Direct Neural Interfacing may not be a reality yet, but the development of controlling computers purely with our brains is certainly making headway.  And Dr. José Contreras-Vidal, along with his team of researchers from the bioengineering and kinesiology departments of the University of Maryland, College Park, have been making some pretty big strides in this direction.

In an article in the March issue of The Journal of Neuroscience Dr. Contreras-Vidal and colleagues showed that with just an electrode-covered cap and some clear gel they can use an array of 34 electrodes to capture our  brain thinking that it has been typing on a keyboard using good old electroencephalography, or EEG.  Yes, that’s right, once dialed in, no actual key pressing was necessary.  Some of the patients in this study have already managed to communicate to one another through a word processor.  And all of this without any hardware wired directly into anyone’s brain; just a cap worn on the head.

More fascinating is that while the testing right now is being done with a 34 electrode cap, most of the useful data is actually just coming from two points, the primary sensorimotor cortex, and the inferior parietal lobule.  Meaning that theoretically it may be possible in the future to actually reduce the cap to only contain two electrodes.

What’s more, Dr. Contreras-Vidal has no intention of just creating a simple brain-keyboard.  “We hope to show that a person with a stroke or an amputee would be able to control an assistive device, ” says Dr. Contreras-Vidal.  To this end he already has healthy subjects controlling a computer’s cursor on the screen, and controlling an artificial hand.  One day his research could be fundamental in the control of artificial limbs in a safe and affordable way.

Dr. Contreras-Vidal also hopes to one day incorporate some form of sensory feedback into the technology.  His belief is that visual feedback is a slow and imperfect means of confirming that what you think you’re doing is what you’re actually doing.  “We think it’s important to use other types of feedback, too, because vision is a slow signal.”

It’s a fascinating realm of possibilities.  What was once a toy may soon be the future of prosthetics and computer interfacing!

Now, I love a good positive PR for gaming as much as the next gamer.  And I hate a stupidly blown-out-of-proportion PR story where video games are blamed for all sorts of random acts of violence that frankly are just the results of bad people being bad people.  However, this story has a moral, even though it does put a slightly negative connotation on gaming.  The moral?  That all life needs balance, and anything in excess, taken to an extreme, is not healthy.

Over in Britain they’re seeing a rather shocking rise in the number of cases of Rickets.  Rickets being the disease generally caused by a deficiency in Vitamin D, that results in bone malformation like bowed legs.  It was common in old times because of poor diet, especially amongst the impoverished, of which there were many in the Victorian Era and earlier.

Now days however, it is rather surprising to see such a simply avoided malady on the rise.

It is suggested, and as a result young gamers are being focused upon, that the cause is not necessarily bad diet, but in the gaming youth not leaving their homes, causing a lack of sunlight which is necessary for the body’s absorption of Vitamin D.  So if you are a gamer with pasty skin that recoils like a vampire from the dreaded light of our sun, it may be suggested then that you perhaps put down the Xbox controller for a moment and get out a little more.  Or at least get a lamp which more accurately mimics sunlight.  And try taking some extra Vitamin D.  If you don’t, your bones may suffer and you may never walk right again.

Now, another interesting factor in this particular case however is not just a lack of sunlight, but in one factor different in Britain than, well, a lot of other countries like the United States of America.  Britain doesn’t add Vitamin D to their milk.  Over in the US where all manner of vitamins are added to foodstuffs like they were pellets for Pac Man, Vitamin D is plentiful so even with poor absorption rates due from a lack of sunlight, you’re still more likely than not to be absorbing enough to avoid having Rickets.  But in Blighty, where vitamin additives are strongly frowned upon, it’s becoming a problem.

But, as noted, it is a problem very easily remedied.  Get some damn sun.  Or if you refuse to do that much for yourself, take some freaking vitamins.  Problem solved.

All that said, I’d like to address one misconception.  It is suggested that it is video gaming itself causing the lack of ultra violet exposure.  However, I propose that this is in fact not specifically the case.  The rise in domicile extremis is more likely the result of the rise of social networking.  With more and more activities of friendship partaken in virtual and/or remote environments instead of literal physical ones, there’s less “going out” and more “staying in” to do things together.  And “together” is even itself becoming more a virtual reality than actuality.  While it is true that a lot of gaming is used as a social networking environment, it is by no means the only such source.

So, regardless of your antisolar proclivities, the point remains strikingly the same.  If you don’t get enough sun, and you don’t take your Vitamin D, for whatever reason, Rickets may be in your future.  It’s incredibly easy to avoid.  Forewarned is forearmed.

