英语听力文摘 利用脑力

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Harnessing Brain Power

美国科学家发表研究报告说，他们已训练两只脑中装了电极的猕猴，光靠意念即可操作仿生机械手臂拿取食物，甚至能调整送进嘴巴食物的大小与黏稠程度。科学家希望两年内也可在人体装上相同的微小电极感应器，协助截肢、脊椎受伤与中风瘫痪者，做相同的动作。这是至今所发表的、大脑一机械界面科技领域中最惊人的发展。虽然大脑控制的义肢尚不存在，但至少技术上证明可行。

Here’s an experiment that gives new meaning to mental (1)telepathy(心灵感应).

Want to hear something amazing? Sure!Scientists at Duke University have trained a monkey to control a robot arm! Monkeys have been doing everything from using sign language(手语) to playing video games for years now.True! But this monkey is different–he can control a robot arm just by thinking about it.

Now that's impressive,but how is it possible? It’s all about harnessing brain power. See, every voluntary movement we make corresponds to electrical activity in the brain that tells our muscles how and when to contract. When we clap our hands, for example, there is a series of “clap hands” electrical signals going on in the brain.

Let me guess,the scientists (2)figured out(想出) a way to tap into those signals. Exactly!They fixed special electrodes(电极) in the monkey’s brain and then taught it to use a joystick(操纵杆) to move a cursor(光标) around a computer screen. Each time the monkey moved the joystick the electrodes transmitted its brain’s electrical signals to a computer.

Soon the computer learned to recognize the electrical patterns and the movements they represented. Then the scientists disabled the joystick and trained the monkey to only think about moving the cursor across the screen. The computer translated the monkey’s brain activity into movement commands and sent them to a robotic arm.

Sure enough, when the monkey thought “move up,” the computer arm moved up. Hopefully, some day this research will allow paraplegics(下身麻痹患者) and other disabled people to control robotic limbs with their thoughts.That is amazing!

注释：

(1)telepathy [ti'lep?θi]

n.

1.心灵感应,传心术[U]

We are particularly interested in phenomena such as telepathy and levitation.

我们对心灵感应及空中漂浮这样的现象特别有兴趣。

(2)figure out['fig?r aut]

1.算出;想出

The purchase price figures out at about two million dollars.

交易的价格计算在200万美元左右。

2.理解

I can't figure him out.

我看不透他。