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Clusters of lab-raised brain cells connected to a computer are capable of elementary speech recognition and math problems. Feng Guo, a bioengineer in the Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering at Indiana University, Bloomington, said his study is a major step in demonstrating how brain-inspired computer neural networks can advance artificial intelligence capabilities. Guo and his team grew bundles of specialized stem cells that developed into neurons, the main component of the brain. A typical brain consists of 86 billion neurons, each neuron connected to as many as 10,000 other neurons. The ball of neurons, known as an organoid, created in...

What if technology could eliminate the need for anyone to go through pregnancy and childbirth to have a baby? This article is an installment of Future Explored, a weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Thursday morning by subscribing here. It takes nine months for a fertilized egg to develop into a roughly 7-pound baby, and during that time, the person carrying the baby gets to feel the miracle of life growing inside them. They can also expect to experience a slew of unpleasant side effects, from nausea and vomiting...

* Modified human embryonic stem cells showed supernatural resistance against radiation, according to paper by Academy of Military Sciences team in Beijing * Shanghai-based scientist says study may open a can of worms, particularly when funding is involved A team of military medical scientists in China says it has inserted a gene from the microscopic water bear into human embryonic stem cells and significantly increased these cells’ resistance to radiation. They said success in this unprecedented experiment could lead to super-tough soldiers who could survive nuclear fallout. The project was first unveiled in the Chinese-language journal, Military Medical Sciences, and...

Why would anyone do this? In a piece titled, “Scientists Have Re-Created The Deadly 1918 Flu Virus. Why?” Forbes contributor Steven Salzberg examines what could possibly lead scientists to do this. Salzberg begins by noting the intense controversy surrounding gain-of-function research after the COVID-19 pandemic that looks more and more likely to have its origins at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, which conducts this very sort of research on bat coronaviruses. Despite the unmitigated hell we’ve been through for nearly three years now from the virus itself as we watched elderly or immunocompromised relatives succumb to it, to...

While you sit stunned and agape at the startling audacity of scientists suggesting the human genome should be bioengineered to prevent them from eating meat, do you really expect me to believe that these individuals would have ethical qualms about tinkering with viral genomes?

Fully implantable, wireless device enables ontogenetic research in untethered animals with dynamically programmable operation. Credit: Northwestern University First optogenetics-based study of unrestricted social interactions within groups of animals. Northwestern University researchers are building social bonds with beams of light. For the first time ever, Northwestern engineers and neurobiologists have wirelessly programmed — and then deprogrammed — mice to socially interact with one another in real time. The advancement is thanks to a first-of-its-kind ultraminiature, wireless, battery-free and fully implantable device that uses light to activate neurons. This study is the first optogenetics (a method for controlling neurons with light) paper...

If you could cross a monkey with a human, what might that creature tell us? We are beginning to find out. In a pioneering and controversial experiment, scientists successfully created just such a hybrid: a chimeric combination of monkey and human cells, existing together in a living embryo that otherwise would never have been conceived by nature alone. Ethically fraught science? Yes. Mad science? No. While research into human-animal hybrids has a long and questionable history, in recent years researchers have pursued chimeric organisms to probe questions of biology that stand to offer significant gains in fields such as regenerative...

Scientists have discovered a ground-breaking bio-synthetic material that they claim can be used to merge artificial intelligence with the human brain. The breakthrough, presented today at the American Chemical Society Fall 2020 virtual expo, is a major step towards integrating electronics with the body to create part human, part robotic "cyborg" beings. Connecting electronics to human tissue has been a major challenge due to traditional materials like gold, silicon and steel causing scarring when implanted. Scars not only cause damage but also interrupt electrical signals flowing between computers and muscle or brain tissue. The researchers from the University of Delaware...

Brain inserts and carbon-absorbing bacteria aren’t just the fantasies of Silicon Valley’s richest executives, they’re also a part of a larger hope to advance artificial intelligence and computing efforts. “Biology will undoubtedly fuel computing” in coming years, former Google CEO and current technical advisor Eric Schmidt said at a conference called SynBioBeta in San Francisco Monday. “Taking biology, which I’d always viewed as squishy and analog, and turning it into something that can be digitally manipulated, is an enormous accelerator.” Schmidt’s comments come as Silicon Valley’s seeming obsession with biology attempts to move beyond fascinating projects and into more serious...

During the great embryonic stem cell research debate, promoters of an unlimited license to experiment promised that using nascent human life as research subjects would be limited to the first 14 days. Until then, we were told, human embryos aren’t really human, just a “ball of cells”–pure junk biology. Well, if one wants to become truly reductionist, so are all of us. During that era, I and others warned that the “14-day rule,” as it is called, was a ruse, a sop to the great unwashed who believe all human life matters morally, including developing embryos. The strategy, we warned,...

