From AI to Mass Shootings, Neuroscience Is the Future of Problem Solving

David Eagleman, neuroscientist and host of ‘The Brain’ on PBS, will speak at the Los Angeles Hope Festival on Sunday, May 21. The event is free but seats are limited. RSVP here.

David Eagleman isn’t your garden-variety neuroscientist—if there is such a thing. His former neuro lab at Baylor College of Medicine built the technology to help deaf people hear through their skin:

“One of the things my lab is doing is building a vibratory vest so that we can feed in sensory information through the skin of your torso rather than through more typical sensory channels. So, for example, we’re doing this for people who are deaf who want to be able to hear. We set up a microphone on the vest and then the auditory stream is turned into this matrix of vibrations on your skin, and what that does is it feeds in electrical signals into the brain that represent the auditory information.

“And if it sounds crazy that you would ever be able to understand all these signals through your skin, remember that all the auditory system is doing is taking signals and turning them into electrical signals in your brain,” he says.

That vest was recently put to a very scholarly use:

I recently went to LA to film a BuzzFeed video w/our @NeoSensory VEST:

* Drake Vs. Kendrick: Which Album FEELS Better? * pic.twitter.com/sCA9JKfpSL

— David Eagleman (@davideagleman) May 5, 2017