Brain Machine Interfaces; Question on Gay Genes; Studying Drinking Behaviour

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2014

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis is one of the world's leading researchers into using the mind to control machines. He is involved in the "Walk Again Project" which aims to build a suit that a paraplegic person can wear and control so that he or she can kick a football at the opening ceremony of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Adam is joined by biomedical engineer, Professor Christopher James from Warwick University, who puts the field of Brain Machine Interfaces in context.

Work published last week by Professor Ziv Williams looks at the possibility of rewiring the body. Paralysis is normally confined to spinal cord damage, not the limbs themselves. Ziv Williams' work aims to use implanted chips to bypass the injury and have the individual control their own paralysed arms.

Listeners ask if there is a gene for fundamentalist intolerance. We put the question to Professor Tim Spector, author of Identically Different.

Adam Rutherford heads down to the psychology department at London's South Bank University... for a pint. Dr Tony Moss has built a fake pub, complete with lighting, music and even a fruit machine, to make drinkers feel that they are in a real bar. He says the venue treads a middle ground between a sterile lab, and an actual pub, where there are too many variables to reliably study behaviour.

Professor John Shepherd from Cardiff studies alcohol and behaviour from the other end - the drunken nights out that end up in A&E. A few simple initiatives have helped reduce violence levels by 40%

Producer: Fiona Roberts.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less searching
0:25.7	and a lot more watching. Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:29.2	Hello you, I'm Adam Rutherford and this is the podcast of Inside Science from the BBC first broadcast on the 27th of February 2014.
0:38.0	Terms and conditions are hidden away far from prying eyes at BBC.co.uk.
0:42.0	slash Radio 4.
0:44.4	We had two big topics on the show today.
0:46.5	It's the drug of choice for our nation, ubiquitous,
0:49.0	and absolutely embedded in our culture.
0:51.6	We'll be taking a look at how alcohol affects society and how we can understand the factors that determine what, when and how quickly we drink.
1:00.0	But first, cyborgs. In four months time, the world is going to see a demo of man and machine in
1:05.6	unison in what may well be the highest profile display of science engineering since the
1:11.0	moon landings. Think Large Hadron Collider, a Mars Explorer, multiplied by, and this is the key ingredient,
1:18.0	the South American love of football. That's the exposure we're talking about, or at least the hype.
1:24.0	And now coming on to the pitch at the National Stadium in Brasilia is a quite extraordinary person.
1:30.0	This young man is paralyzed, he cannot walk, he's wheelchair bound and yet having wheeled onto the pitch he is now standing.
1:39.0	Wearing this robotic exoskeleton which is controlled just by his thoughts his will to walk and now he
	...

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