Health

• A soft robotics device developed at the University of California (UCLA), which uses magnetoelastic actuators to produce sound, will enable patients without vocal cords to recover the power of speech.
• The light and flexible device, which is worn on the throat, converts laryngeal muscle movement into electrical signals with a sensor design inspired by the art of kirigami (a Japanese modelling technique that uses a single incised sheet of paper), which enables patients to communicate when, for example, they are recovering from treatment for voice disorders.
• Assisted by a machine learning algorithm, the device, which provides an adaptive and customizable solution for individual users, can extract more than 94% of the semantic content from signals derived from movement on patients’ throats.