Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here.

Still from a promotional video of Arnav Kapur demonstrating the AlterEgo wearable neural interface.

Arnav Kapur, chief executive of AlterEgo, demonstrates the wearable device.Credit: AlterEgo

Prototype device controlled by silent speech

A wearable device offers a similar experience to brain-computer interfaces without the invasive implants or the privacy concerns that come along with mind-reading. The ‘AlterEgo’ device detects electrical signals in the muscles used to formulate speech that are sent by the brain when you silently mouth or even just internally articulate words. Its makers say it could be used by people who have issues with speaking, or to interact with voice-controlled applications without having to talk out loud.

Nature | 5 min read

US$5 trillion-$38 trillion

The health and economic benefits generated by vaccines against COVID-19 in the first year alone — a return of $60 to $475 on the dollar. (New Scientist | 4 min read)

Ig Nobels honour funny, smart research

Regular readers of this newsletter will remember when an all-Italian team of researchers set out to ‘scientifically optimize’ the recipe for cacio e pepe. (Their solution involved adding only one ingredient to the traditional combination of pasta, black pepper and pecorino cheese: cornstarch.) Now the team can add an Ig Nobel Prize to their mantle next to their ‘mentioned in the Nature Briefing’ trophy. “We were thrilled and genuinely honored,” says psychologist Fritz Renner, who co-authored another winning study, on how a little tipple can improve your foreign-language skills.

Nature | 6 min read

Reference: Physics of Fluids paper & Journal of Psychopharmacology paper

Features & opinion

What we see in octopus eyes

Octopuses are a fascinating combination of intelligence and otherworldliness that can tempt us to turn to them for insights into ourselves, writes author Verlyn Klinkenborg in his review of five recent books on the eight-armed muse. “If you’ve ever met one in the wild, you know that an octopus doesn’t just look at you. It considers you,” writes Klinkenborg. “To encounter an octopus is to be implicated in a question about being that engulfs you both.”

The New York Review of Books | 18 min read

Futures: The parable of the doors

A man considers whether ignorance is, in fact, bliss in the latest short story for Nature’s Futures series.

Nature | 6 min read

Five best science books this week

Andrew Robinson’s pick of the top five science books to read this week includes a scandalous study of symbiosis and the lives of ‘experimental archaeologists’ that recreate the ways of the lost civilizations.

Nature | 4 min read

Podcast: an AI health oracle

A new AI tool, called Delphi-2M, can calculate a person’s risk of developing different diseases, sometimes years in advance. The model was trained to identify patterns of disease progression using the health records of 400,000 people, which allows the tool to predict someone’s future disease risks, based on their current medical record. The typical set up for AI health-prediction systems is “one tool for one disease”, says AI researcher and study co-author Moritz Gerstung. “There is not really a tool that does provide a very comprehensive assessment.” Delphi-2M could fill that gap — it can calculate the risk of over 1,000 diseases at once.

Nature Podcast | 35 min listen

Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube Music, or use the RSS feed.

Quote of the day

“Wild nature is not a crop but a cathedral, and a single old-growth forest is a databank containing more info than any legions of supercomputers could hold.”

Environmental author Rick Bass writes that mature forests of the United States, such as in his beloved corner of Montana, are essential carbon sinks — not “just crops of fibre that could be farmed like corn”. (High Country News | 8 min read)