Endovascular Brain Computers, Electricity from Air and a Robot Lawyer

January 19

This week we investigate an endovascular brain computer being developed by Australian startup, Synchron. We also examine the progress on generating electricity from air. This was first proposed over 100 years ago. We consider the use of a Robot Lawyer in defending our parking tickets. Finally we discover how only 6 minutes of high intensity exercise may help protect our brains from decline as we age.

Endovascular Brain Computers

We have spoken before about the computer brain interface that Elon Musk founded, Neurolink is developing. A lesser publicized Australian startup, Synchron is also developing a brain computer interface that they hope will assist people with paralysis communicate through a stentrode to a computer. If successful, the patient will be a able to use an external computer and write with a digital keyboard.

Many interventions in the brain are via a craniotomy, which removes the scalp and some of the skull. Synchron have taken an endovascular approach by using the blood vessels in the brain to get to the same region. A recent successful clinical trial in Australia had 4 patients with motor neuron disease use the system to control a computer.

In 2021, Synchron received FDA approval for a clinical trial and they have recently raised $110m in additional capital to help with development. It is hoped that eventually the device will help people that have been impacted by paralysis for different reasons including stroke, spinal cord injuries and motor neuron disease. As the device is able to penetrate inside the brain it may also be useful for deep brain stimulation to help people with Epilepsy, Parkinson’s and other neurological conditions.

Robot Lawyer

British-American startup, DoNotPay, was founded in 2015 to help people fight parking tickets. Joshua Browder had received a barrage of parking tickets whilst studding at Stanford University. He discovered that the formulaic nature of parking tickets meant that there was a relatively straightforward process for appealing tickets. He launched a chatbot to help people in the UK and New York appeal tickets.

Since then, DoNotPay has expanded their services to including help with consumer protections, immigration rights and other social issues. Their bot can negotiate bills with telcos and utility companies in addition to requesting refunds from airlines. A DoNotPay Engineer was able to use the bot to chat to Comcast Chat (another bot) and save $120 per year off their internet bill. They have developed a robot lawyer that provides free legal consultation for the public. Currently only available in the US and UK, the robot uses IBM Watson AI and ChatGPT to support the service.

The DoNotPay robot lawyer will make its’ debut in court in the next few weeks. It will take two speeding tickets to court. The defendant will wear an earpiece and the AI driven lawyer will provide prompts on how to respond to the judge hearing the case.

The American Bar Association estimates that 80% of defendants in the US cannot afford legal representation. An automated service may open up experienced legal representation to a wider group of defendants. DoNotPay is also offering US$1,000,000 for any lawyer that will use an earpiece and allow their bot to argue a case in front of the US Supreme Court.

Electricity from Air

In the early 1900’s Nikola Tesla (one of the truly great inventors) dreamed of harvesting energy from air. He ran experiments that tired to capture electrical charges from the atmosphere. He called it his Free Energy System. In 1932 he claimed to have harnessed cosmic rays and caused them to operate a device. He originally patented the device in 1901. This is his diagrammatic representation of the device.

Fast forward to today, little progress had been made in further developing Tesla’s ideas for free energy. That is until the European Union project called CATCHER. This project is aiming to convert atmospheric humidity into electricity (slightly different idea to Tesla).

The technique that they are using involves harvesting the tiny charges of static electricity contained in gaseous water molecules. The process is called hydroelectricity or humidity electricity. A panel like cell, made from zirconium oxide (a hard crystalline material) is used to capture the energy from humidity. An 8 by 5 centimeter plate can generate approximately 0.9 volts in a laboratory with 50% humidity. This is comparable to the power output of half an AA battery.

Very small uniform nanoparticles of zirconium oxide are compressed into a sheet of material with a similar structure to solar panels (including a series of channels or capillaries). The nanostructure generates electric fields within the capillaries that separate the charge from water molecules absorbed from the atmosphere.

The panels have advantages over solar panels as they do not need specific placement (i.e. facing the sun) to access the humidity in the air. The team is also working to incorporate their solution into another EU project, SSHARE which is working to incorporate hydroelectricity into a heating and cooling system built into the ceiling of any room. (Andre Lyubchyk the lead scientist in CAPTURE is also co-leading SSHARE with his mum).

Six Minutes of High Intensity Exercise

A team from the University of Otago in New Zealand have found that 6 minutes of high intensity exercise may delay the onset of a variety of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s.

Their study found that this short but intense bout of exercise increased the production of Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDFN is a specialized protein essential for brain formation, learning and memory. It could also protect from cognitive decline. The protein promotes neuroplasticity and the survival of neurons. Animal studies have shown that increasing BDNF encourages the formation and storage of memories, enhances learning and boosts overall cognitive performance.

To date pharmaceutical interventions have failed to safely harness the protective power of BDNF. The team tested a range of interventions including fasting, long slow exercise (90 minutes of cycling), High Intensity Exercise and a combination of approaches. They found that brief but highly vigorous exercise was significantly better at increasing BDNF. High Intensity Exercise is when you exercise at 85% to 95% of your maximum heart rate.

PLEASE NOTE high intensity exercise can be dangerous! You must get medical advice before attempting any high intensity exercise. An easy way to calculate your theoretical maximum heart rate is 220 - your age. Your actual maximum heart rate will be in a range around this number (due to genetic and other factors).

Further research will focus on what other physical interventions may increase the production of BDNF and delay the onset of cognitive decline.

Paying it Forward

If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.

If you have any questions or comments please comment below.

I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.

Till next week.