Each of the ladies can talk with out an implant. The primary, Pat Bennett, who has ALS, also called Lou Gehrig’s illness, makes use of a pc to kind. The second, Ann Johnson, who misplaced her voice as the results of a brain-stem stroke that left her paralyzed, makes use of an eye-tracking machine to pick out letters on a pc display. 

That capacity to speak is what gave them the facility to consent to take part in these trials. However how does consent work when communication is tougher? Learn the total story.

—Cassandra Willyard

This story first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Know-how Evaluation’s weekly biotech publication. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Thursday.

Why salt marshes might assist save Venice

Venice, Italy, is affected by a mix of subsidence—the town’s foundations slowly sinking into the mud on which they’re constructed—and rising sea ranges. Within the worst-case situation, it might disappear underwater by the yr 2100.

Scientists more and more see the sinking metropolis as a laboratory for environmental options. They’re investigating whether or not synthetic mudflats within the Venetian lagoon may be turned again into the marshes that when thrived on this space and turn out to be a functioning a part of the lagoon ecosystem once more, which in flip, would assist to safeguard the way forward for the town itself. Learn the total story.