Scientists have long sought a way to help people whose vocal apparatus is paralyzed easily speak without having to painstakingly spell out words on a computer keyboard.
Restoring speech is “one of the great challenges of neuroscience,” says one leader in the field.
Researchers in San Francisco may be on the right track.
They’ve created an algorithm that, in preliminary tests among several silent volunteers, accurately detected and translated brain signals into intelligible sentences.
Advice is so plentiful, much of it bad. At least that was the experience of NPR producer Selena Simmons-Duffin when she set out on the good ship parenthood several years ago. Even deciding how and when to start her daughter on solid food seemed fraught.
“If I do this wrong, will my baby be malnourished or end up a picky eater or not succeed in life somehow?” the new mom wondered.
Enter Brown University economics professor Emily Oster and her latest book, Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, From Birth to Preschool.
Oster turns a critical eye on advice and the advice givers, and teaches readers how to identify the best evidence. (Hint: Look for big, randomized studies.)
And if there isn’t a preponderance of data either way -- as there isn’t, Oster notes, for the pacifier quandary or regarding he relative benefits of room-sharing with baby in the first year -- stand tall and improvise.
Dr. Sunita Puri is working to reshape medicine from within.
Trained as palliative care physician, Puri spends part of her days at the University of Southern California teaching doctors how to look beyond “fixing things” to become their patient’s ally in alleviating physical, emotional and spiritual suffering.
That’s crucial, she says. Even – or maybe especially – when the diagnosis is dire.
In her new book, That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour, Puri explains why "battle language" about disease can be hurtful and sometimes dangerous.
Choosing “not to fight” doesn’t mean giving up, she assures her patients.
In fact, Puri points out, a recent study of people who had metastatic lung cancer found that the patients who got palliative care (such as counseling, pain relief or other types of noncurative symptom-management) right alongside their cancer treatment “actually lived longer and had better quality-of-life scores" than people who only got cancer treatment.
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