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New Technology Allows Paralyzed Man To Move Arm By Thinking About It

... in two distinct phases. First, researchers implanted an electrode array, used to detect and record brain signals, into the motor cortex of his brain, the area responsible for arm and hand control. The sciences hooked the array up to a computer interface displaying a virtual arm. Responding to Kochevar's neural signals, the virtual arm would move about the computer screen, approximating a real limb. At first, Kochevar simply attempted to control the on-screen arm with his mind, as if it were his own. "We have an algorithm that sort of transforms those neural signals into the movements he intended to make," Robert Kirsch, a professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western, told NPR. "He was able to do it within a few minutes," Kirsch said in a statement. "The code was still in his brain.". After four months of training, he became adept at controlling the on-screen arm. "It went very well very quickly," ...

Westinghouse Says It’s Bankrupt, A Blow To Nuclear Industry

... The company’s corporate parent, Toshiba of Japan, is scrambling to stanch huge losses stemming from Westinghouse’s troubled nuclear construction projects in the American South. Now, the future of those projects, which once seemed to be on the leading edge of a renaissance for nuclear energy, is in doubt. “This is a fairly big and consequential deal,” said Richard Nephew, at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. “You’ve had some power companies and big utilities run into financial trouble, but this kind of thing hasn’t happened.”. Westinghouse, which once symbolized America’s supremacy in nuclear power, now illustrates its problems. Get Talking Points in your inbox. An afternoon recap of the day’s most important business news, delivered weekdays. Sign Up. Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here. Many of its injuries are self-inflicted, such as a disastrous deal for a construction business that was intended to control costs but ...

Health Secretary Pledges To Uphold Obamacare, But Promote It, Not So Much

... Price said he will uphold the Affordable Care Act because it is the law of the land, but when it comes to promoting Obamacare enrollment and enforcing some of its regulations, he was non-committal. "I am committed to fulfilling the oath that I took, which is upholding the law of the land," Price said during a House Appropriations Committee hearing on the Trump administration's proposed health department budget. But Democrats pressed the health secretary on whether he's committed to upholding both the letter and the spirit of the law, or whether he'll be using his discretion to undermine regulations, such as not enforcing the individual mandate or not promoting Obamacare enrollment. In January, the Trump administration cut advertising for Obamacare enrollment in the final weeks of the ...

Blackwomenatwork Outcry Isn't Just About Respect, It's About Money

... "She went on to tell me that it would be worse if I wore black because then I'd just disappear.  Mind you, my skin tone is medium brown.". Threads of Baker's experience with comments regarding her skin tone are evident in new allegations of racial discrimination against two black women who work at Fox News Network. Tichaona Brown and Tabrese Wright sued the company Tuesday in a Bronx Supreme Court lawsuit in New York City that charged they and “other dark-skinned employees suffered years-long racial animus” from Judith Slater, a former senior vice president and company controller. According to the lawsuit, Slater “ridiculed black employees by mocking stereotyped speech” and forcing them to pronounce the words ‘mother,’ ‘father,’ ‘month’ and ‘ask’ correctly “in front of white employees.” Fox said it took action before the lawsuit was filed. Slater was fired Feb. 28. Disrespect, discrimination and other poor workplace treatment can “cause us to feel marginalized, feel depressed and challenge our own self-esteem,” says Shirley Davis, a consultant and author of “The Seat: How to get invited to the table when you’re over-performing but undervalued.”  “If we’re not ...

It's Now Their Time

... the NFL process, it is Lewis. He was 44 when he arrived here at the Arizona Biltmore for the 2003 NFL annual league meeting. That is the same age as new Denver head coach Vance Joseph, Lewis’ old secondary coach, as he settled  in at his first Media Breakfast table. This season, Joseph is going to be the fourth Denver coach that goes against Lewis. When Lewis goes against his old offensive coordinator in Cleveland, Hue Jackson, it will be the seventh different Browns head coach Lewis has faced. Right near Jackson was the Jaguars’ table and new head coach Doug Marrone the fourth Jags head coach to oppose Lewis in six Jacksonville game against the Bengals. Andrew Billings is literally a big part of the plan. Lewis played the part of the icy veteran and sounded damn near Bill Belichickian, the only coach with more years on one club in the current NFL. He cautiously both kept alive and killed. Adam Jones. and Joe Mixon. He praised Whitworth (but didn’t overdo it ...

Spacex Hopes To Launch A Recycled Rocket. Can It Cut The Turnaround To A Couple Days

... satellite using that same booster. The use of a recycled rocket will represent a milestone for the young private space industry, potentially ushering in an era of cheap space flight. Reusability is key to Space X Chief Executive Elon Musk’s larger plans to colonize Mars, as well as to increase the company’s launch cadence. But to make it work, analysts say, the inspection and refurbishment process will need to speed up and prove it is cost-effective. Space X’s ultimate goal is to require little to no refurbishment of the first-stage rocket boosters between flights, resulting in turnover times close to those of aircraft. “The basis of the business plan for reusable technology is that you’ll be able to lower the cost of each launch by a considerable factor if you’re able to save from having to build yet another first stage,” said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst at the Teal Group. “That gives you [a] tremendous cost advantage over your competition,” he said. “And already, Space X has a significant cost advantage over its competition.”. A launch on one of Space ...

When It Comes To Ufo Sightings, California Is Once Again A Leader

... as well: UFO sightings. The state has had more than 12,000 reported sightings of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, according to the National UFO Reporting Center and the UFO Sightings Desk Reference, a first-of-its-kind book that analyzes such sightings and was released two weeks ago. According to the center, the latest sightings in California occurred in Van Nuys and Miramar, in San Diego County. The first sighting occurred on March 17, when someone noticed several “items flying in formation, moving very fast in the night sky” silently before disappearing behind some clouds. “I am very familiar with the night sky and various normal items that one would see, this was not normal and too silent and too fast to be of terrestrial origin,” the person wrote. On March 21, someone in Miramar reported to the center that they saw “rapid blinking light that appeared to grow in size, first just one light was visible then the ...

Online Privacy? Forget It, Even With Vpn

... Verizon is buying Yahoo. While web companies' profiles aren't person-specific, they allow their own products and those of advertisers to minutely target a type of customer, say a 30-year-old woman in the Southwest who likes rock climbing. While individual companies' privacy policies vary and sometimes allow for opt-outs of information sharing, in general websites can sell or share this de-personalized information with partners. Side-stepping that constant surveillance while trying to use the web in our daily lives is almost unachievable, said Stamper. “Realistically, unless somebody is extraordinarily well-versed in technology, has a really good understanding of what different sites are doing and how they do it, it’s almost impossible for the average consumer to keep their details private,” he said. One option is for ...

The Information War Is Real, And We’re Losing It

... she found, is anti-globalism — deep suspicion of free trade, multinational business and global institutions. “To be antiglobalist often included being anti-mainstream media, anti-immigration, anti-science, anti-U. S. government, and anti-European Union,” Starbird says. So it was like the mind of Stephen Bannon, chief adviser to Trump, spilled across the back channels of the web. Much of it was strangely pro-Russian, too — perhaps due to Russian twitter bots that bombarded social channels during the presidential campaign (a phenomenon that’s now part of the FBI investigation into the election, Mc Clatchy reported last week ). The mainstream press periodically waded into this swamp, but it only backfired. Its occasional fact checks got circulated as further evidence: If the media is trying to debunk it, then the conspiracy must be ...