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Human brain is two separate organs, Stanford Medicine-led research finds

“A new study led by Stanford Medicine found the brain is two separate organs adjacent to one another. The finding could aid research into devastating neurological diseases.”

Published in Nature Neuroscience, the study challenges the conventional model in which the entire brain is derived from a single common neural ectoderm progenitor population.

Using lineage-tracing experiments in mouse embryos, researchers found evidence for two parallel neural ectoderm progenitor populations that emerge during gastrulation:

• Anterior neural ectoderm, associated with development of the forebrain and midbrain • Posterior neural ectoderm, associated with development of the hindbrain.

The researchers then modeled these developmental populations using human pluripotent stem cells. The anterior-and posterior-like neural ectoderm populations showed different developmental potentials and distinct chromatin accessibility patterns, suggesting that their future regional identities are established surprisingly early.

Importantly, by reproducing the posterior developmental pathway, the researchers were able to generate electrophysiologically active human hindbrain rhombomere 5/6 motor neurons — a neuronal population that has been difficult to produce in vitro.

That could have practical importance for neuroscience. These cells may provide improved laboratory models for disorders involving hindbrain motor neurons, including spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and potentially improve our ability to investigate human brainstem biology.

Lawsuit says Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made illegal agreement on AI slowdown

Anti Trust these Anti AI dopes.


A new lawsuit claims Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made an illegal deal to slow the pace of their respective AI development.

The lawsuit, which was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that the leading AI companies violated antitrust laws when they agreed to coordinate slowdown efforts, and that doing so would reduce the value consumers get for paid AI subscriptions.

The coordination largely took place on Sept. 12, the lawsuit argues, when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging for industrywide cooperation on decelerating advancements in favor of enhanced safety measures. That same day, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, SpaceXAI’s Elon Musk and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis each publicly responded to Amodei’s proposals in agreement.

Drowned at the end of the Ice Age: The flooded abyss longer than the Grand Canyon and teeming with hundreds of creatures, from mammals to reptiles

Sistema Ox Bel Ha near Tulum, Mexico, is currently the world’s longest explored underwater cave system. It is network of tight passages.

The Changing College Degree: Why Students Need Fluency in AI, Emerging Technologies, and Cybersecurity

By Chuck Brooks Higher education is being reshaped by rapid technological convergence—AI, quantum computing, robotics, cybersecurity, biotechnology, and advanced communications—which is dissolving traditional boundaries between academic disciplines and professions. As the document notes, “the traditional boundaries between technology and virtually every other profession are disappearing.” Students no longer need to become engineers, but they must understand how technology works, how to use AI effectively, how to protect digital environments, and how to communicate complex ideas. My article argues that future career readiness depends on a blend of AI fluency, cybersecurity awareness, technological literacy, critical thinking, ethics, and human communication skills.

600 Years Before Code Existed, the Inca Built the World’s First Computer Using Nothing but ‘Knots’

Knots, cords, and color, that’s all it took. A new study suggests the Inca built something eerily close to a computer, centuries before the first one existed. Here’s what researchers found when they actually tried to run it.

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