No mind-reading yet, but scientists eavesdrop on brain impulses

You've heard of mind reading, but how about mind listening?

In a move that brings us one step closer to a world in which Big Brother could listen in on what you're hearing from inside your head, scientists have found that they can re-create a single word that a person has just heard by tracking the brain's electrical response to the sound.

Brian Pasley, a neuroscientist at UC Berkeley and lead author of the paper "Reconstructing Speech From Human Auditory Cortex," explained that the brain analyzes speech by its acoustic frequency, and that different sites in the brain respond to different frequencies. To listen in on what the brain is hearing, Pasley and his team essentially created a model, or map, of which part of the brain responded to which frequency. 

But it's not like a brain wiretap is on its way anytime soon. The researchers' brain code allows them to translate only words that the brain actually hears, not words that the brain thinks up on its own.

Also, the process of listening in on what the brain hears is not a simple one — at least not yet. For this study, researchers worked with people who already had an array of electrodes placed directly on top of their actual brain as part of a treatment for eplilepsy.

"For what we are studying, it was a really unique window into what the brain is doing when we are trying to understand speech," said Pasley. "The types of signals you are getting when you are recording directly from the brain are much more precise than other methods."

Still, he said he had to play these kind volunteers a single word for five or 10 minutes before he got enough data from the brain to re-create it.

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Image: An illustration showing a human brain with the electrode array. Credit: Adeen Flinker / UC Berkeley.

 

The making of NASA's super hi-res blue marble Earth image

A new image of the Earth has been popping up all over the Internet, dazzling us with its high-def imagery of land masses, oceans and rippled clouds.

Some media outlets have reported that the image is the largest image ever made of our planet, but Norman Kuring, the NASA oceanographer who actually made the image, told The Times that  simply is not true.

"I'm surprised that it's gone viral," he said. "I think what's happening in the general public is seeing a larger image than they are used to seeing, but there have been higher sensing instruments around for a number of years."

Kuring explained that this particular image was made using data collected by the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite, which is on a satellite flying 512 miles above the Earth. VIIRS is not really a camera -- rather it has a scanning telescope that measures the difference between the amount of light coming down to the surface of Earth from the sun as compared to the amount of light that is reflected back to the telescope. Kuring made the image above by running code that translates that data into an image.

VIIRS only scans one swatch of Earth at a time, measuring about 1,900 miles across. Kuringer says you can think of it as if you were walking down the street with a broom and sweeping as you go. The images are then pieced together to make a whole.

The satellite it rides on -- Suomi NPP,  which was launched in October -- has been placed in a sun-synchronous orbit so that the satellite is over the equator at the same local ground time in each orbit. This is relevant because it explains why each slice of image is lit the same way even though the entire image of the Earth was taken over a period of several hours.

The data that VIIRS collects is still in the process of being calibrated, but eventually scientists will be able to use it to measure ocean temperatures, tell us the location of fires, and track cloud formations.

As for the above image, Kuringer said he made it as a favor to a NASA scientist who wanted a visual to use in a talk to the American Meteorological Society earlier this week. Kuringer settled on an image taken on Jan. 4 because it was a fairly sunny day, and he decided to focus on North America because the society is based in America.

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Image: A 'blue marble' image of Earth taken with the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA's satellite  Suomi NPP. Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

Harvard study finds the iPad can be a pain in the neck

Apple sold a record breaking 15.43 million iPads in the last three months of 2011, which means a lot of people are starting to use tablet computers. And with last week's news that Apple is planning to bring textbooks to the iPad -- well, that's a lot more people who may start to use tablets, too.

But, do they know how to use them safely?

A new study published by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, in conjunction with researchers at Microsoft (a long-time Apple rival), is the first of its kind to examine the physical effects on the head, neck and shoulders of spending time staring at a tablet.

The good news is that it is not all bad news. The researchers found that people are more inclined to move around and shift positions when they use a tablet compared with people who are sitting at a desktop computer. That's definitely good. However, tablet users that hold the device almost at their lap, or rest the tablet in a case on their lap, are putting a lot of strain on the neck muscles -- much more than someone using a laptop or desktop computer.

"If you think about your position when you are hunched over looking down, your head is hanging out over space, so you are using your neck muscles to support the weight," said Jack Dennerlein, director of the Harvard Occupational Biomechanics Laboratory, and lead author of the paper.

Definitely not good.

In the paper, published earlier this month in the peer reviewed "Work: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment, and Rehabilitation," the researchers identified four ways that people use tablets — the lap-hand (holding the tablet down at your lap), lap-case (resting the tablet in a case on your lap), table-case (resting the tablet in its case on a shallow angle on a table) and table-movie (resting the tablet at a steep angle on a table).

