Rob Gold, from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, was also watching outside the mission-control center.

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The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory have partnered together on a successful trial for a brain-computer interface that allows a person to control a robotic arm using only their thoughts.

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He has 12 honorary degrees, was awarded the CBE in 1982 and since 1979 has been at Cambridge University's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, where he is Lucasian Professor of Mathematics -- a post once held by Isaac Newton.

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Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, a leading space research center, recently conducted feasibility studies into junk-zapping lasers and garbage-collecting rockets.

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