Next, the technology thats allowing patients to save a valuable part of themselves. Thats significant. Before its too late. Lindsey moran is a former cia operative and analyst. Tonight, from searching the galaxies for et to searching the rubble for human life, this is the spaceaged machine that can detect a heart beat through tons of concrete. Rachelle olmixon is a neuro scientist. Tonight, the mystery in the waters of americas northwest. Scientists try to figure out whats killing the oysters before its too late. I am phil torres, an entomologist. Thats our team. Lets do some science. Welcome to tech know. I am phil torres. For most of us, communicating with the human voice is something we kind of take for granted but not so with some of meet. Yeah. I was able to meet three patients that all have als. Its a devastating condition that degenrates the muscles in the body including those in the vocal cords. So they lose their ability to speak. But using technology, they were able to communicate with me in a really remarkable way, such as these stories we are working. Take a look. On a snowy day in the of seasons, the Training Camp for the Baltimore RavensFootball Team seems deserted but a j. B. Rigans, the Senior Advisor to Player Development is at his desk as he is every day. You come here to work several times a week, and one wouldnt blame you if you wanted to stay at home. What keeps you coming here . Sure, i could have stayed home and gone into seclusion after my als diagnosis. But coming to work is about refusing to give up. If we are isolated from human interaction, our spirits will wither and die. A driving force on the ravens 2001 super bowl winning team. Oj was diagnosed with a paralyzing and incurable disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Network. They say the average life span is two to five years. 40. Okay. Well what am i going to do . You can lay down and say whoa is me and go in the corner . Never been my attitude. Als, a neurological disorder is also known as lou gehrigs disease. From raven rookies to harden veterans, this is brimming full of men who appear to have super human strength. No matter who they are, they all agree on one that he is the strongest of them all despite being able to move on his own. Silenced by als, he remains the voice of locker room inspiration. Got something for us . Get ready for something great. Stay humble and. Was he always as inspiring as he is today . Oj, before, was effervescent. His voice is not the same, but i would say it has more power now. People get closer, the huddle becomes tighter and we all listen for ojs voice. He speaks through his eyes. Gazing at a computer screen to produce a sin thes ized voice named mel. How frustrating is it for you to not hear your voice . Frustrating for a while but i have learned to be thankful that i could still communicate through the use of technology. This is the state of the art of that technology. The tobi i 15. The camera found my eyes . Yes. Exactly. What happens is the camera looks at how the light is reflecting out of your eye. Because the computer is sending out infrared rays all of the dark spots in your eyes absorb those rays and the light computer . Is that right . Exactly. Now calibrated to my gaze, they work the keyboard like fingers. They are almost 2000 preprogrammed words or phrases that i can choose from or i can type my own. Its not easy. Hello. My name is shini. You probably dont want a male voice . Hello. My name is shini. Hello my name is shini . Hello. My name is shini. Computer generated voices have been around awhile. Its widely recognized this person. Rut ger come up here. Come on boy. Go get it. A little kiss at the same time . Tony has been silenced by her als but walker still responds to the voice that has summoned him. Good dog. You ha you are such a good boy. Generated from a tobi custom recordings. Hi. My name is holly. Its nice to meet you. That. Diagnosed with als two and a half years ago, holly started recording her voice about six months before she lost the ability to speak. Banking. That was the machine talking. I take no responsibility. The conversation not banked, she must fall back to the computers voice. How important is it to you to be able to use your voice that you have banked . I think that the great impact is on the listener so i would ask joan. It allows for an engagement that using the computer voice, no matter what the words are doesnt allow for. Its been pretty profound. Please, just let me finish. All right. Go ahead. You always get the last word. Hearing her jokes, hearing her comments, hearing her chow oneliners. Forget about it the mouthing of eyetracking computes and personal voice recordings was the brain child of speech pathology john costell hospital . We started with a handheld recorder that would record in. Wav file. I saved them on my computer. I go and tag them so that each of them is named for the phrase. The recordings are uploaded to the computer and assigned to the phrases or category shortcuts like medical, food, or social. They are there for the eve eventuality of someone needing toe have their voice because speak. Sure. Sure. Massachusetts artist Nancy Campbell was diagnosed with als four months ago. Nancy already knows the cruel progression of the disease having cared for her mother who died of als 31 years ago. I used to write out on index cards sayings like would you like a glass of water or i would write smile on it or laugh. I realized at that time how important communication was. Carefully reluctant, her first recording session with her tune. I want a hug. You could say i want a damn hug now. Hopefully, i will be able to capture my laugh, my expressions, my things that i want to say to my family. It is only the beginning. Get ready for something great. The silent voice of ojbrigans often speaks volumes. For oj and his wife regret not voice banking. I miss hearing his natural voice. My husband had a sexy voice before this. Someone has to go. This o, oj brigans is out of here as well. I didnt realize the importance and value of hearing your own words in your own voice. Voice banking is one of the first things i recommend to those newly diagnosed. Think about recording those legacy messages, deeply personal terms of endearment . I love you, too, joany. When you hear that, how does it make you feel . Well, it checks on me up. Emotional. Happy. Sad. Bittersweet. I dont want to lose it. And