They concluded that the best position is the table-movie position because it is the only position in which the user's posture approached neutral. All the other positions put a lot of strain on the user's neck muscles.

Dennerlein said those who use tablets should make sure to move around as much as possible -- "Don't get stuck in one position!" he said. The next most important thing is finding a good case that allows you to prop up your tablet at the most comfortable angle. He added that companies that distribute tablet computers to their employees should make sure to give out cases as well, in order to prevent injuries.

Next up, Dennerlein and his team plan to tackle the effect of tablet computing on the arms and wrist.

One additional note: When we reached out to Apple to see if they had any comment on the ergonomics on using the iPad, a spokesperson pointed us to a large section on ergonomics on Apple's website. The section is impressive, but the suggestions and diagrams are all related to desktop computers, and the site did not have any recommendations on how to most safely use a tablet. We called the rep to see if we had missed anything, but we didn't hear back by press time.

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Photo: A model looking at her iPad in a position that the Harvard study says is bad for your neck. Credit: Markus Schreiber / Associated Press

Solar storms may cause cellphones to drop calls

On Sunday, a massive explosion on the sun known as a solar flare sent an ejection of some of the sun's plasma hurtling toward earth at the ungodly speed of 1,000 kilometers...per second!

No need to worry about being hit by flying sun plasma though -- that will zoom right past Earth and race toward the edge of the solar system, according to Harlan Spence, principal investigator for the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) instrument onboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

It's the ionizing-radiation that was also produced during the flare that hit Earth on Tuesday that is more of a cause for concern.

The radiation won't physically hurt those of us who are earthbound -- the Earth's magnetic field and its atmosphere provides an effective shield against that. But astronauts who are working on the International Space Station could be at risk.

"These particles move so fast that they can penetrate the walls of spacecraft, damage electronics and even pass through a spacesuit into a person's body," said Spence. "And when it moves through you, it can do grave damage to your cells and your DNA. That's why astronauts will try to go to a well shielded environment when one of these events occur."

Furthermore, our beloved GPS systems may be affected. The GPS satellites themselves, which are located high above the Earth's atmosphere, are most likely not at risk, but the earth's electromagnetic field will get all stirred up by radiation coming off the sun, and the signals we receive have to pass through that stirred-up area.

"As conditions change, GPS systems may be degraded," said Spence.

Cellphones will generally not be affected, said Douglas Biesecker, a physicist with NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.

"It can be impacted if it's sunrise or sunset and the cell tower is in the same direction of the sun," he said. "A cellphone signal is very very weak, so anything that comes in at that frequency could overwhelm it. You would just drop the call, but you wouldn't realize why."

And if you are planning a flight that might pass near one of the Earth's poles -- from New York to Japan for instance -- your plane might be rerouted to keep the flash flood of charged plasma particles from interfering with navigation systems. Delta has already rerouted some of its flights. Others flew at lower altitudes to reduce the risk of radiation exposure.

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Image: A solar flare captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Credit: NASA / Reuters

Scientists create living LED screens out of glowing bacteria

Here's some cool news for people who love anything that glows in the dark: Scientists at UC San Diego have figured out how to make millions of fluorescent E. coli bacteria flash all at once, creating a sort of living LED screen.

Jeff Hasty, a professor of biology and bioengineering who headed the research team in the university's Division of Biological Sciences and BioCircuits Institute, said it took him and his team about five years and a series of papers to develop what he calls the "biopixels" that make up the living LED screen.

Back in 2008 Hasty and his team published a paper that showed how they built a biological clock inside a single bacterial cell that would tell the bacteria when to produce a flashing, glowing light.

In a second paper published in 2010 they showed they could synchronize thousands of bacteria in the same colony to blink on and off in unison.

The next step was to find out if they could get bacteria in different colonies to blink on and off at the same time.

"We were wondering if we could get the bacteria to communicate over large distances," Hasty said.

A long distance in the bacterial world might be 1 centimeter, he added.

As it turned out, they could communicate over long distances by having the bacterial cells create a vapor that allows the different colonies to communicate with each other almost instantaneously.

And so the living LED screen was born.

It's all on a very micro scale right now. So far, the scientists have made screens -- or chips -- of two sizes. The larger chip contains about 13,000 colonies, or biopixels, (50 to 60 million bacterial cells) and is about the size of a paper clip. The smaller chip (pictured above) contains about 2.5 million cells -- or 500 colonies -- and is about a 10th of the size of the larger chip.

Hasty said his team could eventually get the bacteria to communicate over by another order of magnitude.

