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A leading neuroscientist claims that a pong-playing clump of about a million neurons is “sentient”. What does that mean? Why did they teach a lab-grown brain to play pong? To study biological self-organization at the root of life, intelligence, and consciousness. And, according to their website, “to see what happens.”

CORRECTIONS/Clarifications:
- The cells aren’t directly frozen in liquid nitrogen — they are put in vials and stored in liquid nitrogen: https://www.atcc.org/products/pcs-201-010
- The sentience of some invertebrates, like octopuses, is generally agreed upon. Prominent scientists affirmed non-human consciousness in the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness: https://philiplow.foundation/consciousness/

DISCLAIMER: The explanations in this video are those proposed by the researchers, or my opinion. We are far from understanding how brains, or even neurons, work. The free energy principle is one of many potential explanations.

Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/IhmCurious.

Footage from Cortical Labs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neV3aZtTgVM
NASJAQ’s interview with founder Hon Weng Chong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1R5k5QWPsY
Cortical Labs website: https://corticallabs.com.

Full paper on DishBrain: https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(22)00806-6

Continue reading “Lab-Grown Brain Learns Pong — Is This Biological Neural Network “Sentient”?” | >

Growing brains can be a tricky process, but growing ones that can make muscles move? That’s an incredible feat. Here’s how scientists did it.

How Close Are We to Farming Human Body Parts? — https://youtu.be/oRHxX9OW9ow.

Cerebral organoids at the air-liquid interface generate nerve tracts with functional output.
https://www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/cerebral-organoids-at-the-air…al-output/
“The capacity for this model to be used to investigate the way in which neurons connect up within the brain and with the spinal cord could have important implications for our understanding of a range of diseases. In particular defects in neuronal connectivity are thought to underlie various psychiatric illnesses, including schizophrenia, autism, and depression. ”

Cerebral organoids at the air–liquid interface generate diverse nerve tracts with functional output.
https://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1038/s41593-019-0350-2
“Finally, through electrophysiological and co-culture studies, we demonstrate functionality of these tracts, which are even capable of eliciting coordinated muscle contractions in co-cultured mouse spinal cord–muscle explants. This approach is likely to be a useful new tool, not only because of its ease, but also due to its util-ity in studying axon guidance, tract formation, and connectivity in a human system”

What’s Wrong With Growing Blobs of Brain Tissue?
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/what-hap…ns/558881/
“The stuff we really care about in the brain, like consciousness, are emergent phenomena—they arise from the collective workings of individual neurons, which create a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts. The problem is that we don’t know at what level these phenomena emerge. A neuron is not conscious. A person is. What about all the steps in the middle? What about 2 million neurons? 20 million? 200 million?”

Elements is more than just a science show. It’s your science-loving best friend, tasked with keeping you updated and interested on all the compelling, innovative and groundbreaking science happening all around us. Join our passionate hosts as they help break down and present fascinating science, from quarks to quantum theory and beyond.

Continue reading “This Lab-Grown Brain Made a Muscle TWITCH, Here’s How” | >

Interesting results from the Japanese Hayabusa2 spacecraft — molecules needed for life were found in samples from the asteroid Ryugu.

The mission will now continue until at least 2031.

The RNA building block uracil has been found on asteroid 162,173, along with niacin, both important in the development of life.

Read more | >

Just a couple of years earlier, in 1963, New Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr found a solution to Einstein’s equation for a rotating black hole. This was a “game changer for black holes,” Giorgi noted in a public lecture given at the virtual 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians. Rotating black holes were much more realistic astrophysical objects than the non-spinning black holes that Karl Schwarzschild had solved the equations for.

“Physicists really had believed for decades that the black hole region was an artifact of symmetry that was appearing in the mathematical construction of this object but not in the real world,” Giorgi said in the talk. Kerr’s solution helped establish the existence of black holes.

In a nearly 1,000-page paper, Giorgi and colleagues used a type of “proof by contradiction” to show that Kerr black holes that rotate slowly (meaning they have a small angular momentum relative to their mass) are mathematically stable. The technique entails assuming the opposite of the statement to be proved, then discovering an inconsistency. That shows that the assumption is false. The work is currently undergoing peer review. “It’s a long paper, so it’s going to take some time,” Giorgi says.

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Researchers at Texas A&M University have developed the first molecular therapeutic for Angelman syndrome to advance into clinical development.

In a new article, published today in Science Translational Medicine, Dr. Scott Dindot, an associate professor and EDGES Fellow in the Texas A&M School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences’ (VMBS) Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, and his team share the process through which they developed this novel therapeutic candidate, also known as 4.4.PS.L, or GTX-102. Dindot is also the executive director of molecular genetics at Ultragenyx, which is leading the development of GTX-102.

Angelman syndrome (AS) is a devastating, rare neurogenetic disorder that affects approximately 1 in 15,000 per year; the disorder is triggered by a loss of function of the maternal UBE3A gene in the brain, causing , absent speech, movement or balance disorder, and seizures.

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(CNN) — Startup Relativity Space sent what it’s calling the “world’s first 3D-printed rocket” toward space on Wednesday, vaulting it into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Though, it suffered an engine issue after launch and failed to reach orbit.

Terran 1, a 110-foot-tall (33.5-meter) vehicle designed to haul lightweight satellites into orbital space, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Florida’s eastern coast at just before 11:30 pm ET. The rocket, powered by super-chilled methane and oxygen, burned a bright blue-green against the night sky.

After the first stage of the rocket — the bottommost portion of the rocket that gives the initial thrust at liftoff — expended its fuel, it detached from the rocket’s upper stage. But the engine meant to propel that portion appeared to ignite only briefly, leaving the rocket without enough power to reach orbit.

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