A shocking new report indicates scientists have found a way for human embryos to live outside the womb for 14 days, which is a record, so they can be experimented on for a longer period of time. Leading pro-life advocates are outraged that scientists would specifically create unique human beings to purposefully experiment on and later destroy just for research. They are worried scientists will continue creating more unborn human people who will be subjected to research for a longer duration of their embryonic life. In a piece made public today, commentators Insoo Hyun, Amy Wilkerson, and Josephine Johnston encourage...

A new DARPA program aims to develop an implantable neural interface able to provide unprecedented signal resolution and data-transfer bandwidth between the human brain and the digital world. The interface would serve as a translator, converting between the electrochemical language used by neurons in the brain and the ones and zeros that constitute the language of information technology. The goal is to achieve this communications link in a biocompatible device no larger than one cubic centimeter in size, roughly the volume of two nickels stacked back to back. The program, Neural Engineering System Design (NESD), stands to dramatically enhance research...

It seems those warm feelings associated with the season actually activates a response in the brain. And for those who could care less about tinsel-strewn trees and red-nosed reindeers, there are specific regions of their brains that simply won't react to yuletide images. ... Why does this matter? Well, the researchers suggested that locating the Christmas spirit in the brain can help reverse the "bah humbug" syndrome – an unscientific diagnosis - that threatens Christmas for others. ... "Who knows? Maybe someday there will be a complex machine that can generate the Christmas spirit in people," joked Bryan Haddock, a...

An influential UK-based bioethics organization is putting pressure on the British government to legalize the genetic modification of embryos, the BBC reported.The Hinxton Group, an international consortium on stem cells, ethics and law, says that editing the genetic code of early stage embryos is of “tremendous value” to research, with promises of cures for now-incurable diseases.The group warned, though, that at this stage in the research, genetically modified babies should not be allowed to be born, though it may be “morally acceptable” under some circumstances in the future.If that sounds like too much of a “brave new world” to you, read on....

One team has demonstrated that DNA they encapsulated can preserve information for at least 2,000 years, and they're now working on a filing system to make it easier to navigate. ... "A little after the discovery of the double helix architecture of DNA, people figured out that the coding language of nature is very similar to the binary language we use in computers," says Grass, who is with ETH Zurich. "On a hard drive, we use 0s and 1s to represent data, and in DNA, we have four nucleotides A, C, T and G." But DNA has two major advantages...

Full Title: The robot that BREEDS: 'Mother' machine builds and tests 'children' models to make each generation better than the last The robots were built by engineers from the University of Cambridge, lead by Dr Fumiya Iida. Dr Iida and his team designed the 'mother' robot and programmed it simply to build a robot capable of movement. From this, and without any further human intervention or computer simulation, the robot built 'children' made of between one and five plastic cubes with a small motor inside. In each of five separate experiments, the mother designed, built and tested generations of ten...

Researchers have recreated the evolutionary lineage of adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) to reconstruct an ancient viral particle that is highly effective at delivering gene therapies targeting the liver, muscle, and retina. This approach, published July 30 in Cell Reports, could be used to design a new class of genetic drugs that are safer and more potent than those currently available. "Our novel methodology allows us to understand better the intricate structure of viruses and how different properties arose throughout evolution," says senior study author Luk H. Vandenberghe of Harvard Medical School. "We believe our findings will teach us how complex biological...

Researchers have discovered how to let bacteria control the movement and behavior of a robot, just like what the brain does to the human body. ... Scientists from Virginia tech developed bacteria that can control a robotic car. The robot’s “brain” was replaced with bacterial community, enabling the car to move towards the food sources. The bacteria in the robot’s brain send biochechemical signals to machine’s processor to move its mechanical body. The bacteria were bioengineered to emit green or red signals depending on the condition they found in their environment. Under repeated observations, the scientists noticed that the robot...

Scientists have discovered that a particular type of enzyme can cut away antigens in blood types A and B, to make them more like Type O -- considered the 'universal' blood type, because it's the only type that can be donated to anyone without the risk of provoking a life-threatening immune response. The team, from the University of British Columbia of Canada, worked with a family of enzymes called 98 glycoside hydrolase, extracted from a strain of Streptococcus pneumoniae. Over many generations, they were able to engineer a super high-powered enzyme strain that can very effectively snip away blood antigens...

Sleeping minds: prepare to be hacked. For the first time, conscious memories have been implanted into the minds of mice while they sleep. The same technique could one day be used to alter memories in people who have undergone traumatic events. When we sleep, our brain replays the day's activities. The pattern of brain activity exhibited by mice when they explore a new area during the day, for example, will reappear, speeded up, while the animal sleeps. This is thought to be the brain practising an activity - an essential part of learning. People who miss out on sleep do...