Solution for Motion Sickness could come in 5 to 10 years, delivered by electrical signals in mobile phones
We all have that friend or family member who gets first choice of seating on road trips because they “get carsick” when they sit in the worst seat of the vehicle. Well, their excuses may soon evaporate into thin air: researches at the Imperial College of London claim the solution to preventing motion sickness is only 5 to 10 years away, and involves sending electrical currents to your brain:
a mild electrical current applied to the scalp can dampen responses in an area of the brain that is responsible for processing motion signals. Doing this helps the brain reduce the impact of the confusing inputs it is receiving and so prevents the problem that causes the symptoms of motion sickness.
Call me a cynic, but that sounds like the scientific version of, “Oh, your stomach hurts? Let me punch you in the face and your tummy won’t ache any more.”
Playing angel’s advocate, which is a new thing I just made up, back pain can be alleviated with devices called TENS machines and they’re already available to consumers. They, too, work by delivering electric signals to nerves in your body.
How does this tie into Android?
They imagine in the coming years this would work directly from your mobile phone, “which would be able to deliver the small amount of electricity required via the headphone jack. In either case, you would temporarily attach small electrodes to your scalp before traveling – on a cross channel ferry, for example.”
I wouldn’t plan on Googling “motion sickness” and finding a cure is waiting for you in the Knowledge Graph, but if you suffer from motion sickness – or if you’ve been displaced from the front seat of every moving vehicle since age 7 due to an older sibling who suffers from such circumstances ahem ahem cough sneeze – have hope that you may one day reclaim your rightful spot riding shotgun on the way home from family vacation.
Until this vision becomes a reality, may I suggest you buy this priceless $15 gift for victims of motion sickness:
