Links for Feb 8/05

Implanting Hope (Technology Review)
For the first time, a paralyzed patient has operated a prosthetic arm using just his mind.

CGI Joe (Village Voice)
Ed Halter shows how the military and private tech contractors are training a new generation of soldiers.

F.D.A. May Approve an Implant as a Treatment for Depression (New York Times)
The Food and Drug Administration said yesterday that it might permit an implantable electrical device for the treatment of epilepsy made by Cyberonics to also be marketed as a therapy for chronic depression that is resistant to other treatments.

Range Life (Village Voice)
How the autistic brain explains the interior life of animals; Temple Grandin: "What I've learned will help people start over again with animals.

Reinventing Physics: the Search for the Real Frontier (Chronicle)
The frontiers of physics are now closed. New knowledge is out there, but no longer in the places physicists tend to look for it.

The Science of Difference (The New Republic Online)
Steven Pinker on the politics and science of gender differences.

This Star is Leaving Our Galaxy (Universe Today)
Caught too close to a black hole, this star is being sling-shot out of the Milky Way.

Signs of Awareness Seen in Brain-Injured Patients (New York Times)
Thousands of brain-damaged people who are treated as if they are almost completely unaware may in fact hear and register what is going on around them but be unable to respond, a new brain-imaging study suggests.