We wondered if the ability to program bacteria to light up at will might make its way into a living neon signs -- no electricity needed.

"There is nothing that would preclude a company from making a beer sign out of these, but I'm not sure how marketable that is given that a bar would have a sign full of living bacteria hanging in its window," Hasty said.

He and his team have other applications for their living LED screen in mind. They have been able to engineer a simple bacterial sensor that can detect low levels of arsenic, and cause the bacteria to flash more quickly if arsenic is found.

"So if you are in Bangladesh and you want to know if there is arsenic in your water, you could use a sensor made out of these chips," Hasty said. "That's more the direction we are headed."

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Image: The small "living LED screen," or chip, contains about 2.5 million cells -- or 500 colonies -- of E. coli bacteria that have been engineered to flash in unison. Credit: UC San Diego.

Researchers in Germany create a virtual sky for office workers

Here's a report from the fringes of science: Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering in Germany have created a luminous ceiling that re-creates the fluctuating lighting conditions that occur naturally out of doors on a cloudy day.

It's not cheap. Fraunhofer says installing a virtual sky would probably cost approximately 1,000 euros ($1,300) per square yard. But in a study, the researchers found that 80 percent of workers preferred working under a dynamic virtual sky. And in a release about the project, Fraunhofer reports it has already had inquiries about the new type of lighting, mostly from companies hoping to use it in conference rooms.

The luminous ceiling is made of 20-inch-by-20-inch tiles, each loaded with a board containing 288 light emitting diodes (LEDs). The lights are covered with a matt white diffuser film so the individual points of light meld together. The researchers used a combination of red, blue, green and white LEDs to create the full light spectrum.

The trick to simulating outdoor light is to simulate the dynamic changes in the light in such a way that is not obvious to the naked eye. The researchers did not want to distract people from their work, but found that gentle fluctuations improved concentration and heightened alertness.

Sounds good to us! Here's what else sounds good: The researchers at Fraunhofer say they are optimistic that the price of their virtual sky will come down eventually. "The more units are produced, the more cost-effective each luminous ceiling will be," they said.

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Image: The dynamic luminous ceiling, created by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering in Germany, in action. Credit: Fraunhofer IAO

Large Hadron Collider made with Legos, and other geeky creations

Why make the Large Hadron Collider's ATLAS detector out of Legos? Well ... why not?

Sascha Mehlhase, a physicist based in Copenhagen, has built a 1:50 scale replica of the ATLAS detector, which is part of the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator.

Physicists hope the LHC will help them discover the Higgs boson, also known as the "God particle," which is responsible for mass of all the fundamental particles in our universe. "We hope to learn the nature of dark matter, which is most of the mass of our universe," said physicist Michael Barnett, one of the ATLAS coordinators of education and outreach. "We may even get lucky and discover that there are extra dimensions of space beyond those three we know."

As for the Lego version of the ATLAS detector, well, that just looks neat.

"It is an interesting concept because the ATLAS detector itself was quite a feat, with tens of thousands of pieces having been built in 38 countries and assembled by 3,000 physicists at the LHC in Geneva," Barnett said.

The real ATLAS detector is 75 feet tall and wide, and about 150 feet long.

Mehlhase's model is about 1 1/2 feet high and a bit over 3 feet long. In an email to The Times, he said he spent about 48 hours creating a digital 3-D model of the ATLAS using Lego's Digital Designer software. Assembling the detector took an additional 33 hours, he said, but he spread that out over weekends and after hours and got some help from his wife. In total, he used about 9,500 Lego pieces, he said.

Mehlhase said the whole project cost about 2,000 euros ($2,614), but because the model will be used for outreach, the Niels Bohr Institute, where he works, picked up the tab. (The labor, however, was free).

Those interested in building their own ATLAS detectors are in luck: Mehlhase said he is working on a construction manual that should be available soon, and Barnett said the ATLAS team is working with Mehlase to help create a slightly less difficult version of the project.

Mehlhase's ATLAS model may be the geekiest thing ever made out of Legos, but it is hardly the only one.

Here are six of our favorites:

SETI telescopes get new life listening for signs of alien life

Alien enthusiasts, get psyched.  

Thanks to the help of 2,700 independent supporters and a new deal with the U.S. Air Force, the SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array is back online as of Monday. SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

For the first time since April, the group of 42 giant radiotelescopes, built to monitor the universe full time for radio waves that might be sent out by life forms on other planets, is listening once again.

And the timing couldn't be better.

On Monday, NASA announced that its Kepler Mission had confirmed the existence of a planet in a "habitable zone," meaning it is close enough (and far away enough) from its sun that water could exist on its surface. The planet, called Kepler-22b, is located 600 light-years away.

