Bob Novella

speaker

5,248 appearances 19 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 2d ago

Bob Novella’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 19 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 4.

Appearances

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The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe · The Skeptics Guide #827 - May 15 2021 podcast

They put these specific banks of electrodes specifically where this man's brain controls his arm and hands. voice-verified

And the electrode sense, like I said, electrical activity and that information is then translated in a computer using artificial intelligence. voice-verified

And then what they had him do was they had him imagine that he was writing letters with one of his hands. voice-verified

Now, of course, he can't move his hands because he's paralyzed. voice-verified

But he's just imagining this. voice-verified

Wow. voice-verified

This is incredible and it's significant because people that are in his age group, the 65-year age range, can type on a cell phone while texting about 115 characters per minute. voice-verified

So that's really – it's only 25 letters more, characters more than the patient who they were testing this on, which means that he was typing at speed pretty much. voice-verified

Right. voice-verified

So a remarkable thing also about this achievement was that the patient was not able to use his hands for 14 years. voice-verified

And the pathways that control his arm and his hands, they were still there and they were still functioning. voice-verified

Because when he thought about moving his hand, his brain lit up correctly. voice-verified

So, apparently, with the amount of atrophy that took place, it wasn't enough to make it so they couldn't read it, which is fantastic because there's a lot of people around the world that are paralyzed or have other things going on that limit their mobility. voice-verified

So this is a real significant leap in the technology because of the clarity that they can get from the signal that they're getting from his brain. voice-verified

What was the accuracy? voice-verified

How accurate were they? voice-verified

Wow. voice-verified

Right out of the gate. voice-verified

Yeah. voice-verified

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