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MIT’s new brain tool could finally explain consciousness

Although the technology has been around for several years, it has not yet become a standard tool in neuroscience research. Now, two researchers at MIT are preparing new experiments using the technique and have published a paper that serves as a detailed guide, or “roadmap,” for applying it to the study of consciousness.

“Transcranial focused ultrasound will let you stimulate different parts of the brain in healthy subjects, in ways you just couldn’t before,” says Daniel Freeman, an MIT researcher and co-author of the paper. “This is a tool that’s not just useful for medicine or even basic science, but could also help address the hard problem of consciousness. It can probe where in the brain are the neural circuits that generate a sense of pain, a sense of vision, or even something as complex as human thought.”

Unlike other brain stimulation methods, transcranial focused ultrasound does not require surgery. It can reach deeper areas of the brain with greater precision than techniques such as transcranial magnetic or electrical stimulation.

World Modeling Workshop — Day 1

A fundamental desideratum of AI is the ability to model environment dynamics and transitions in response to both their own actions and external control signals. This capability, commonly referred to as world modeling (WM), is essential for prediction, planning, and generalization. Learning world models using deep learning has been an active area of research for nearly a decade. In recent years, the field has witnessed significant breakthroughs driven by advances in deep neural architectures and scalable learning paradigms. Multiple subfields, including self-supervised learning (SSL), generative modeling, reinforcement learning (RL), robotics, and large language models (LLMs), have tackled aspects of world modeling, often with different tools and methodologies. While these communities address overlapping challenges, they frequently operate in isolation. As a result, insights and progress in one area may go unnoticed in another, limiting opportunities for synthesis and collaboration. This workshop aims to bridge this gap between subfields of world modeling by fostering open dialogue, critical discussion, and cross-disciplinary exchange. By bringing together researchers from diverse backgrounds, from early-career researchers to established experts, we hope to establish a shared vocabulary, identify common challenges, and surface synergies that can move the field of world modeling forward.

Meditation Can Reshape Your Brain Activity, Study Reveals

Meditation may calm the mind, but a recent study suggests it can also reshape brain activity by profoundly altering brain dynamics and increasing neural connections – somewhat similar to psychedelic substances.

As a result, meditation may help practitioners achieve a hypothesized state known as “brain criticality”, in which neural connections are neither too weak nor too strong, but at an optimal level for mental agility and function.

In the study, led by neurophysiologist Annalisa Pascarella of the Italian National Research Council, researchers used high-resolution brain scans and machine learning to examine how meditation can alter brain activity to achieve an equilibrium between neural chaos and order.

Satellite servicing startup Starfish taps Quindar for mission operations software

WASHINGTON — Quindar, a startup that provides mission management software for satellite operators, has been selected by satellite servicing company Starfish Space to support the first three missions of its Otter spacecraft.

Under an agreement announced Feb. 5, Quindar will provide software to manage and automate operations for Starfish’s initial Otter missions, which are expected to begin launching this year. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Based in Denver, Quindar offers a cloud-hosted platform that allows satellite operators to track spacecraft, send commands and automate routine ground operations. The company positions its software as an alternative to traditional, custom-built mission control systems that operators typically develop in-house and maintain over the life of a program.

Mapping tool delivers quantitative visualisations of steric interactions

Another system the team Self on was a set of Ni–phosphine complexes, where steric interactions often limit the accessibility of the phosphine ligand’s lone pair. The researchers found that their results correlated well with the traditional method to study this – Tolman’s angles – but also showed that the interaction between the nickel centre and the ligand is smaller than Tolman analysis suggests.

These insights could prove useful for chemists. As Paton notes, ‘you could imagine comparing many different ligands in a library with this tool and using it to, for example, characterise or understand performance, maybe even ligand design… ultimately, that will allow us to think about how we might design better and more efficient systems and reactions.’

Hénon highlights that Self also works inside molecules, not just between them. ‘Previous methods were designed for two separate molecules approaching each other. But what about rotation barriers within a single molecule. That’s intramolecular steric repulsion, and Self handles it naturally. Other methods struggle badly with this. This opens new perspectives.’

Why comparisons between AI and human intelligence miss the point

AI systems, by contrast, do not cooperate, negotiate meaning, form social bonds or engage in shared moral reasoning. They process information in isolation, responding to prompts without awareness, intention or accountability.

Embodiment and social understanding matter

Human intelligence is also embodied. Our thinking is shaped by physical experience, emotion and social interaction. Developmental psychology shows that learning begins in infancy through touch, movement, imitation and shared attention with others. These embodied experiences ground abstract reasoning later in life.

Episode 2 — The Prospect of Immortality & Human Cryopreservation

Host: Kyle O’Brien — https://twitter.com/analog_kyle.

Guest: Emil Kendziorra — https://twitter.com/emilkendziorra.
Founder of @TomorrowBio.

Theme || the prospect of immortality & human cryopreservation.

Is Death just a Technical Problem we haven’t solved yet?

In this episode of State Change, Kyle O’Brien sits down with Emil Kendziorra, founder of Tomorrow Bio, to explore the science, ethics, and future of cryopreservation — the process that may one day allow humans (and even pets) to be revived centuries from now.

We talk about the brain, identity, consciousness, why people fear death, and what it means to rewrite the social contract when life extension becomes real.

Continue reading “Episode 2 — The Prospect of Immortality & Human Cryopreservation” | >
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