Startup Prophetic plans to launch a $2,000 Halo AI headband in 2025, allowing the wearer to control their dreams like no other.
The headband uses electroencephalography (EEG) to record electrical activity, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures brain activity by measuring blood flow.
But experts are not yet sure about the long-term effects, and warn that using high-frequency sounds to stimulate your brain could hinder the cognitive ability to process short-term memories.
EEG and fMRI work together to create a detailed map of the brain to induce lucid dreaming, where a person is aware that they are in a dream while they sleep.
Prophetic uses EEG data to determine when a user has entered REM sleep (a state of deep sleep when a person begins dreaming), and then uses fMRI to induce lucid dreams.
The headband can emit high-frequency sounds to stimulate brain activity so that it stimulates, maintains and influences lucid dreams as well.
“The wearer will not need to do anything to induce lucid dreams, and it will happen autonomously while in use,” Eric Wahlberg, CEO and co-founder of Prophetic, said in an explanatory video describing how the Halo works.
But scientists believe dreams have fundamental functions essential to our cognitive development, including processing emotional experiences, and some fear that if dreams are altered, this could interfere with their function.
It is worth noting that Prophetic launched an application to beta test the Halo headband last week, but it gives priority to people who have pre-ordered to receive the device.
Volcanic lightning may have been the spark that launched life on Earth
Some scientists believe that life came to Earth from space, but a new study claims that life began on our planet.
An international team of geologists, geoscientists and mineralogists, led by a team from the Sorbonne University in Paris, has found evidence suggesting that volcanic lightning may have fixed huge amounts of nitrogen in the atmosphere, allowing life to begin on Earth.
Nitrogen is essential to promoting life on Earth, and when combined with lightning strikes, it reacts with oxygen and produces nitrogen oxide which is then released into the soil, where it can create and sustain life.
Samples taken from three ancient volcanic sites, in what is now Turkey, Peru and Italy, showed that large amounts of nitrates were present in the atmosphere, meaning that the elements did not come from the volcano but that lightning was a possible source.
Volcanic lightning generally occurs at the beginning of a volcanic eruption and occurs in two places: the first close to the ground in ash clouds, and the second in a column of volcanic smoke in the second layer of the Earth's atmosphere called the stratosphere.
The study's lead author, Suleiman Beki, and his team visited southern Peru, central Turkey, and a volcanic island off the coast of Naples in Italy, as these areas are known to host ancient volcanic deposits. After finding a large amount of nitrate in the soil, they conducted tests that showed that it came from the atmosphere, not from the volcano.
Nitrogen is the most common element in Earth's atmosphere and the universe, and previous research has shown that under the right conditions, lightning can form nitrates regardless of whether it is caused by a thunderstorm or a volcanic eruption.
However, scientists have ruled out lightning being the cause of life due to the small amounts of nitrogen it produces.
Fragments of the asteroid that struck Berlin reveal that it is an "extremely rare" space rock.
“Our findings point to the unique role that subaerial explosions can play in providing the essential ingredients for the emergence of life on Earth,” the study said.
When volcanic lightning caused the formation of nitrogen oxide, it released amino acids into the soil, which are the basis for the formation of ancient microorganisms, according to a separate study conducted by scientists at Johns Hopkins University and Charles University in the Czech Republic.
There are many theories about how life appeared on our planet. But there are three leading ideas: that life arose from basic gases and elements in Earth's early pools and seas, that meteorites introduced living organisms to Earth, and that meteorites provided only the basic chemical components of life, not life itself.
Experts in this field of astrobiology and analytical chemistry said that the most likely explanation is a combination of the first and third theories.
They point out that the building blocks of life came from space via meteorites, and that they gave rise to life in the primordial soup of early Earth's pools and shallow seas. (The term primordial soup refers to one of the most well-known theories regarding the origins of life, which says that early Earth's atmosphere, composed of methane, ammonia, water vapor, and hydrogen, provided the conditions necessary for the formation of organic molecules.)
However, the recent study has revealed the first field evidence that it was not the volcanic eruption itself that created life, but rather volcanic lightning that created enough nitrogen in Earth's atmosphere.
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