the good news, i guess, about the message banking is i dont have to lose it. I thank you for everything. You are very welcome. Something that really struck me with this piece is i never really thought how important it is to sound like yourself or laugh like yourself. So, me neither until i actually got involved with the technology. It is so crucial to be able to communicate. And i only realize that when i met people like oj and holly because its that self expression. What was really moving to me when i met holly was that she was talking to me using the sin th thesized voice but when she hits on phrases that she had p prerecorded where she was inviting her dog to come fetch a biscuit, you know, her dog responded to her voice. It was just so emotional to actually experience, you know, voice. Thats when i realized just how crucial this technology is. Now, absolutely loved the photos that you took on this trip. Can you share them . Yeah. I mean i was just so moved by meeting oj and i just had to post this picture because i felt privileged to meet someone who is so amazing. If you guys wants to see more posts like that from the field, be sure to check us out on instagram. Next . Imagine you are in a collapsed building, buried beneath a pile of rubble with no way to communicate to anyone on the outside world that you are still alive. I looked at a technology that could enable rescue user to find life. We will check that out after the break. We want to hear what you think about these stories. Join the conversation by following us on twitter and at aljazeera. Com. Al Jazeera America presents borderlands dramatic conclusion no ones prepared for this journey. Our teams experience the heart breaking desperation were all following stories of people that have died in the desert. And the importance. Experiencing it, has changed me completely. Of the lives that were lost in the desert this is the most dangerous part of your trip. An emotional finale you cant miss. We got be here to tell the story. The final journey borderland continues. Only on al Jazeera America welcome back to techknow. Technology. To give you an idea of th awesomeness, it started with scientists looking for the big bain and they learned how to find humor survivors in the wake of natural disasters on earth. Lets take a look. Whether natural whether natural or manmade, disasters are a gruesome fact of life. Its those Responders First on the scene to make a lifesave difference. When we finally, hit the ground, we are trying to gather intelligence to figure out how bad bad is. We try to find people that are in too maentombed in concrete. A lot that we find are seriously injured. Its a time fact or. As part of Homeland Security we have fema which overseas the urban search and rescue. They wanted the ability to go to any particular location and disaster, look at any given rubble pile or collapse to determine whether there is somebody alive in there. Searching for life in an earthquake is similar to searching for life in our solar system. At least that was the belief held by a group of scientists at nasas jet prop pulse laboratory whose expertise lies in comple outer. The technology of deep Space Network uses to communicate with and to know where the spacecraft as we call it navigation, we measure very precisely how far away the spacecraft is by measuring is how long it takes to get to the spacecraft and come back to us. Those same microwave signals were redesigned at jpl for an even more urgent endeavor here on earth. Do search for, for a trapped survivor by detecting their beating heart. The return signals were looking for small changes due to the motion of the victim, the breathing and the heart beat causes one centimeter to one millimeter movements. We look for the reflexes of that. So we are looking for the changes of that due to the heart beats. Finder or finding individuals for disaster and Emergency Response is the Remarkable New Technology resulting from the collaboration between jpl, female, and Homeland Security. It is capable of recognizing a victims heart bate and res pration through 30 feet of concrete and debris. Basically measuring how far it is from the finder unit to the victims heart and then back. Finder works on an unconscious victim. As long as your heart is beating and your breathing, we can detect you. Within a year, two prototypes were up and running and ready for field testing. Tell me what it is . This is finder. Its a victim detention radar that uses microwave to detect the heart beats of vict imdz. We have radarmonthold modules, it sends toward the rubble pile and four receivers. We have a simple enter phase. Push a button to do the search and it sends the command to search and collects heart beats beats for 30 seconds and displays results. Virginia task force 1 is an elite search and rescue team that travels domestcancally and internationally to disaster sites. They put finder to the test at their norton, village test site. All right. I think i got it from here. So just fyi, i am a little bit currentlier phobic but i am putting my life in the hands of finder. I am going to climb into the rubble pile and hopefully, they will be able to detect my heart beat in there. Minutes. But i certainly wouldnt want to be here for any length of time. And i truly, truly cannot imagine the stress and anxiety one would experience being trapped in rubble like this. The First Responders go in teams of two usually, one holds the laptop and carries it, sets it down on the ground about ten or twenty feet in front of the rubble. Okay. Its working. Yeah. A real good heart rate, and ris pration rate. I am pretty enthusiastic about this one. The goal of finder that i am hoping is that it will speed the process up. If you could talk a little bit about your interaction with the developers of the technology. They have the ability to do the engineering and the construction background that i dont have, but i have the real Life Experiences being in the rubble piles, being with the victims. If i can add that to their thought process of building this from. Its a different thing to look at we dont know how search and rescue works. They gave us a lot of feedback. I think we are good. Come on out. I think it will revolutionize how search and rescue is done. I am amazed at this technology that it can detect such small concrete. Can they tell the difference between a human heart beat and animal heart beat or will we