There's an idea in science called the null hypothesis.
And it works like this: when you're setting out to prove a theory,
your default answer should be, "It's not going to work,"
and you've got to convince the world otherwise through clear results.
So in my last video, while I was trying to talk to a camera up on that zero-g flight,
the student researchers all through the rest of the plane,
who were physicists, psychologists, chemists, electrical engineers,
all of them were trying to disprove their null hypothesis.
We want to see if brain-computer interfaces can be used for very extreme situations, such as space.
and that zero-g or weightlessness will not really interfere with the signalling,
and if it does, how can we filter it out?
In the flights, the participants are going to play a game called "shoot-the-alien"
and they'll do so with their brain activity.
Simply put, they'll just think of movements and not actually move
and by thinking of that movement, they'll control a little cannon on a screen.
If I really move my right hand, I get a certain brain signal
but if I imagine moving my right hand, I get the exact same brain signal.
That means that I can learn a computer how to respond to those brain signals
even if I'm not really doing anything at all.
That's why it's usable for people who are actually paralysed
or suffer from other types of illnesses.
We're not actually reading someone's mind but we're measuring their brain signals.
We have a cap, which has 64 electrodes
to actually measure those brain signals through the skull,
and through a special gel that we put in.
The cap is actually quite comfortable once it's on.
You don't actually feel it anymore so it's just measuring there.
It's not going to bother them. At least we hope it's not!
In theory, getting a negative result is a good thing.
And for the BrainFly team, that would be brain activity in microgravity
being too different for the system to detect.
Now, as long as the equipment worked, that isn't a failure.
That just means your idea has been proven wrong.
That's still a step forward.
But, in practice, humans don't work that way.
It's called publication bias.
Negative results are less likely to be written up by scientists,
less likely to be published by journals
and less likely to make it out to the rest of the world.
The media doesn't care if nothing's changed.
Scientific institutions have limited money
and getting flashy, amazing results that generate lots of press coverage...
oh, that's good for your career.
So if you're putting all that time and money in,
there is still a stigma that, if you get a negative result, you have somehow failed.
We do hope to publish.
We hope to get, maybe at least, four papers actually,
because we all have different thesis subjects on it.
In the best case scenario, everything works perfectly.
The BCI's still controllable, the data's not noisy, all nine participants give perfect data.
That's the dream result.
My ideal result is actually this little tiny brain signal called a P300,
which is a positive peak in your electrical signal.
So what I think and what I hope is that microgravity,
the moment when you're weightless, may result in a slight cognitive enhancement.
So up there, in those 20 second bursts of microgravity,
those researchers tried to disprove their null hypothesis.
For BrainFly, that is: is our brain activity comparable in zero G?
Can you still use a brain-computer interface if you're in orbit?
In a few decades, could astronauts doing space walks use their minds to control equipment?
I'm not going to tell you.
You can look it up when they all publish their papers
because the achievement is the same, regardless of the results.
Science has taken one small step forward,
no matter whether they disprove their null hypothesis or not.
Nah, I'm just kidding, they got the results they wanted.
If you're a masters or PhD student from an ESA member state,
and you want to be one of the people behind me,
then have a look at the Fly Your Thesis program.
The link is in the description!