Scientists have developed a prosthetic leg controlled by the human brain which could make it easier for amputees to get up and down stairs. The ground-breaking new device allows patients to directly control their prosthetic using their thoughts. The device records signals from surgically preserved muscles which are carefully monitored and converted into controls for a robotic ankle. In a trial of 14 amputees, researchers from MIT found that the leg created a more natural gate, improved stability on uneven terrain and a 41% increase in speed. And the researchers now hope that a commercial version Of the leg will be unavailable in as little as five years.

Dog puppies understand humans in a way that their relatives like wolves just don't thanks to undergoing some 14,000 years of domestication, a study has concluded. Researchers from Duke University tested both dog and wolf puppies in a series of tests that involved locating hidden food by picking up on human clues. They found that dog puppies have similar social cognition abilities as human babies -- and are able, for example, to instinctively recognise pointing as communication. This superficially simple understanding is, in fact, rare in the animal kingdom. Not only did the wolf pups in the study lack it, but so do chimps, our closest relatives.