Toggle light / dark theme

Researchers at UC San Francisco have successfully developed a “speech neuroprosthesis” that has enabled a man with severe paralysis to communicate in sentences, translating signals from his brain to the vocal tract directly into words that appear as text on a screen.

The achievement, which was developed in collaboration with the first participant of a clinical research trial, builds on more than a decade of effort by UCSF neurosurgeon Edward Chang, MD, to develop a technology that allows people with paralysis to communicate even if they are unable to speak on their own. The study appears July 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The world’s largest contract chip maker said it expects the chip shortage that has hampered car makers to start easing in the next few months after it ramped up its production of auto chips.


Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest contract chip maker, said it expects the chip shortage that has hampered car makers to start easing in the next few months after it ramped up its production of auto chips.

The company is on track to increase output of microcontrollers used in cars by about 60% this year compared with last, Chief Executive C.C. Wei said in an earnings call on Thursday. However, he said, the broader semiconductor shortage could persist until 2022.

A dearth of semiconductors, used in products including home appliances and smartphones, has stymied manufacturing activity, notably in the auto industry. That shortfall should be greatly reduced for TSMC customers in the current quarter, Mr. Wei said.

Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla currently has a Powerwall backlog of 80000 orders, which is worth over $500 million, but it can’t ramp up production to meet that due to the global chip shortage.

Tesla has been production constrained with the Powerwall for a long time.

The demand has been strong in several markets, like the US and Australia, but production hasn’t been to catch up despite significant ramp-ups.

That said, the Borgs do clearly contain metabolic genes, which might be able to boost the energy metabolisms of Methanoperedens that host them. If so, these unique genetic elements could provide new insights into reducing methane emissions, which is a major aim for climate change mitigation plans.


These ‘Borg’ elements assimilated genes from other organisms, and could be used to help fight climate change.

Summary: Aromatic turmerone, a compound derived from turmeric essential oil, and its derivatives directly affect dopamine neurons to generate neuroprotective properties in tissue culture models of Parkinson’s disease.

Source: Kumamoto University.

Researchers from Kumamoto University, Japan have found that a component derived from turmeric essential oil, aromatic turmerone (ar-turmerone), and its derivatives act directly on dopaminergic nerves to create a neuroprotective effect on tissue cultures of a Parkinson’s disease model.