For over 50 years, the human tongue has fascinated scientists--mostly because it holds the key to mysteries like speech impediments. Naturally, by studying the way the tongue forms sounds, scientists would be able to get to the bottom of all sorts of speech afflictions, not to mention speech itself. Now, it looks like they've hit upon a possible solution--sensors in dentures.

Other means to watch the tongue often get in the way of fluid speech, which renders the whole exercise pointless. By working sensors into dentures, however, scientists can study the tongue's movements without discomfort to the speaker. Of course, there remains the matter of finding toothless people to try this on.

The results of these studies will eventually lead to developing more natural robot speech, which ought to be another piece of the robot that will take over the world. At the very least, there will be better braces that won't make you sound silly.



Source: Discover