Scientists have developed a pair of smart gloves that could allow stroke patients with limb weakness to relearn to play the piano. The exoskeleton glove uses artificial intelligence, moving components known as actuators, and touch sensors in a way that could help patients relearn manual tasks after losing or showing a reduced ability to move hands, fingers, or wrists. The researchers said their proof-of-concept gloves “teaches” its wearer to play the piano by “feeling” the difference between right and wrong movements. We found that the glove can learn to distinguish between correct and incorrect piano play Dr Erik Engeberg Dr Erik Engeberg, a professor at Florida Atlantic University’s department of ocean & mechanical engineering, in the US, said: “We found that the glove can learn to distinguish between correct and incorrect piano play. “This means it could be a valuable tool for personalised rehabilitation of people who wish to relearn to play music.” It is estimated that there are 1.2 million stroke survivors in the UK today. Stroke is a leading cause of disability, with almost two thirds of survivors leaving hospital with limb weakness, visual problems, and language and communication problems. The glove is designed to assist and enhance their natural hand movements, allowing them to control the flexion and extension of their fingers Dr Erik Engeberg For the study, published in Frontiers in Robotics and AI, a team of engineers designed a pair of exoskeleton gloves that uses actuators to mimic natural hand movements. Each fingertip contains 16 sensors that allows the wearer to feel the objects they touch. Prof Engeberg said: “While wearing the glove, human users have control over the movement of each finger to a significant extent. “The glove is designed to assist and enhance their natural hand movements, allowing them to control the flexion and extension of their fingers. “The glove supplies hand guidance, providing support and amplifying dexterity.” As part of the experiments, the gloves were taught to play the nursery rhyme “Mary had a little lamb” on the piano on its own using pre-programmed movements. When a person wore the gloves to play the piano, it was able to detect where the wearer went wrong in their movements, enabling them to “understand their performance and make improvements”. The economic burden on health and social care in this country demands innovative approaches to treatment and care, which have the potential to reduce the devastating effects of stroke Juliet Bouverie, Stroke Association The researchers said further work is needed to improve the accuracy of the device and make it more adaptable. But they hope that in future, stroke patients and other people with disabilities could use these gloves to regain arm function. Commenting on the work, Juliet Bouverie, chief executive of the Stroke Association said: “It’s an exciting time for technology in stroke research. “We welcome studies which look at creating effective tools for improving recovery after stroke. “The economic burden on health and social care in this country demands innovative approaches to treatment and care, which have the potential to reduce the devastating effects of stroke.” She added: “We hope the results of this research will help build on our current understanding to bring about effective treatments to help rebuild lives after stroke.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live The different types of public EV chargers explained Emergency number back in use after nationwide technical fault Windrush trolls taken down after public criticism

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China have embarked on an enormous project: to dig the biggest hole in the country. The planned 10,000 metre hole will aim to pierce through ten layers of rock and could even end up finding signs of life as suggested by discoveries in past boreholes. And the objective? To reach rocks and minerals that could date back to around 145 million years ago - or the Cretaceous period. Findings from the mission may help alert China to environmental hazards such as volcanoes and earthquakes, whilst also identifying potentially valuable minerals lurking below. Past expeditions have also unearthed signs of life - with one project discovering signs of life under the surface. Don't worry, it wasn't subterranean humans or any other horror movie tropes. That borehole unearthed plankton 4 miles below the surface. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter That project won't be surpassed by this new - admittedly massive - attempt. The deepest ever dug - the one that discovered the plankton - was in Russia. The Kola Superdeep Borehole - just a really big hole in the ground - ended up reaching over 11,000 meters below sea level after being started by Soviet scientists in 1970. They had to abandon the project after hitting extremely high temperatures that they weren't expecting. Interesting. The Chinese project isn't going to be easy. It's not as simple as digging straight down into the Earth's crust and hoping for the best. It's also extremely costly and time-consuming. “The construction difficulty of the drilling project can be compared to a big truck driving on two thin steel cables,” Sun Jinsheng, an academic from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told news agency Xinhua. So yeah, they'll need more than a JCB for this. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Scientists have created what they say is the biggest simulation of our cosmos ever. The virtual universe has the mass of 300 billion galaxies, packed into a space with edges ten billion light years across. Scientists hope that it will help tell us how the real universe that surrounds us first evolved. They could also help address problems in our understanding of physics that currently suggest we might have made deep mistakes about the cosmos. But the first results from the simulation suggest that it might not work: the findings do not get rid of the tensions between different observations about the universe that have proven so difficult to scientists. Researchers created the simulation, named FLAMINGO, by taking the vast amount of data that has been gathered by telescopes such as Nasa’s JWST and other projects. Those projects give information about galaxies, stars and the other arrangement of matter in our cosmos, which can then be fed into the computer. Researchers then hope that the computer can use that data to simulate the evolution and nature of our universe. That can then help resolve those fundamental difficulties we currently face in physics. One of those issues come from the current theory that the properties of our universe are decided by only a few “cosmological parameters”. We can measure those parameters very precisely. But scientists have run into issues because those parameters do not always match. For instance, there are multiple ways of measuring the Hubble constant, or the speed at which the universe is expanding – but those multiple ways show different results, and scientists have not been able to explain them. Scientists hope that the simulation can help explain or resolve that tension. But it is yet to do so. That is just one of the many ways that the creators of the FLAMINGO simulations hope that they can be used to better understand the universe and the observations that we have of it. It might also allow us to make new kinds of discoveries: the vast amount of data means that it can construct random, virtual universes and see how theories work in there, for instance. The work is described in three papers, all of which are published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society today. Read More Scientists see huge explosion in space – and it could explain life Massive space explosion observed creating elements needed for life Tim Peake: Possibility of all-UK space mission a ‘very exciting development’