And in the last 18 months the mission has discovered 2,236 planets that might also be in a similar "habitual region."

The SETI Institute plans to spend the next two years pointing its telescopes at the top 1,000 habitable planets that Kepler finds.

“This is a superb opportunity for SETI observations,” Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI Research at the SETI Institute, said in a statement. “For the first time, we can point our telescopes at stars, and know that those stars actually host planetary systems -- including at least one that begins to approximate an Earth analogue in the habitable zone around its host star. That’s the type of world that might be home to a civilization capable of building radio transmitters.”

But Tarter isn't convinced these are the only places that might be home to alien life.

“In SETI, as with all research, preconceived notions such as habitable zones could be barriers to discovery,” she said. “So, with sufficient future funding from our donors, it’s our intention to examine all of the planetary systems found by Kepler."

The Allen Telescope Array has monitored the universe consistently since 2008, but in April, SETI and its partner, the Radio Astronomy Lab of UC Berkeley, ran out of money and put the ATA into hibernation mode. The SETI Institute raised $232,155 from private citizens to help put the array back online, but the bulk of the funding came from a partnership with the U.S. Air Force to help with its space situational awareness mission.

In a statement Tarter added that SETI's website would soon allow people to see for themselves what is happening with the telescopes while they work, but a spokeswoman for the institute said she could not yet elaborate on what that would look like.

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Image: SETI's Allen Telescope Array. Credit: Los Angeles Times

NASA launches satellite from Vandenberg at night [Video]

In the predawn hours, NASA launched a 13-story rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base that lighted the night sky for miles around.

Check out the blast off in the video below or here on YouTube.

The Delta II rocket launched at 2:48 a.m. PDT on Friday from Space Launch Complex-2 at the base, located northwest of Santa Barbara. It was carrying a $1.5-billion weather satellite that’s armed with new state-of-the-art sensors that will observe the ozone, atmospheric temperatures, snow and vegetation coverage.

According to NASA, the satellite, known as the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, or NPOESS Preparatory Project, is a crucial first step in building the next-generation weather system.

"NPP is critical to our understanding of Earth's processes and changes," NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said in a statement. "Its impact will be global and builds on 40 years of work to understand our complex planet from space."

The satellite was built by Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., with components made by Raytheon Co. in their El Segundo facilities.

United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., manufactured the Delta II rocket with a Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RS-27A engine, which is made in Canoga Park.

The satellite is slated to provide weather information for military and civil users.

Mary Glackin, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Assn.’s deputy undersecretary for Oceans and Atmosphere, said it will "make America a more weather-ready nation."

 

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Photo: Liftoff of the NPOESS Preparatory Project, or NPP, aboard a Delta II rocket at Space Launch Complex-2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Credit: NASA / Bill Ingalls

Virgin Galactic signs deal to give NASA rides into space

NASA engineers, technologists and scientific researchers are planning to hitch a ride to outer space aboard a space ship owned by Virgin Galactic, British billionaire Richard Branson’s private space venture.

The company, which aspires to be the world’s first commercial carrier in space, said it has confirmed an order from NASA for one charter suborbital spaceflight so the space agency can conduct experiments.

NASA's order includes options for two additional charter flights, Virgin Galactic said. If all of the options are exercised, the company said the contract value would amount to $4.5 million.

According to a Virgin Galactic statement, each mission allows for up to 1,300 pounds of scientific experiments. Virgin Galactic will provide a flight test engineer on every flight to monitor and interact with experiments as necessary, a capability that has never before been available on suborbital vehicles.

“We are excited to be working with NASA to provide the research community with this opportunity to carry out experiments in space,” said George Whitesides, chief executive of Virgin Galactic. “An enormous range of disciplines can benefit from access to space, but historically, such research opportunities have been rare and expensive.”

Virgin Galactic, founded by Branson, hopes to make its first passenger flight sometime next year from the yet-to-be finished Spaceport America in New Mexico.

Instead of launching a rocket directly into space, a carrier aircraft will fly SpaceShipTwo under its wing to 50,000 feet, where the spaceship will separate and blast off. The craft will climb to the edge of space, or about 60 miles above the Earth's surface.

At that suborbital altitude, passengers will experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth. The company said it has taken about 455 reservations for the ride. The price per flight for a wannabe space tourist is $200,000.

Virgin Galactic’s carrier aircraft and spaceships are made by The Spaceship Co. in Mojave, where they are currently undergoing test flights.

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Photo: Photographers get photos of Virgin Galactic's carrier aircraft and spaceship at Mojave Air and Space Port in September. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times