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Scientists Grow 'Mini-Brain On the Move' That Can Contract Muscle (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Scientists have grown a miniature brain in a dish with a spinal cord and muscles attached, an advance that promises to accelerate the study of conditions such as motor neurone disease. The lentil-sized grey blob of human brain cells were seen to spontaneously send out tendril-like connections to link up with the spinal cord and muscle tissue, which was taken from a mouse. The muscles were then seen to visibly contract under the control of the so-called brain organoid. The research is is the latest in a series of increasingly sophisticated approximations of the human brain grown in the laboratory -- this time with something approaching a central nervous system attached.
The scientists used a new method to grow the miniature brain from human stem cells, which allowed the organoid to reach a more sophisticated stage of development than previous experiments. The latest blob shows similarities, in terms of the variety of neurons and their organisation, to the human foetal brain at 12-16 weeks of pregnancy. However, the scientists said the structure was still too small and primitive to have anything approaching thoughts, feelings or consciousness. While a fully developed human brain has 80-90 billion neurons, the organoid has a couple of million, placing it somewhere between a cockroach and a zebrafish in terms of volume of grey matter. After growing the organoid, the scientists "used a tiny vibrating blade to cut it into half millimeter-thick slices which were placed on a membrane, floating on a nutrient-rich liquid," reports The Guardian. "This meant the entire slice had access to energy and oxygen and it continued developing and forming new connections when it was kept in culture for a year. Alongside the organoid, the scientists added in a 1mm-long spinal cord, taken from a mouse embryo, and the surrounding back muscle. The brain cells automatically began to send out neuronal connections, linked up with the spinal cord and began sending electrical impulses, which caused the muscles to twitch."
The study has been published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
The scientists used a new method to grow the miniature brain from human stem cells, which allowed the organoid to reach a more sophisticated stage of development than previous experiments. The latest blob shows similarities, in terms of the variety of neurons and their organisation, to the human foetal brain at 12-16 weeks of pregnancy. However, the scientists said the structure was still too small and primitive to have anything approaching thoughts, feelings or consciousness. While a fully developed human brain has 80-90 billion neurons, the organoid has a couple of million, placing it somewhere between a cockroach and a zebrafish in terms of volume of grey matter. After growing the organoid, the scientists "used a tiny vibrating blade to cut it into half millimeter-thick slices which were placed on a membrane, floating on a nutrient-rich liquid," reports The Guardian. "This meant the entire slice had access to energy and oxygen and it continued developing and forming new connections when it was kept in culture for a year. Alongside the organoid, the scientists added in a 1mm-long spinal cord, taken from a mouse embryo, and the surrounding back muscle. The brain cells automatically began to send out neuronal connections, linked up with the spinal cord and began sending electrical impulses, which caused the muscles to twitch."
The study has been published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
A mini brain that can get real contracts with peeps not being KGB related would be a huge relief. I know you know what I know.
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You are welcome on my lawn.
This filled me more with terror than awe. Guess it's time to start yelling at clouds.
Of Trump's brain...
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
After he wrote that "Fortnite taught me to floss on the corpses of my enemies" I watched the whole thing waiting, but he did not floss on one corpse. Ripoff.
https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/03...
Babs is suing Nunes for some sort of theft of effect.
I just hope they don't accidently create a face hugger ala Aliens, or some other malicous organism.
PICKLE RICK!
They're making some huge assumptions that it can't think and therefore justify to themselves and us that it's okay for them to slice and dice and torture this being they have created... They should at least have the guts to say "yeah we're being horrific but we're learning a lot".
Sick cowards :-(
.... multi-core organisms? Why don't we just drink coffee and overclock the ones we have?
..a truck carrying a large consignment of vats was seen entering the premises of the Medical Research Councilâ(TM)s Laboratory of Molecular Biology.
While a fully developed human brain has 80-90 billion neurons, the organoid has a couple of million, placing it somewhere between a cockroach and a zebrafish in terms of volume of grey matter.
About on par with that knob end Caffinated Bacon then.
How about some local metrics we can point to, like somewhere between a Kendall and a Luckyo...
These brains spontaneously grew retinas. Sensory input please! https://bigthink.com/surprisin...
Because that's how you get Skaven....
I for one, welcome our new human-mouse hybrid overlords?
