{"id":255593,"date":"2023-05-25T09:39:52","date_gmt":"2023-05-25T13:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=255593"},"modified":"2023-05-25T09:39:52","modified_gmt":"2023-05-25T13:39:52","slug":"mind-reading-ai-allows-paralyzed-man-to-walk-again-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2023\/05\/25\/mind-reading-ai-allows-paralyzed-man-to-walk-again-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Mind-reading AI allows paralyzed man to walk again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Oliver Whang writes for the New York Times: “Gert-Jan Oskam was living in China in 2011 when he was in a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed from the hips down. In a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers in Switzerland described implants that provided a \u201cdigital bridge\u201d between Mr. Oskam\u2019s brain<\/a> and his spinal cord, bypassing injured sections. The discovery allowed Mr. Oskam, 40, to stand, walk and ascend a steep ramp using a walker. The brain-spine interface, as the researchers called it, takes advantage of an artificial intelligence thought decoder to read Oskam\u2019s intentions as electrical signals in his brain and match them to muscle movements.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The worst translation mistake in history led to the Hiroshima bombing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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From Carla Estefania: “The National Security Agency in the US declassified a document which points to what is likely to be the worst translation mistake in history. In July 1945, when the allied countries meeting in Potsdam submitted a declaration of surrender terms, the Japanese Prime Minister stated that he had no comment<\/a>, using the term ‘mokusatsu,’ which has several interpretations. Media agencies and translators interpreted his use of the term as ‘treating with silent contempt,’ suggesting that the ultimatum was ‘not worthy of comment.’ The Hiroshima bomb was dropped ten days later.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note<\/strong>: This is a version of my personal newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Dr. Seuss wrote the book Green Eggs and Ham as part of a bet<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Daven Hiskey writes: “Dr. Seuss wrote ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ on a bet that he couldn\u2019t write a book with fifty or fewer distinct words. The bet was made in 1960 with Bennett Cerf, the co-founder of Random House, and was for $5. \u00a0Despite Seuss winning the bet, Cerf never paid up<\/a>. Green Eggs and Ham went on to be Seuss’s best-selling work. His first successful children\u2019s book, ‘Cat in the Hat,’ also was the result of a challenge to write a book in under a certain number of words, a challenge issued by William Spaulding, director of Houghton Mifflin\u2019s educational division.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cleaning lady who accidentally became the mayor of a Russian town<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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From Dan Lewis: “As the summer of 2020 came to a close, Nikolai Loktev found himself in an odd position. He was the mayor of a collection of 30 or so tiny villages in Russia, home to just under 250 people, and he was up for re-election, running unopposed. But that was a problem: Russian elections don\u2019t allow for uncontested elections. So Loktev asked<\/a> Marina Udgodskaya, the woman who cleaned city hall, to be the other candidate, and she agreed. Neither candidate campaigned ahead of the election: no billboards, no flyers, no meetings with voters. And Udgoskaya won in a landslide taking 62 percent of the popular vote.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The long, strange history of the baseball cap<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Michael Clair writes for MLB.com: “You could be forgiven for thinking the baseball cap was always there, perched upon humanity\u2019s head from the very first day we walked on the Earth, as eternal as the tallest trees or the deepest ocean. But, of course, that\u2019s not true. In fact, long before baseball caps were the ubiquitous fashion choice for ballplayers<\/a>, musicians, and Marvel heroes trying to blend in with a crowd, baseball teams didn\u2019t even wear<\/em> caps. That\u2019s right: Had the game of baseball developed differently, perhaps we\u2019d all be wearing big straw hats with our favorite club\u2019s logo written across the front.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mushrooms appear to have electrical conversations after it rains<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n

From Russell McClendon at Nature: “In a new study, scientists in Japan found intriguing hints that rain may prompt some fungi to communicate using underground electrical signals. The researchers focused on small, tan mushrooms known as bicoloured deceivers, which they found growing on the floor of a secondary mixed forest. The fungus<\/a> forms symbiotic relationships with certain plants, including many large trees like oaks and pines. It boosts their supply of water and nutrients in exchange for carbohydrates. Previous research even suggests L. bicolor<\/em> may lure insects called springtails and kill them with a toxin, sharing the animal’s nitrogen with their host trees.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sea urchins like to wear tiny 3D-printed hats<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Massimo writes<\/a>: “Certain types of sea urchins will pick up a shell with their tube feet and \u2018wear\u2019 it, with a behavior known as a ‘covering reaction,’ mainly because they shy away from light. So aquarium enthusiasts 3D-printed tiny hats and they wear them.” (via Snopes<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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Oliver Whang writes for the New York Times: “Gert-Jan Oskam was living in China in 2011 when he was in a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed from the hips down. In a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers in Switzerland described implants that provided a \u201cdigital bridge\u201d between Mr. Oskam\u2019s brain … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Mind-reading AI allows paralyzed man to walk again”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":true,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}