Mind & Brain / Machine-Brain Connections

Mind Over Motor: Controlling Robots With Your Thoughts

A clever new system helps paralyzed patients and computers work together to control a robot, helping to connect locked-in people with the world. 01.04.2012

The Brain: "I See," Said the Blind Man With an Artificial Retina

New ocular implants are already illuminating colors and shapes, and promise to become far better. 09.15.2011

5 Questions for the Brain's Code-Breaker

Sheila Nirenberg hopes to cure blindness by combining an artificial eye, gene therapy in the brain, and some skillful translation between them. 08.04.2011

The Army's Bold Plan to Turn Soldiers Into Telepaths

The U.S. Army wants to allow soldiers to communicate just by thinking. 
The new science of synthetic telepathy could soon make that happen. 07.20.2011

The 100 Top Science Stories of 2010

Every year DISCOVER sorts through the scientific accomplishments of the past 12 months, and assembles a list of the coolest experiments, most brilliant discoveries, and most world-changing events. As you page through the countdown to the #1 science story, we think you'll come to the same conclusion we did: 2010 was quite a year. 12.16.2010

The Brain Is Ready for Its Close-Up

Neuroscientists know that the first step in understanding something is to get a good look at it. A new book showcases their finest attempts to image the brain, from Victorian drawings to state-of-the-art brainbows. 11.17.2010

How to Plug in a Brain

Researchers are finding better ways for our neurons to talk directly to our computers. 10.30.2010

Energy Is the Big Issue. Smart Investment Energy Could Bring the Big Solution.

Climatologist Ken Caldeira looks at where we're going over the next 30 years. 09.13.2010

The Robot Invasion Is Coming—and That’s a Good Thing

Rodney Brooks looks at where we're going over the next 30 years. 09.13.2010

The Brain: Why Athletes Are Geniuses

Neuroscientists have found several ways in which the brains of top-notch athletes seem to function better than those of regular folks. 04.16.2010

Discover Interview: The Man Who Builds Brains

Using computer processors that behave like neurons in the neocortex, Henry Markram is inching closer to building a simulated human brain—a truly conscious machine. 02.05.2010

Brain-Like Chip May Solve Computers' Big Problem: Energy

The future of computing may depend on embracing the chaos that defines human thinking. 11.06.2009

How to See Inside a Brain in Motion

A new mobile EEG system now lets researchers probe the brain function while people move around naturally. 06.05.2009

The Pentagon’s Beetle Borgs

Researchers create what may be the perfect scout: a bug controlled remotely through a chip implanted in its optic lobes and flight muscles. 04.30.2009

Are Smart Drugs the Answer to Bad Moods—and a Bad Economy?

Today’s mind-altering chemicals can improve your memory, alertness, and mood. Just wait until you see what tomorrow’s crop can do. 04.02.2009

The Pugnacious Paper That Aims to Turn Neuroscience on Its Head

fMRI has revolutionized our understanding of the brain. But some researchers say it's actually a big misunderstanding. 03.18.2009

What Makes You Uniquely "You"?

Nobel laureate Gerald Edelman says your brain is one-of-a-kind in the history of the universe. 01.16.2009

How Google Is Making Us Smarter

Humans are "natural-born cyborgs," and the Internet is our giant "extended mind." 01.15.2009

Skipping the Problem Is a Jump Towards Curing Paralysis

Researchers discover a way to re-route brain signals to a paralyzed limb. 01.10.2009

The Rise of the Cyborgs

Melding humans and machines to help the paralyzed walk, the mute speak, and the near-dead return to life 09.26.2008

When Computers Meld With Our Minds

Futurist Vernor Vinge predicts a world of techno-human superbeings. 07.25.2008

How To Excuse Yourself from Your Body

Once you see—and feel—a virtual self, your mind can move into a mannequin. 12.10.2007

NASA's 6 Best Earth-Based Research Projects

Ultrafast scramjets, mach-10 wind tunnels, cockpit displays that see through clouds... 10.17.2007

The Most Important Future Military Technologies

Super lasers, binoculars that read minds, manipulating the "human terrain"... 10.04.2007

How to Sleep 4 Hours per Night

Zapping your brain with an electromagnet could do the trick. 07.24.2007

The Next Jump in Artificial Intelligence

Computer program is unbeatable at checkers. 07.19.2007

This is Your Brain on Video Games

Gaming sharpens thinking, social skills, and perception. 07.09.2007

Jaron’s World: Computer Evolution

Most software stinks. It should learn from robots and bacteria. 06.27.2007

Jaron’s World: Virtual Horizon

VR in the real world may soon surpass the famous glove from Minority Report. 05.11.2007

Human Think, Robot Do

Controlling a robot with an electrode-studded swim cap 05.04.2007

Mind Control

A paralyzed man can operate a computer mouse and even a prosthetic hand using a brain implant. 04.17.2007

Attention Training

A video game, of all things, can improve young children's attention spans. 03.02.2007

Mind Control

A paralyzed man can operate a computer mouse and even a prosthetic hand using a brain implant. 02.19.2007

Attention Training

A video game, of all things, can improve young children's attention spans. 02.19.2007

Jaron's World: Morphing Messages

Describing ideas so subtle they are literally beyond words. 01.10.2007

Brain in a Dish

This is not your average petri dish: minibrains grown in vitro. 11.01.2006

Think Tank

Top scientists pinpoint the critical developments of the last 25 years and predict wonders yet to come 05.01.2005

The Bionic Connection

Are we already a lot closer to a mind-machine interface than we ever guessed? 11.01.2002

Follow Up:

08.01.2002

The Bionic Rat

A rat brain directs a robotic arm. 11.01.1999

DISCOVER Roundtable-The Startling Future of Computers

Connect to the Internet through a tiny telephone implanted in your head? 11.01.1999

The Tenth Annual DISCOVER Awards for Technological Innovation

WINNER Neural Signals and Emory University's Neurotrophic Implant forCommunicationInnovator: Philip Kennedy 07.01.1999

Mind Over Matter

02.01.1999