A new brain-computer interface (BCI) is the first to translate both speech and movement with a single device that reads data from implanted electrodes.

In a recent paper published in Nature Neuroscience, researchers revealed how their new BCI simultaneously communicates verbal and non-verbal information in seconds.

This is a major step forward in BCI research, as human communication relies on body language as much as spoken words to convey meaning. For the first time, one implant marries these two separate elements of communication, offering a breakthrough for individuals with severe paralysis.

A New BCI

The team’s new BCI translates electrical signals from the brain into text using artificial intelligence. The decoded information can then be used to control a digital avatar, guiding both its speech and movements.

The BCI field has made significant strides in recent years, allowing humans to control cursors and robotic arms or even communicate through synthesized speech. However, those projects have generally focused on a single mode of communication, whereas this new system is multifunctional, allowing it to capture more of the rich nuance of human communication.

“This gives us hope for neural prosthesis that will enter day-to-day usage,” said Christian Herff, a computational neuroscientist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

Since both are related to communication, it should be no surprise that the neural signals responsible for speech can overlap. That can make the business of separating them for two different functions at the same time extremely challenging. Additionally, when the brain commands the body to speak and move at the same time, the neural activity coordinating those activities can vary from what it would be if only one were occurring at a time.

Collecting Human Neural Data

Two volunteers worked with the researchers to test the new BCI, which involved surgically implanted arrays comprising 253 electrodes on the surface of the cortex. By covering portions of the sensorimotor cortex with so many electrodes, the team captured a large number of signals associated with attempted speech and movement.

Following a brainstem stroke, one volunteer experienced impaired speech and movement capabilities. The team instructed him to wave, shake his hands, clap, and nod. Additionally, they gave him five phrases to attempt to speak silently.

The other volunteer had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a motor neuron disease that causes progressive motor impairment and can lead to loss of speech. Although he could only move his facial muscles, he was capable of typing messages. Researchers gave him ten phrases to imagine vocalizing and ten gestures to imagine performing.

BCI Testing Results

Using the electrode implants, the BCI recorded neural activity generated by each attempt, including when participants attempted movement and speech separately or simultaneously. The team then trained AI models to translate those signals, finding that including data from simultaneous activities improved decoding performance.

With this neural activity mapped, the team then had the volunteers attempt to control a digital avatar using the BCI. Again, testing involved isolated and combined verbal and gestural communication. However, this time, instead of relying exclusively on preselected responses, the participants were asked questions in real time.

Accuracy varied between the volunteers, with the first achieving perfect BCI decoding of the tested movements and speech, while the second recorded 75% speech accuracy and 85% gesture accuracy.

While achieving such promising results for combined speech and gesture signals represents a major step forward in BCI research, more work is needed to continue refining the technology. Higher levels of speech accuracy have been achieved with speech-only devices, and this test was limited to individual sentences rather than continuous speech. Additionally, the device captured gestures rather than steady hand positions.

These limitations were partly intentional, as the team initially simplified its decoding tasks while making the jump to simultaneous actions. Further research could expand the system to recognize movements involving additional parts of the body and enable finer control of the many joints in the hands.

The paper, “Simultaneous Speech and Gesture Decoding for Multimodal Communication in Paralysis,” appeared in Nature Neuroscience on September 14, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

The Americas experienced their own Vesuvius-style volcanic eruption 21.9 million years ago, devastating a portion of Chile worse than Pompeii.

A new study in Science Advances highlights the work of University College London Earth Sciences researchers analyzing a mountain of ancient volcanic rock covering an area six times the size of the Chilean capital, Santiago. 

The Lauca Caldera erupted to cover the area in molten ignimbrite rock up to a kilometer deep. That ancient volcanic hellscape buried the region’s terrain but, ironically, preserved it from typical erosion, providing important clues for modern climate researchers.

Modeling Volcanic Activity

“This landscape was buried by a giant volcanic eruption – a little like Pompeii, but on a vastly larger scale,” said lead author Dr Byron Adams, based at UCL Earth Sciences. “Instead of covering a town, hot mixtures of volcanic ash, rock fragments, and gas swept across an entire landscape, engulfing the terrain beneath them.”

Using detailed computer models, the UCL Earth Sciences team produced hundreds of possible landscapes to explore what the region may have once looked like. Detailed data on how rivers cut through landscapes to form mountain ranges informed predictions of what lies beneath the massive ignimbrite deposits. The researchers concluded that a low-relief landscape, such as foothills, most likely existed there at the time.

“Pompeii shows how volcanic eruptions can freeze a moment in human history. This study shows that much larger eruptions can also freeze moments in Earth history, burying whole landscapes beneath volcanic deposits and preserving clues to how mountains were being built before the eruption,” Adams said.

“We cannot dig down to see the buried landscape, but we can use the shape of the volcanic blanket and what we know about how rivers shape mountains to infer what is hidden beneath it.”

The Volcanic Andes

The findings indicate that this portion of the Andes, the world’s longest continental mountain range, rose very slowly, by only about an inch per century. At a faster rate, the landscape beneath the volcanic deposits would not fit the researchers’ models, and the slopes would have been much steeper.

The work provides new evidence in a longstanding debate among geologists over whether the Andes rose rapidly in the last few million years or developed more gradually over a much longer period. Earlier mineral analyses of the Andean range produced similar estimates based on records of temperature changes preserved in the rocks as they cooled while moving toward the planet’s surface.

“This approach gives us a new way to look back at Earth’s history. Current methods to estimate the speed at which mountains build look at chemical ‘clocks’ in the rock, but these are limited to specific moments in time. Our method can estimate rock uplift over a much longer period,” Dr. Adams said. “In this case, we estimate it would have taken millions of years to produce the subdued landscape we infer prior to the eruption.”

