The Download: AI headphone translation, and the link between microbes and our behavior

What is new: Imagine going to dinner with a group of friends who move and get out of different languages ​​you don’t speak, but you can still understand what they are saying. This scenario is an inspiration for a new AI headset system that simultaneously translates the speech of multiple speakers, in real time.

How does that work: The system follows the direction and vocal characteristics of each speaker, helping the person wearing the headset to recognize who is saying what in the group environment. Read the whole story.

—Rhiannon Williams

Your intestinal microbes can stimulate criminal behavior

A few years ago, the Belgian man in the 30s entered the lamp. Twice. Local authorities revealed that his blood alcohol level was four times higher than the legal border. For several years, the man was arrested three times for drunk driving. And on all three occasions he insisted he didn’t drink.

He told the truth. The doctor later diagnosed with an automatic beer syndrome-a frequent condition in which the body makes its alcohol. The microbes living in the human body fermented carbohydrates in their diet to create ethanol. Last year he was released by drunk driving.

His case, together with several other scientific studies, raises a fascinating question for microbiology, neuroscience and law: how much can we blame our behavior for our germs? Read the whole story.

– Jessica Hamzelou