Go forth and be healthy.

So you’re a Buddhist monk, devoted to a life of spiritual enlightenment and peace.  So you’re Trinley Dorje, the only senior Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader recognized by Beijing, the Tibetans, and India alike and holder of the title Karampa Lama being head of one of four schools of Tibetan Buddhism.  You’ve escaped the Chinese government’s strangle-hold on Tibet, being controlled by Beijing, leaving behind your beloved teacher, the Dalai Lama as you find your new home in India.  So as a Dharma practitioner, how do you deal with your emotional turmoil and release your anger in a healthy way?  Meditation?  Forgiveness?  Prayer?

Trinley Dorje, the Karampa Lama, a spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

Well yes, of course!

But as Trinley Dorje revealed to The Times of India, he also has another healthy form of emotional therapy: he plays war games on his Playstation to decompress.

“Well, I view video games as something of an emotional therapy, a mundane level of emotional therapy for me. We all have emotions whether we’re Buddhist practitioners or not, all of us have emotions, happy emotions, sad emotions, displeased emotions and we need to figure out a way to deal with them when they arise.

So, for me sometimes it can be a relief, a kind of decompression to just play some video games. If I’m having some negative thoughts or negative feelings, video games are one way in which I can release that energy in the context of the illusion of the game. I feel better afterwards.

The aggression that comes out in the video game satiates whatever desire I might have to express that feeling. For me, that’s very skilful because when I do that I don’t have to go and hit anyone over the head.”

Truly words to live by.

MIT scientists have devices an interesting way to help those who are blind regain some measure of vision.  They have come up with a means of fitting a computer chip onto the end of the optical nerve at the retina which can send electrical signals when the eye can’t, all without any real need for an actual eyeball.  The “microfabricated polyimide stimulating electrode array with sputtered iridium oxide electrodes” with “secondary power and data receiving coils” is surgically implanted in the retina, and then fed signals through induction, meaning that the power is provided by the electromagnetic signals that carry the data.  All with no direct wires to the chip.

The MIT Retinal Implant

This then allows for cameras or whatever vision devices are to be used to be built into something like the visor that Geordi LaForge wore in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The Blind Geordi LaForge And His Infamous Visor

Okay, so a lot of the finer points still have to be worked out.  So far the MIT research has only been done on Yucatan miniature pigs.  Three of them have been chipped for several months now.  The pigs, however, are far from ideal at communicating just how well they can see.  The scientists have tried fitting them up with electronics-laden contact lenses in the hopes of determining the effects of the retina-chip, but it can only give them so much information compared to humans with words.

To that end a human version of the retinal implant has been designed, and the MIT researchers hope to begin human trials within three years.  Once the more communicative species of homo sapiens is chipped-up, MIT researchers are sure that they’ll be better able to refine the algorithms that are driving the stimulator array, turning it into a much more useful device.  They’re a pessemistic lot though, wary of promising true vision just yet.  But as Shawn Kelly of MIT’s Research Laboratory for Electronics says, “Anything that could help the blind see a little better and let them identify objects and move around a room would be an enormous help.“

The title of the blog pretty much says it all.  Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered Coca-Cola Co to remove Coke Zero from the South American nation on Wednesday, citing unspecified dangers to health.  Just what dangers those may be are left up to speculation.  According to Health Minister Jesus Mantilla, “The product should be withdrawn from circulation to preserve the health of Venezuelans.”

All that we really do know is that Coke Zero was only recently sold to Venezuela, and is produced in Coke’s Coca-Cola Femsa plant in Mexico.

Of course, Coca-Cola Co denies any such health risks, stating, “Coca Cola Zero is made under the highest quality standards around the world and meets the sanitary requirements demanded by the laws of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.“  It’s a statement that can probably be taken in any number of ways.  I’m sure that Coke means for it to sound good, but one wonders if the “sanitary requirements demanded by the laws of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” are higher or lower than, say, Mexico, or the United States of America, or anywhere in Europe … you get the idea.  It might have been better had Coke just said, “the highest sanitary requirements of the soda-bottling industry” or some such.

And while I’m sure Coke Zero’s ingredients list is US FDA-approved, one must wonder if perhaps Venezuela simply doesn’t like aspartame or acesulfame potassium.

Of course, that’s not even considering the fact that something simply might have been in the air, or the water, or who knows what to accidentally contaminate a lot.  Accidents happen, even in the best of places.

Or it could simply be some kind of strange political battle.  One never knows.

In the end, all that really matters, is that Coke Zero isn’t good enough for Venezuela.  And for some odd reason, that’s rather interesting.