The Public Says'No Thanks' The maker of the eCoffee Energyband says it electrically stimulates your nerves to keep you alert. Researchers are skeptical, and critics see it as a way for China's bosses to keep workers productive. Forget coffee, you can now stay alert by strapping on a wristband that lightly zaps you awake. That's what eCoffee Energyband, a Chinese gadget that sells for just over $100, is claiming to do. First released in late 2023, the product is a lightweight wearable with two electrode pads that sit against the inner wrist.

Science Biology Evolution Venus fly traps' death-grip trigger discovered The carnivorous plants know when it's time to snatch their prey. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Venus fly traps () are only native to North and South Carolina in the United States and can tell the difference between insects that pollinate them and those that make a good meal. Despite not having nerves themselves, they can detect touch from other organisms with highly sensitive sensory hairs. If they are touched twice in quick succession, their leaves will close and capture the prey .

The humble inventions that power our modern world wouldn't have been possible without decades of support for early-stage research. In December 1947, three physicists at Bell Telephone Laboratories--John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain--built a compact electronic device using thin gold wires and a piece of germanium, a material known as a semiconductor. Their invention, later named the transistor (for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1956), could amplify and switch electrical signals, marking a dramatic departure from the bulky and fragile vacuum tubes that had powered electronics until then. They were asking fundamental questions about how electrons behave in semiconductors, experimenting with surface states and electron mobility in germanium crystals. Over months of trial and refinement, they combined theoretical insights from quantum mechanics with hands-on experimentation in solid-state physics--work many might have dismissed as too basic, academic, or unprofitable. Their efforts culminated in a moment that now marks the dawn of the information age.

Track circuits are critical for railway operations, acting as the main signalling sub-system to locate trains. Continuous Variable Current Modulation (CVCM) is one such technology. Like any field-deployed, safety-critical asset, it can fail, triggering cascading disruptions. Many failures originate as subtle anomalies that evolve over time, often not visually apparent in monitored signals. Conventional approaches, which rely on clear signal changes, struggle to detect them early. Early identification of failure types is essential to improve maintenance planning, minimising downtime and revenue loss. Leveraging deep neural networks, we propose a predictive maintenance framework that classifies anomalies well before they escalate into failures. Validated on 10 CVCM failure cases across different installations, the method is ISO-17359 compliant and outperforms conventional techniques, achieving 99.31% overall accuracy with detection within 1% of anomaly onset. Through conformal prediction, we provide uncertainty estimates, reaching 99% confidence with consistent coverage across classes. Given CVCMs global deployment, the approach is scalable and adaptable to other track circuits and railway systems, enhancing operational reliability.

The glasses' sensor technology opens up new possibilities for research and development in augmented reality applications. Meta's new gesture control wristband might just be the most seamless way to control a computer yet. And no, it doesn't require surgery, a camera, or even a touchscreen. All it needs is your wrist. This futuristic device uses electrical signals from your muscles to understand what your hand wants to do, even if it never actually moves.

A woman who has been fully paralyzed for the last 20 years has regained the ability to use a computer, marking a world-first for Elon Musk's company, Neuralink. Thanks to Neuralink's revolutionary implant, Audrey Crews revealed on X how she was able to write her name on a computer screen. 'I tried writing my name for the first time in 20 years. Lol,' Crews posted on X while showing the world her first attempt at a signature since 2005. Using the brain-computer interface (BCI), the implant recipient chose a purple-colored cursor pen to write the name'Audrey' on the screen in cursive script.

Alex Smith was 11 years old when he lost his right arm in 2003. He hit a propeller, and his arm was severed in the water. A year later, he got a myoelectric arm, a type of prosthetic powered by the electrical signals in his residual limb's muscles. But Smith hardly used it because it was "very, very slow" and had a limited range of movements. He could open and close the hand, but not do much else.

From breaking down toxins to changing the inner workings of the human mind, mushrooms are capable of some seriously impressive features. But now, researchers have taken a fungi's amazing abilities to a new level as they teach a mushroom to crawl in a robot body. Scientists from Cornwell University in New York have created a new type of'biohybrid robot' which puts the humble mushroom in the driver's seat. Natural electrical signals in the mushroom that are triggered by light are able to control the hybrid device's insect-style legs. The researchers say that robots of the future could make use of these fungal brains to respond to navigate more unpredictable environments.

Sinister, brain-controlling mushrooms are a staple in sci-fi shows and literature. While brainwashed humans doing the bidding of fungi remains fantasy, researchers have now learned how to control a robot's movement using electrical signals produced by the mycelium of the common King oyster mushroom. This part machine, part fungus robot could one day serve as a building block for more advanced "biohybrid" chimeras that can remotely analyze agricultural fields for potentially harmful changes in soil chemistry. Researchers from Cornell University and University of Florence in Italy wanted to see if electrical signals pulsing through the mycelium of fungi could be translated into a controlling input for robots. The findings were published last month in the journal Science Robotics.

Researchers at Cornell University tapped into fungal mycelia to power a pair of proof-of-concept robots. Mycelia, the underground fungal network that can sprout mushrooms as its above-ground fruit, can sense light and chemical reactions and communicate through electrical signals. This makes it a novel component in hybrid robotics that could someday detect crop conditions otherwise invisible to humans. The Cornell researchers created two robots: a soft, spider-like one and a four-wheeled buggy. The researchers used mycelia's light-sensing abilities to control the machines using ultraviolet light.