Earlier this month, a doctoral student developed a way to post messages on Twitter using only the mind. Adam Wilson posted two messages on Twitter on April 15. The first one, "GO BADGERS," might have been sent by any University of Wisconsin-Madison student cheering for the school team, CNN writes. His second post, 20 minutes later, was a little more unusual: "SPELLING WITH MY BRAIN."

Wilson, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering, was confirming an announcement he had made two weeks earlier—his lab had developed a way to post messages on Twitter using electrical impulses generated by thought. The brain-computer interface allows people to compose a tweet by focusing on the desired letter.

Wilson's discovery could be a lifeline for people with paralysis, or "locked-in syndrome": people whose brains function normally but who cannot speak or move because of injury or disease. Twitter's simple interface and straightforward format—easier than email—is a good fit for new technology.

You can see here how the new technology works: