Researchers say they have used brain waves of a paralyzed man who cannot speak to produce words from his thoughts onto a computer. A team led by Dr. Edward Chang at the University of California, San Francisco, carried out the experiment.

"Most  of us take  for  granted how  easily  we  communicate  through  speech,"  Chang  told  The Associated Press. "It's exciting to think we're at the very beginning of a new chapter, a new field to ease the difficulties of patients who lost that ability. " The researchers admit that such communication methods for paralysis victims will require years of additional research. But, they say the new study marks an important step forward.

Today, paralysis victims who cannot speak or write have very limited ways of communicating. For example, a victim can use a pointer attached to a hat that lets him move his head to touch words or letters on a screen. Other devices can pick up a person's eye movements. But such methods are slow and a very limited replacement for speech.

Using brain signals to work around disabilities is currently a hot field of study. Chang's team built their experiment on earlier work. The process uses brain waves that normally control the voice system.  The researchers implanted electrodes on the surface of the man's brain, over the area that controls speech. A computer observed the patterns when he attempted to say common words such as "water" or "good. " Over time, the computer became able to differentiate between 50 words that could form more than 1,000 sentences. Repeatedly given questions such as "How are you today?" or "Are you thirsty," the device enabled the man to answer "I am very good" or "No, I am not thirsty. "The words were not voiced, but were turned into text on the computer.

In an opinion article published with the study, Harvard brain doctors Leigh Hochberg and Sydney Cash called the work a "pioneering study." The two doctors said the technology might one day help people with injuries, strokes or diseases like Lou Gehrig's. People with such diseases have brains that "prepare messages for delivery, but those messages are trapped," they wrote.

Michael Priscilla is a young architect with a blog that I follow. In a post, he described how in 2005, he rode coast-to-coast, 4,547 miles to Portland, Oregon, and he ended up staying there. He thought his experience changed his life.

The story resonated with me, because when I was 17, the summer before I went into architecture school, I did much the same thing, and it changed my life too. I did not go quite as far, traveling 2,700 miles to Vancouver.

But it was still a very long way and in 1970, nobody was riding bikes. Our diet only consisted of a loaf of white bread and a jar of peanut butter each meal, or dinner with other people in the campgrounds —— who were just amazed that we were doing this. Equipment was primitive and we had no sunscreen.

But, as it was for Michael, it was a life-changing experience. I have never forgotten that everything weighs something and every ounce matters；in architecture I always tended toward light and portable and simple. I learned that people of all ages and origins are generally really, really nice and helpful and friendly. When I got back to architecture school, I saw the world differently, understood space and time differently, and I don't think that ever left me.

Going with the flow, having a good attitude and just being open to accept whatever happens, is the formula (公式) to having an amazing experience. Worrying and planning too much stops any experience from ever taking place. This is a hard lesson to learn.

Nowadays, lots of people of all ages are doing it. In America and Europe, bicycle tourism has become a big deal, with one website noting that bicycle vacations are the new golf. Perhaps crossing the entire country is a bit much, but reading Michael's post makes me want to get back on my bike and take a good long ride.

We're loving the sea to death. We swim into it, live near it, build beside it, and even imagine about living under the sea. For much of our history, we have turned to "hard engineering" to control the marine environment and manage its influence on us. We build dams, sea walls and channels. But all these efforts seem to fail, because we've not been thinking about design of structures with respect to ecology. Some coastal structures create shade, which reduces the growth of seaweed. Bright lights at night contuse species such as turtles. That's why blue engineering comes in.

Johnson, a marine ecologist, is advocating for "blue engineering" — the marine version of the "green engineering" movement on land that has seen nations like Singapore building the walls and roofs of the concrete jungle with plant life.

Researchers with the World Harbour Project are creating tiles similar to the natural structures found on rocky shores with 3D printing technology. These make more attractive homes for marine creatures. Researchers are also actively seeding these tiles with local seaweeds and creatures such as the Sydney rock oyster, which is particularly good at improving water quality. Twelve harbors around the world are taking part in this marine tile experiment, each working with their own unique marine life.

It's a far cry from the days when huge numbers of old tyres were thrown into the sea to build "artificial reefs". Those early attempts are now costing millions to remove, showing just how far we have yet to go in understanding how best to co-habit with the underwater world.