, making … Read More
April 26, 2024
(New York Times) – The former N.F.L. player has been living with A.L.S. for more than a decade. Sharing “the most lacerating and vulnerable times” in “A Life Impossible” was worth the physical and emotional toll, he says. (Read More)
April 23, 2024
(Washington Post via MSN) – Science, a start-up company in Alameda, Calif., has designed a visual prosthesis called the Science Eye which could restore vision, albeit in a limited form, in people with retinitis pigmentosa. Hodak, its CEO, co-founded the … Read More
April 15, 2024
(Associated Press) – Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, according to funeral home officials. They were 62. (Read More)
April 15, 2024
(Wired) – Bussard is one of a small number of blind individuals around the world who have risked brain surgery to get a visual prosthesis. In Spain, researchers at Miguel Hernández University have implanted four people with a similar system. … Read More
April 9, 2024
(The Guardian) – Now some specialists believe that the coexistence of both conditions is not just possible, but frequent. One study by researchers at Duke University found that up to half of people diagnosed as autistic also exhibit ADHD symptoms, … Read More
April 8, 2024
(The Atlantic) – The most basic challenge in mating a brain and a computer is an incompatibility of materials. Though computers are made of silicon and copper, brains are not. They have a consistency not unlike tapioca pudding; they wobble. … Read More
April 4, 2024
(STAT News) – Cochlear implants have successfully improved hearing loss for decades, but few people who qualify for an implant actually get it. Even in countries with universal healthcare, the adoption rates are dismal. Researchers are finding further disparities for … Read More
April 4, 2024
(NPR) – Sam and John Fetters, 19, are identical twins at opposite ends of the autism spectrum. Sam is a sophomore at Amherst College who plans to double major in history and political science. In his free time, he runs … Read More
April 3, 2024
(New York Times) – Ott has used her platform to help dispel myths about multiple sclerosis, a disorder of the central nervous system that can cause a wide range of symptoms, including muscle spasms, numbness and vision problems. She has … Read More
