They used a technique called transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS. If you pass a weak electrical current through part of the brain, it temporarily and safely disrupts neural activity.
WSJ: Mind & Matter: Alison Gopnik on Beating the Brain's Curbs on Innovation
All participants adapted to the different speeds, but the ones who received electrical current to the part of the brain corresponding to the leg that eventually changes its pattern adapted faster.
Aviation officials in the U.S. and Japan are trying to determine if the two major incidents this month were caused by malfunctions in the lithium-ion batteries or if some other part of the electrical system was at fault.
The new technique works by taking advantage of plants' ability to generate an electrical impulse when struck by light - part of the process of photosynthesis.
The two electrodes, cathode and anode, are separated by a polymer electrolyte membrane which permits protons to cross to reach the cathode while the electrons are made to flow as part of a circuit to carry an electrical current.
The performance was all the more respectable because the 23-year-old Italian was forced to drive part of the night-time stage without lights after an electrical problem.
The subjects were randomized into five groups and received a mild, noninvasive electrical current, via a cap and electrodes, running either to or away from the part of the cerebellum that controlled either the faster or slower leg.
Despite its inherent illogic, the notion that last week's massive, cascading electrical blackout was a "wake-up" call seems now to have become as much a part of the political landscape as has the effort to assign blame for this costly man-made disaster.
Prototypes built by researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory, Stanford University and Philips, a Dutch electrical-goods firm, can detect a substance that is present at a concentration of less than one part in a million billion.
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