The BrainGate implant can decode a patient's brain signals and instruct a robotic arm to reach and grasp objects

A woman who lost the use of her limbs after a devastating stroke nearly 15 years ago has taken a sip of coffee by guiding a robotic arm with her thoughts.

The 58-year-old used a brain implant to control the robot and bring a flask of the coffee to her lips, the first time she had picked up anything since she was paralysed and left unable to speak by a catastrophic brain stem stroke.

Doctors hailed the feat as the first demonstration of an implant that directly controls a reaching and gripping robotic arm by sensing and decoding the patient's brain signals.

The work is part of a US clinical trial of an experimental implant called BrainGate that doctors see as a first step towards devices that can bypass damage to the nervous system and allow paralysed people to regain control of their limbs or amputees to move prosthetics.

"At the very beginning I had to concentrate and focus on the muscles I would use to perform certain functions," the woman said. "BrainGate felt natural and comfortable, so I quickly got accustomed to the trial."

Writing in the journal Nature, researchers described trials in which the woman, known only as S3, and a 66-year-old man referred to as T2, used the implant to control two different designs of robotic arm. The pill-sized device is surgically implanted a few millimetres into the motor cortex on the surface of the brain, where its 96 hair-thin electrodes pick up the patient's neural activity.

In a series of sessions, the patients learned to control the robot arm and pick up foam balls by imagining moving their own arm and hand. Neither patient could control the robotic arm as well as natural arm movements, but doctors were still delighted with their progress.

"These results are the first peer-reviewed demonstration of a three-dimensional reaching and grasping task using direct brain control of a robotic device," said Leigh Hochberg, a neuroengineer at Brown University in Rhode Island.

"One of the participants was also able to use the investigational BrainGate system to pick up a bottle of coffee and drink from it. This was the first time in nearly 15 years that she had been able to pick up anything solely of her own volition. The smile on her face when she did this is something that I and our whole research team will never forget," he added.

The man who took part in the trial had a brain stem stroke in 2006. Describing the experience afterwards – by spelling out letters with his gaze – he said: "I just imagined moving my own arm and [the robotic] arm moved where I wanted it to go."

The BrainGate device plugs directly into the brain, but protrudes through the skull where it is connected to a computer by a cable. More advanced devices are planned that can operate wirelessly and be implanted out of sight, beneath the skin.

One concern with brain implants is that they steadily lose their ability to sense neural signals as scar tissue forms around the ultrafine electrodes. An encouraging sign from the latest trial is that doctors could still record useful signals from the woman's brain five years after her implant was fitted.

John Donoghue, a co-author on the paper, and director of the Brain Institute at Brown University, said there was still much work to do. "We'll have truly met our goal when someone who lost mobility to neurological injury or disease can truly interact with their environment without anyone knowing that they are employing a brain-computer interface," he said.

In an accompanying article, Andrew Jackson at the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University, said the study underlined how basic research was a crucial driver for such technological advances. In previous years, patients have used BrainGate to control a cursor on a computer screen and clench the outstretched fingers of a prosthetic hand into a fist.

"At a time when experimentation using nonhuman primates is increasingly controversial, it is worth noting that the results reported … draw directly on previous neural interface demonstrations in monkeys and on decades of basic research into the control of arm movements," Jackson writes.

"Although robotic arms may be of practical assistance, restoring movements of the patients' own limbs should remain the ultimate goal," he adds.

The associate editor of Genomics says its publisher Elsevier effectively denies developing world access to research findings

Today I resigned from the editorial board of a well respected journal in my field – Genomics.  No longer can I work for a system that provides solid profits for the publisher while effectively denying colleagues in developing countries access to research findings.

It has not been an easy decision to make. Some may feel that I'm grandstanding or making a futile gesture. And it may be a toxic career move. Scientists are expected to contribute to the community by reviewing papers and serving on editorial boards. But I cannot stand by any longer while access to scientific resources is restricted.

My work on biomedical research in developing countries has shown me that lack of access to current publications has a severe impact.

The vast majority of biomedical scientists in Africa attempt to perform globally competitive research without up-to-date access to the wealth of biomedical literature taken for granted at western institutions. In Africa, your university may have subscriptions to a handful of scientific journals.

In reality, the modus operandi is "please can you send me a pdf". Alternatively some researchers spend part of their research grant to buy a subscription to the journal they need.

I know this well, as this was what I did for 10 years while at Africa's sixth-ranked university in my native South Africa – the University of Western Cape. Unlike colleagues in developed countries with access to well-stocked libraries and online subscriptions, I have requested pdf articles from Elsevier, and other for-profit publishers, many, many times.

