💬 QUOTED: “When science meets the Olympics.”

Scientists, competitors, and spectators gathered in Switzerland this weekend for the Cybathlon 2024 – a once-every-four-year event where people with physical disabilities put high-tech assistive devices to the test, as they race to complete the tasks of everyday life.

Competitors are encouraged to use the most state-of-the-art technology available, with prizes awarded to both the winning athletes (called “pilots”) and the developers of the assistive tools they use.

The 2024 Cybathlon consisted of eight competitions, including:

• A brain-computer interface race, where pilots with quadriplegia guided an animated avatar through a virtual obstacle course using only their thoughts.
• An assistance robot race, in which pilots controlled a robo-assistant from their wheelchairs.
• A functional electrical stimulation bike race, featuring pilots with paraplegia who used an electronic controller to activate their leg muscles and ride a bicycle.
• An exoskeleton race, which requires paraplegic pilots to complete a variety of technically complex tasks – like navigating a crowded room or handling food in a kitchen – with the help of a robotic exoskeleton.

See the full list of winners here.

The impact: Some of the technologies showcased at Cybathlon 2024, such as arm and leg prostheses, are already widely used. But for others, the Cybathlon is a proving ground for new ideas – and has led to the creation of several new commercial products in the past, like a stair-climbing wheelchair from startup Scewo.

🧀 STAT OF THE DAY: In an incident being referred to as “the grate cheese robbery,” a leading London cheese retailer called Neal’s Yard Dairy was recently scammed out of 22 metric tons of rare cheddar worth ~$390,000. Company officials say the thieves placed an order for the cheese while posing as a “legitimate wholesale distributor for a major French retailer” – but the deal was too gouda to be true, as the scammers failed to make any payments despite the cheddar being delivered. Analysts say it represents the biggest con to hit the cheese industry in decades.

🤔 DID YOU KNOW? An estimated 30%-50% of twins develop a shared language or particular communication pattern that’s only comprehensible to them, a phenomenon known as cryptophasia.

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