Other mountain ranges around the world, such as the Himalayas, can move even faster, rising several millimeters or even centimeters each year.

Climate Implications

While the team’s work covers only the middle of the Andes’ history, it still provides interesting support for the slow-movement hypothesis. For years, researchers have worked to understand how the Andes developed, as they strongly influence global and regional climate. 

By better understanding the Andes, climatologists have a more complete data set to piece together the complex problem of global climate change.

“What’s particularly exciting about this study is that it gives us a new way of piecing together that history, concluded co-author Dr Frances Cooper, also based at UCL Earth Sciences. “The same approach could be applied to volcanic deposits elsewhere in the world, helping us reconstruct landscapes buried for millions of years.”

The paper, “Landscapes Buried Beneath Large-Volume Ignimbrites Reveal Preeruptive Uplift Rates,” appeared in Science Advances on September 11, 2026.

Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

A new legal waiver allows current and former U.S. government personnel to disclose information related to unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) to representatives of the government’s  Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE) initiative. 

The waiver “establishes an authorized, legally protected disclosure mechanism for current and former personnel to provide UAP-related National Defense Information (NDI) to designated representatives of the PURSUE effort,” the U.S. Department of War announced on Monday. 

The PURSUE initiative, initiated earlier this year by the Trump administration, is not a UAP investigative office like the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), but rather an effort to identify, review, declassify, and publicly release UAP-related records held by U.S. federal agencies.

According to the Department of War, the waiver supports President Donald Trump’s mandate for greater transparency surrounding UAP by creating a protected channel for military and government personnel to provide UAP-related National Defense Information (NDI) to designated PURSUE representatives. The directive applies to current and former Department of War service members, veterans, civilian employees, and contractors who currently have or previously had access to UAP-related NDI.

For covered disclosures made to designated PURSUE representatives, the waiver provides targeted relief from certain civil and administrative enforcement provisions contained in Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) and Special Access Program Indoctrination Agreements (SAPIAs). The waiver applies specifically to authorized communications with PURSUE representatives.

Michael Gold, President of Civil and International Space Business Development at Redwire and a former NASA official who supported the efforts of AARO’s predecessor office, the UAP Task Force, and NASA’s UAP Independent Study Team, told The Debrief the move was “unprecedented.”

“To the best of my knowledge, this action by the Department of War is nearly, if not entirely, unprecedented,” Gold said. “I have never seen anything like this before on any topic, and it demonstrates the seriousness with which the Department of War and the Trump administration are treating UAP transparency.”

“This administration’s handling of UAP transparency has been extraordinary and should be applauded by all of those who care about the issue and good government generally,” Gold added.

Why does this matter for past whistleblowers? 

The new PURSUE order comes after several UAP whistleblowers have come forward with allegations that the government possesses more information about UAP than has been publicly disclosed. Individuals who have claimed knowledge of UAP-related programs have also cited legal and professional risks as barriers to publicly discussing what they say they know. Those concerns have included potential violations of nondisclosure agreements, loss of security clearances, and administrative or legal consequences for revealing protected information.

The Department of War says the new waiver is designed to address some of those barriers. Importantly, however, the waiver does not mean that previously classified UAP information has been declassified or cleared for public release. Instead, it creates an authorized pathway for individuals with relevant information to provide it to PURSUE for review.

The Department of War says information submitted through PURSUE will undergo security review and, where appropriate, potential declassification before it can be publicly released.

“Disclosures of any kind made to PURSUE would need to be reviewed and classified information redacted before such information could be released publicly,” Gold told The Debrief. “The administration, through the National Archives and other executive branch agencies and departments, has already gone through this process to release information in the various tranches, and the same could be done for information disclosed via this waiver,” Gold said.

Gold said he was “optimistic that some very significant information could be publicly released through this process,” says Gold. 

Gold also argued that members of Congress involved in UAP oversight should eventually be given access to information provided under the waiver.

“In addition to select representatives of PURSUE, I think it would be very beneficial if Members of the House UAP caucus and other select Representatives and Senators would be granted access to whatever information is provided under the waiver.  For example, Representatives Burlison, Luna, Burchett, and others have been fearless champions for UAP transparency, and including them in this process would substantially bolster the credibility and efficacy of the overall effort.”

The change could provide former government personnel with an authorized route to disclose UAP-related information to PURSUE without triggering certain civil or administrative enforcement provisions that might otherwise apply under NDAs or Special Access Program agreements.

However, the waiver is specifically directed at authorized disclosures to PURSUE representatives. It does not provide blanket authorization for individuals to publicly reveal protected or classified information.

The potential implications for the commercial and private sectors also remain unclear. Gold, however, believes greater UAP transparency could have consequences for aerospace and aviation.

“UAP transparency could have tremendous beneficial impacts on the aerospace sector,” Gold said in an email to The Debrief.

“Understanding what the phenomenon is could lead to new scientific discoveries and technologies,” he said, adding that a better understanding of UAP “will benefit the safety of air traffic and space operations.”

Fundamentally, Gold says that any new information whistleblowers may now be willing to provide could also help reduce stigmas surrounding the topic that have impeded U.S. progress in the past, and which may even have aided foreign adversaries.

“By diluting the stigma surrounding UAP, it will close a loophole that I suspect is being used by adversary nations to hide advanced drone activity around critical American national security and civil infrastructure and facilities.”

Whether this new pathway produces substantive new information and opens the door for legitimate whistleblowers remains to be seen. As with previous UAP disclosure efforts, distinguishing well-supported testimony and documentation from misinformation, disinformation, or unsubstantiated claims will remain an important part of that process.

If the waiver results in significant new information reaching the public, it will depend on what is submitted to PURSUE, how that information is evaluated, and what can ultimately be cleared for public release following the security review process.

Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.