The open access movement in science represents a wind of change – or at least the promise of one.

As associate editor at Genomics, I have managed, reviewed and edited many manuscripts. The majority now come from China. I do not know how accessible the Elsevier journal Genomics is in Chinese universities, but I do know that institutions worldwide pay significant and frequently insurmountable fees for bundled access to this, and the publisher's other journals. It seems unfair to edit and review articles from scientists who will likely never see their work in the actual journal in which it is published.

So I'd prefer to devote the limited time I have available to an open access journal that provides its work at no cost to researchers who urgently require its contents to improve their environment.

Winston Hide is associate professor of bioinformatics and computational biology in the Department of Biostatistics at Harvard School of Public Health, where he specialises in the bioinformatics of genomic approaches to public health

Science for the Future has won extensive media coverage with its stunt, but hyperbole has damaged its cause

When Vince Cable made his first major speech on science in September 2010, it was too much for Jenny Rohn, a cell biologist at University College London. Stung by the business secretary's implication that "mediocre" British science deserved significant cuts in the forthcoming comprehensive spending review, she blogged: "Sod it. Let's march on London … Who's in?"

She got a surprising answer. A month later, more than 2,000 people gathered outside the Treasury at the Science is Vital rally, chanting "Hey, Osborne, leave our geeks alone!" to the tune of Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall. A petition with 33,804 names was delivered to Downing Street, arguing that cutting science funding would amount to cutting off the economy's nose to spite its face.

And it worked. When George Osborne, the chancellor, announced in the spending review that science funding would be frozen, but not cut, he explained: "Britain is a world leader in scientific research, and that is vital to our future economic success."

Today, protesting scientists have been back in Westminster. Upset by the funding policies of the government's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), a new group called Science for the Future staged a mock funeral for British research. A petition was delivered to Downing Street in a coffin on a horse-drawn hearse, carrying a wreath spelling the word "Science". One of the group's leaders likened the EPSRC's decisions to Stalin's.

The message could not have been starker. The government's funding strategy "puts the future of British science in mortal danger".

In my new book, The Geek Manifesto, I argue that it's essential for scientists, and those of us who care about science, to find a stronger political voice. When governments let science down, they do it not because they are following an "anti-science" agenda, but because indifference to the needs and demands of the scientific community does not appear to carry a political cost.

It is encouraging that scientists who feel strongly about the way their discipline is managed are making themselves heard. As Science is Vital showed, rallies and petitions that convey the strength of scientific opinion can make a difference, especially when they are backed by a strong argument and effective behind-the-scenes lobbying, as happened before the spending review.

Mock funerals and comparisons to Stalin, however, are not the right way to go about this. In hiring a public relations company to dream up a visually impressive stunt, Science for the Future has succeeded in winning extensive media coverage for its campaign. But in taking a tool from the Greenpeace campaigning kit, this new lobby group has turned to hyperbole that will do nothing to change the minds that matter or further its cause.

The EPSRC's focus on asking scientists to predict the impact of their research, in line with wider government policy, does raise legitimate questions about the future of funding for basic science that may have unexpected spinoffs. But it is ridiculous to claim that this strategy could leave the whole of British science on life support.

By making an argument that is transparently absurd, and by engaging in strident personal criticism of the EPSRC's leaders, this campaign is inviting ministers and the agency's officials to reject their more measured concerns. Science is Vital was careful to be polite and not to over-claim. Science for the Future is setting itself up to be ignored.

Worse, these campaigners' message - that science administration is broken and that a research council cannot be trusted to spend its money wisely - could actually be harmful to the wider interests of British science.

James Wilsdon, professor of science and democracy at Sussex University, pointed out today on Twitter that the Whitehall lobbying that accompanied Science is Vital succeeded in winning the spending freeze in part because it persuaded the Treasury that resources invested in science are invested with great efficiency. Science for the Future is muddying the waters in ways that could be used against science when the next spending review gets under way next year.

I'm all for robust campaigning on the issues that affect the health of British science: it will be necessary if ministers are to be persuaded of the strong case that increased investment in both basic and applied research is among the best ways to drive economic growth. But that campaigning has to be grounded in the facts that those of us who care about science hold dear.

As Evan Harris, the former Lib Dem science spokesman, says in The Geek Manifesto: "We are held back by the circumspection and rationality with which we speak, handicaps that do not encumber our opponents." It's an axiom that every science campaign should bear in mind.