be chasing rats . Thats one of the things that amazed me is that they can actually distinguish can between a human heart beat and the heart beat of, say, a rat or a mouse. And potentially even detect if pregnant. I dont know if you guys got a sense in the piece for just how terrified i was in that rubble pile. It is called a live rubble pile meaning that it could collapse at any minute. So we have a safety briefing before going in. If you guys want to see more behind the scenes photos as they are happening from the field, be sure to follow us on it. Upblr. I am happy you got rescued . Thank you. Roshl, what do you have break . I dont know about you three but i love oysters. But it seems like they might be in a bit of trouble. There is a bit of mystery around why. But scientists are on the case and we are going to look at it when we come back. Al Jazeera America presents the bulling got two much to take for me thats when when you feel like its gonna be the end. 15 stories, 1 incredible journey edge of eighteen premiers september 7th only on al Jazeera America on techknow. So, this is the smart home. Saving the environment the start point for energy efficiency, is to work with the sun. Saving you money we harvest a lot of free energy and so were completely off grid here how many of the appliances were almost a little too smart for us . Techknow every saturday, go where science, meets humanity. This is some of the best driving ive ever done, even though i cant see. Techknow were here in the vortex. Only on al Jazeera America guys, welcome back to techknow. I am phil torres. Rochelle, what can you tell me about oysters . They are in trouble but they are sort of the canary in the coal mine. I went up to the coast to figure out how science is working to figure out whats going on. Why dont we take a swim . Its not every day you can tag along with the california oyster farmer. That Little Island out there . Its so small. I know. When you do, its truly exhilarating. This floating in the water we called sand waves, one of the ways we grow our baby oysters. The 15 mile long bay is peppered with some of the largest oyster farms including the world famous Hog Island Oyster company. These are those racks that they are pulling now. Each one of those will have 800 oysters in it. Demanding . There . Oifters. The payoff is delicious t terri sawyer has been farming shellfish on this bay for over 25 years. His Company Provides up to 3 million oysters a year to area. Weve got water coming in bringing in all of the oxygen, the food, everything these guys need to grow. As you can imagine, people love their oysters. So the industry has been doing very well since the 1970s. Unfortunately, in 2006, some problems began to emerge. What we are seeing is all of the larvae or the journal oysters, the entire populations are crashing. They are dying. Its alarming to say the least. Farmers and marine scientists were able to eliminate the possibility of disease or low oxygen. Cause. When you have the entire loss like that, that entire crash, thats the ocean asscidification that we are talking about. Its happening 10 times faster than any example we can see in the geologic record. Ten times faster . Alarming, i agree. Desperate to save his lifelong Family Business he started working with tessa hill and a team of researchers from bay. The ocean is a tremendous sponge for Carbon Dioxide. About 30 of what we put into the atmosphere just gets soaked right into the ocean. And that Carbon Dioxide that enters the ocean from our human activities changes the chemistry of the sea water. Thats what we call ocean acidification. Its soluble in sea water as it moves from the air to the ocean, it binds with water molecules forming whats called carbonic acid. This is changing the very ocean. How is it particularly affecting the oysters . Anything with a shell, an oyster, a muscle, all of those things use compliments of sea water to build their shell and those Building Blocks are calcium and carbonate. The more acidic the ocean is, the less material there is in that sea water for those animals shells. Amazingly, it can take up to three years for an oyster to use Calcium Carbonate to grow large enough for market size. These are smalls. Grill. The problem poses a serious threat for oyster farmers like sawyer who can not meet demand as shells develop. He is going to die down into the intake system. Using innovative sensor equipment and scientific tests, hills team has spent a year closely monitoring the actual fluctuations in the chemical bay. We are going to take that bottle and analyze some things back in the lab. Our instruments are actually attached to that sea water intake so that we are measuring the chemistry of the water as t here so we are getting temperatures, salinity, ph and oxygen every 30 minutes for the last month that its been out and we have been doing this for a year straight now. Attached to the bouy is a large data storage device retrieved once a month. It houses Important Information levels. We can look at things like how much does the environment here change over the course of a day or a week or a month, a season. If a storm blows in. The r. N. Why thats important is that its hard to predict and understand what the impact of acidification will be if we dont understand all of the little fluctuations. The Research Team hopes to system. The longterm agagoal is to provide a baseline data set so that we have some way of tracking future ocean acidification. So, do you think these researchers are hopeful that its going to move in a better way pretty soon . It depends upon which researcher you talk to. Some are a little bit concerned because, realize, the ocean has been absorbing this pollution for 100 years. And the worst of it is yet to come in some eyes. But other researchers think that we have a pretty good shot if we start changing our ways. Thank you guys for bringing us another set of incredible stories about invasion here on techknow. Check out more next time. Dive deep into these stories and go behind the scenes at aljazeera. Com techknow. Follow our experts on twitter, facebook, google and more. This is al Jazeera America, im Thomas Drayton in new york. Word tonight white house representatives will be attending the funeral of michael brown. [ chanting ] they want justice for eric garner who died after police put him in a choke hold. Thousands protest police brutality. [ explosion ] israel