October 2021 Dennis DeGray is paralyzed from the neck down, but a virtuoso at using his brain to control a computer mouse. For the last five years, he has participated in a series of clinical trials in which surgeons have inserted tiny silicon probes into the brains of more than 20 paralyzed people. Using these brain-computer interfaces, scientists have enabled those with the implants to grasp objects with robot arms and steer planes around in flight simulators. While such technology is therapeutic and restorative for people such as DeGray, entrepreneurs including Elon Musk are pouring investment into brain implant projects that are for elective enhancement, creating an ethical maze for medical researchers. Twins really are magical We may finally know how the annual Geminid meteor shower came to be.

Almost two years ago, Dennis Degray sent an unusual text message to his friend. "You are holding in your hand the very first text message ever sent from the neurons of one mind to the mobile device of another," he recalls it read. Degray, 66, has been paralysed from the collarbones down since an unlucky fall over a decade ago. He was able to send the message because in 2016 he had two tiny squares of silicon with protruding metal electrodes surgically implanted in his motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls movement. By imagining moving a joystick with his hand, he is able to move a cursor to select letters on a screen.

Almost two years ago, Dennis Degray sent an unusual text message to his friend. "You are holding in your hand the very first text message ever sent from the neurons of one mind to the mobile device of another," he recalls it read. Degray, 66, has been paralysed from the collarbones down since an unlucky fall over a decade ago. He was able to send the message because in 2016 he had two tiny squares of silicon with protruding metal electrodes surgically implanted in his motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls movement. By imagining moving a joystick with his hand, he is able to move a cursor to select letters on a screen.

For the first 54 years of his life, Dennis DeGray was an active guy. In 2007 he was living in Pacific Grove, Calif., not far from the ocean and working at a beachside restaurant. Then, while taking out the trash one rainy night, he slipped, fell, and hit his chin on the pavement, snapping his neck between the second and third vertebrae. DeGray was instantly rendered, as he puts it, "completely nonfunctional from the collarbone south." He's since depended on caregivers to feed, clothe, and clean him and meet most any other need.

CBS Interactive and VICE Media have good news for us: The future we've all been waiting for – the one we've been increasingly impatient for – has already arrived. The increasingly powerful promises of artificial intelligence, bots, and virtual and augmented reality have been whipping technophiles and pundits alike into something akin to a frenzy, if all those thinkpieces that link current innovations to the magic or sci-fi blockbusters are any indication. And now these companies have paired up to capture that zeitgeist, creating and producing "Dear Future," a long-form journalism series that promises to bring readers dispatches from the cutting edge. In an effort to marry Motherboard's voice with CNET's tech focus, "Dear Future" will tackle the big, science-fiction-becomes-fact stuff. The pledge is a series of stories that demonstrate how today's technology is already impacting our present.

JUDY WOODRUFF: For decades, researchers have worked to create a better and more direct connection between a human brain and a computer to improve the lives of people who are paralyzed or have severe limb weakness from diseases like ALS. Those advances have been notable, but now the work is yielding groundbreaking results. CAT WISE: Dennis Degray is a 64-year-old quadriplegic who is writing a sentence on the computer screen in front of him using only his brain. A former volunteer firefighter, Degray had a bad fall 10 years ago which severed his spinal cord. As part of an early stage clinical research study led by Stanford University, Degray and two other volunteer participants with ALS had small sensors implanted in their brains in an area called the motor cortex, which controls movement.