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Scientific investigations reveal that companies have amassed tens of millions of hours of brain-wave data from neurotechnology-enabled headbands, and they face few restrictions on how this data is used.

Half an hour before bed, Adnan Jinnah sits in a chair and puts on a headband. It looks like something a tennis player might wear, except for a large, rectangular button on the front. When he’s ready to sleep, he lies down, presses the button, and launches an app on his phone. "That’s basically it," he says.

While he sleeps, sensors in the device capture Jinnah’s brain activity, heart rate, blood flow, and brain oxygenation. These signals are then interpreted by algorithms that provide data on his sleep quality, which he can review in the morning.

The device, known as the Muse headband, was developed by the Canadian consumer neurotechnology company Interaxon. Jinnah, who lives in Leicester, England, has struggled with…

Empresas de construção e mineração estão implementando dispositivos que monitoram a fadiga dos trabalhadores. Críticos afirmam que a tecnologia pode ser usada indevidamente pelas autoridades.

At first glance, there is nothing unusual about the uniforms worn by construction workers. They wear fluorescent orange gear, sturdy footwear, and yellow hard hats. But hidden inside these hard hats—manufactured by Huanao Security (Beijing) Technology—are various sensors that monitor the workers. Some record their movements; others track their blood oxygen levels; and still others collect the employees' most private and sensitive information: their brain data.

Based on these recordings, Huanao Security’s algorithm generates metrics that help determine everything from a worker’s level of fatigue or stress to whether their body temperature is abnormal. The device is used at every stage of the job, including for screening workers before their shifts begin and for monitoring them while they are on the clock.

The hard hats,…

The largest analysis ever carried out on the impact of man-made sounds reveals damage to several ecosystems.

Scientists have long known that noise from human activities—from the roar of jet engines to the whir of ship propellers—can harm animals, stunting their growth and even decomposing their eggs. But it was unclear how widespread the problem was.

A comprehensive analysis published today in the journal Science reveals that the impacts are much more widespread than even researchers imagined. Data from 177 terrestrial and aquatic species show that the vast majority are affected by sound in some way, fundamentally altering their biology and behavior, and causing the premature death of many of them.

“Everywhere we are, we introduce noise,” says neuroecologist Lucille Chapuis of La Trobe University, who was not involved in the study. “Just look at almost any species; noise will have some effect.”

In a first clinical result using the “chemogenetic” strategy, a team in China treated three patients to control epilepsy.

For the first time, researchers have inserted receptors into the human brain that allow them to manipulate neuronal activity with a drug. The innovative gene therapy was developed to help three people with drug-resistant epilepsy by dampening activity in the areas of the hippocampus responsible for epileptic seizures. The therapy had no significant side effects and appeared to reduce the incidence of seizures, as reported this week by the Chinese team responsible for the clinical trial in The New England Journal of Medicine.

A decade ago, the idea of ​​using this technique — called chemogenetics — on humans was "pure science fiction," says Keri Martinowich, a neuroscientist at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development who was not involved in the study. But while the long-term safety of these therapies still needs…

This approach could provide scientists with a faster, gentler way to assess the health of bird populations.

Forests across North America have seen a drop in the number of songbirds that herald the arrival of spring. To find out why, biologists scour forests to capture birds and mark them with bands. When they return a year later to look for the marked birds, they can get an idea of ​​how many survive from one year to the next. But field work takes countless hours, and trapping and banding can stress birds.

A paper published this week in Nature Methods presents a faster, gentler approach. It uses sound recorders and artificial intelligence (AI) to identify individual birds based solely on their song and track them over time. "This is almost the Holy Grail," says Scott Sillett, a biologist at the Smithsonian Institution's Migratory Bird Center who was not involved in the…

Data brokerage firms are collecting all sorts of internal corporate files to help train AI models. Not everyone is happy about this.

What if you could connect your brain to a computer without the need for surgery or permanent implants in your head? A startup called Subsense is pursuing this vision with a radically different approach to brain-computer interfaces. Their technology utilizes nanoparticles—administered through the nose—that interact with neural activity, combined with a device capable of reading and stimulating brain signals.

This approach could open up new possibilities for treating neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, while simultaneously laying the groundwork for entirely innovative forms of interaction between humans, computers, and artificial intelligence. However, reaching this goal will require overcoming significant scientific challenges—from delivering nanoparticles to precise locations within the brain to ensuring the safe and reliable reading and modulation of neural activity. As the field of brain-computer interfaces (BCI) advances, serious ethical questions will also arise, particularly regarding the protection of privacy, autonomy, and freedom of thought.

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