47% is "crushed" lol? She won by 3 million votes, he lied about that and said they were all illegal aliens lol. Then he lied about his inaugural crowd, now under investigation for shady self-dealing with taxpayer funds. Lol.
Moron status achieved, he involved his entire family in that scam. Also, the US trade deficit with China, like the US BUDGET Deficit lol, is reaching RECORD LEVELS! China's like, oh noes, moron sure seems smaaaart, lol?
Those tariffs are being paid by AMERICAN IMPORTERS, you dumbass. Lol. Do Republicans know ANYTHING ABOUT ANYTHING ANYMORE?
Don't answer, you'll just lie, you silly traitor bitches. See your hero hang, his children go to prison, and his legacy be treason. Even then I doubt you'll "get" it, lol.
The ignorance is just too darn willful.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-tower-explainer/why-an-unbuilt-moscow-trump-tower-caught-muellers-attention-idUSKCN1QZ159
Hey Slashdot,
Do us all a favor, instill a way to curb these chuckleheads who have nothing on their mind but posting pathetic political figure jokes, over the likes of Trump or anyone else for that matter, to an unrelated story such as this. It's a real turn off to even want to get involved in any discussion here. Talk about mini brains.
Seriously you guys need to get a life. Only you care about Trump.
Never have I seen such a mental obsession over someone go so far.
Now that is a powerful combination ! I wish more humans were like that, "loaded with both".
Still I would not like to have to chase after that thing when the brain will figure out that the experiment will be finished and command the muscle to jump out of the dish.
Crushing someone in an election would imply that you win by a big margin. However, he won merely on technical terms, as he did not even got the popular vote. The economic effects usually reflect overall global economy parameters and policies done in the past decade. His own trade war things might have a negative impact, but might also have some positive effects. Still he is disrupting international supply chains. Due to his tax cut for the rich, he will bankrupt the state in the future and further increase the deficit.
A case of technological prowess in the hands of the ill informed. Specifically:
"... the scientists said the structure was still too small and primitive to have anything approaching thoughts, feelings or consciousness."
But they do not know that for a fact. This isn't about foetal rights, this is about accuracy and honesty in research. The scientists are being duplicitous in order to be able to continue their research. And that is the unnerving part about all of this. Why not be honest and say "we do not know ..."
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Obviously they watch Rick and Morty too. I doubt they where able to turn themselves in to pickles though.
This is the (ethically disturbing) future of AI. Reverse Engineering the functioning of the human brain, from the earliest developing stages - so that we can actually have a proper understanding of how it works. We can't advance AI until we do this first, and then try to replicate what we learn in artificial neural networks.
If you want an accurate gauge on when the current stages of rudimentary AI will become 'Strong AI', look to the field of biology and neuroscience - as it is the advances in our understanding of the human brain there, which will determine what we can replicate artificially.
... to Saturn 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
So far, I don't see comments about using this as part of artificial intelligence system. The connection to muscles would be the output path. The researchers should work on connecting a "retina" so that we'd have (admittedly small) computer
So that's how Mother Brain gets born. Someone call Samus Aran, NOW!
#DeleteFacebook
reminds me a lot of bad '50's sci-fi flicks. 'The Brain That Wouldn't Die' comes to mind.Hum, that one was '62, eh, close enough.
They grew a human baby missing organs and they call it a success. This is disgusting.
That term just hits my funny bone for some odd reason. That'd be an awesome name for a monster from a sci-fi horror movie, sounds a little better than just, "The Thing" I suppose.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
We can use this tech to create supersoldiers with embedded mini brains in their arms (faster reaction times for operating weapons,ships) as well as a backup brain in the gut to keep fighting if headshot.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Once a mere cluster of human brain cells from mild-mannered Richard A. Torrence cultured in a lab, when mated to the spinal cord and peripheral nervous system of a mouse and grown into a complete organism, he can now successfully navigate incredibly complex, labyrinthine mazes to find a bit of cheese or peanut butter! Able to run on a hamster wheel for several seconds on end before becoming bored and losing interest, able to leap from one artificial plastic rock to another nearby while caged, in a single bound, Richard A. Torrence has become... Mouse Man!
However, he is too lazy to bother finding the cheese until he is nearly starving to death, and he spends most of his time watching the TV mounted to the ceiling of the office adjacent to the lab.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.