Optogenetics - activating specific neurons using light-sensitive proteins -... wins the Nobel! Here's a great demonstration: Shining a light on this mouse activates the very specific subset of neurons that makes it shake (like a wet dog) to dry off.show more

The interweaving and movement of lines as a metaphor... for the neurons that form connections and shape our thoughts and memories. #light #design #artdirection #sidefx #houdinishow more

Fireflies produce light in their abdomen. The enzyme luciferase... acts on luciferin in the presence of magnesium ions, ATP, and oxygen to create light. Fireflies use it to communicate with one another. Males frequently flash a specific pattern to attract females.show more

I've been editing this article about "brain mapping" and... connectomics, and I'm just stunned by how quickly the cost estimates to map, say, a mouse brain have plummeted in just the last couple years. It actually seems feasible that we could map the entire human brain -- all 86 billion neurons, and their connections -- in this lifetime. In the 1970s, Sydney Brenner started mapping all the connections between neurons in C. elegans. His team sliced the worm into thin pieces, took photos using an electron microscope, and manually traced and reconstructed each synapse for 302 neurons total. This project took more than a decade of work, and it cost about $16,500 to reconstruct each neuron. Scaling this up to a human brain boggles the mind. Electron microscopy remained the norm in connectomics for decades, because it was the only option available to see synapses at a resolution high enough to be able to trace their paths. Each electron microscope costs several hundreds of thousands of dollars, though, and you need lots of them to map even a mouse brain in a reasonable timeframe. In 2023, the Wellcome Trust released a report estimating how long, and how expensive, it would be to map the mouse connectome (~70M neurons). They estimated that imaging alone would cost $200-300M, and that proofreading (or ensuring that traces between neurons are correct) would cost $7-21 BILLION. (A human can only manually trace about 1 mm of neuron per hour.) Also, the images would occupy about 500 petabytes of data, and getting those data would require 20 electron microscopes running in parallel for about 5 years, continuously. They estimated the whole project would take about 17 years of work. This is, understandably, insane. But now it seems like there's an actual path toward mapping the full mouse brain in about five years for ~$100M dollars. There have been three major breakthroughs in the last year or so: 1/ Expansion microscopy, first developed in 2015, showed that it's possible to "enlarge" the brain by about 5x using a swellable polymer. But an improved method increases this number to >20x expansion, meaning we can now expand brains and image neurons much more easily using cheap light microscopes, rather than expensive electron ones. 2/ E11 Bio (a nonprofit research org) developed protein barcodes that get delivered into brain tissue; each neuron gets a unique combination of barcodes. These cells are then stained with colorful antibodies, which stick to a matching protein barcode, causing each neuron to light up in a distinct color. This makes tracing neurons so much easier. 3/ Google Research released PATHFINDER this May, an AI-based neuron tracing tool that can proofread about 67,200 cubic microns of brain tissue per hour, with very high accuracy. It works on electron micrographs, but something similar could be presumably be developed for the E11 / colorful tag approach. This is an extremely exciting time for neuroscience. (C. elegans connectome below.)show more

A dead fruit fly was sliced into 66 pieces.... Now its 166,700 neurons are driving robots. Nobody trained it, no dataset, no reward function, no GPU farm, just the wiring. The fly took a second to die, but copying it took 7 microscopes running nonstop for a year, shaving it 1/10,000 of a hair at a time and photographing every layer before the next cut. AI rebuilt it from the scraps, eyes to legs with the neck still attached, 124M synapses and 11,710 cell types, 44 years of human labor finished by machines. Scientists first tried this in 2008 and guessed it would take 500 people 10 years. Then the internet got the file and someone gave it a body. Camera → fly eyes → 166,700 spiking neurons → descending neurons → motors. One of those neurons is DNp01, the giant fiber, the cell that fires when your hand comes down. Push an object at the camera and the looming detectors light up, so the robot swerves. It took 0 training runs, just the same reflex that gets a fly out from under a swatter in 100 milliseconds. Then came the control test, where they kept all 138,639 neurons and shuffled where the synapses connect. The behavior died. The intelligence was never in the neurons, it was in the map. The fly is gone, but the flinch is still running.show more

Jimin was the one suggesting and adding that specific... part to the 2.0 choreography !!! 🐥: Maybe we should add this part—like, light a fire right here. Just exactly to the beat of "dda-da, dda-da." 🐥: Because without this, it just ends up looking like that. 🐥: I think adding this will make it look much bettershow more

Brain cell communication seen in action. Scientists have captured... the millisecond fast process of brain cell communication using advanced imaging. Teams in Berlin and the US used rapid freezing techniques on mouse and human neurons to observe neurotransmitter release and vesicle recycling, revealing key steps and proteins involved. This could help understand brain diseases.show more

A neat little demonstration of a simple solution to... a common problem in the workshop. Attaching a cordless work light will help you find what you’re looking for but also makes it more easily positioned to get the job done.show more

A flash of light was captured on the dark... side of the moon… The astronomers say it’s from a small meteoroid striking the lunar surface… I’m not sure why that would make a flash of light like this… What do YOU think?show more

Cool thing about plate armor: You can polish it's... surface till it becomes a mirror capable of reflecting light, color and even shapes. Here's a 1924 demonstration of how you can even read your watch on the armor's reflection.show more

THIS ROBOT HAS A DEAD FLY'S BRAIN AND IT... WALKS LIKE A FLY scientists sliced the fly into thousands of layers thinner than a virus to copy every wire in its body the fly didn't survive the map did: 166,700 neurons, from the brain all the way down to the legs so somebody built it a new body six metal legs, 18 motors, two camera eyes and a battery strapped to its back no walking code, they just wired the leg neurons into the motors and switched it on > it turned its head and looked straight at the camera > then it walked, three legs down, three legs up, the exact way a real fly does > when someone reached for it, it froze > when the hand got closer, it ran nobody taught it any of that the fly has been dead for years, and its brain still knows how to escape next on the list is a mouseshow more

Heavy attacks in Lords of the Fallen II aren’t... just bigger swings... Whether breaking posture, dominating mobs, or creating the opening that wins a fight, these strikes all serve very specific purposes.show more

SPORTSBALL: The brightest minds of the WNBA gathered to... determine exactly what makes someone a woman, but they were unable to agree on a definition. Meanwhile, they are hinting that they might prohibit specific transgender women from playing like Royce White.show more

The MC customization screen is being fully redone with... a lot of new features. Here's the first preview of it! You'll be able to choose any color you want for each layer (even using specific hex codes), give it a name, and save it for future use.show more

Great to see Jacob Cronenworth on the field this... morning, doing some light work with a trainer. #Padresshow more

THE ANIMAL GETS IT DONE 😬 ALOYS THE GREAT... makes light work of Lewis Oakford in a third round stoppage 💣 #Magnificent7 #PaulsBentley | Live NOW on TNT Sports 2 and discovery+show more