In a recent publication appearing in Advanced Science, researchers at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience challenge the assumptions surrounding the design and materials used for brain implants. Softer, flexible implants are gentler than older ones, but they are not completely harmless. By carefully studying these effects, researchers can begin to design safer implants, and bring long-term, reliable implants closer to reality.
In laboratories around the world, scientists are working on a bold goal: restoring blindness using brain implants. But behind the futuristic promise lies a quieter, more complicated story about materials, assumptions, and the limits of what we really understand about the brain.
One part of this story includes a deceptively simple question: How do you place a foreign object in the brain without evoking a reaction?
Cosmic strings may be ultra-thin defects in spacetime—relic “cracks” from the early universe. How we’d detect them, what they mean for physics, and how aliens might exploit them.
Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur. Watch my exclusive video Settling Saturn’s Rings: https://nebula.tv/videos/isaacarthur–… SFIA Merchandise: https://isaac-arthur-shop.fourthwall… 🌐 Visit our Website: http://www.isaacarthur.net ❤️ Support us on Patreon: / isaacarthur ⭐ Support us on Subscribestar: https://www.subscribestar.com/isaac-a… 👥 Facebook Group: / 1,583,992,725,237,264 📣 Reddit Community: / isaacarthur 🐦 Follow on Twitter / X: / isaac_a_arthur 💬 SFIA Discord Server: / discord Credits: Cosmic Strings – Cracks in the Fabric of the Universe Written, Produced & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images Chapters 0:00 Intro — Cracks in the Fabric of the Universe 6:11 From Defects to Cosmic Strings 13:31 Civilizations and Cosmic Strings: Tools, Traps, and Temptations 19:43 Nebula 20:39 Cousins, Confusions, and What a Discovery Would Mean.
🛒 SFIA Merchandise: https://isaac-arthur-shop.fourthwall… 🌐 Visit our Website: http://www.isaacarthur.net. ❤️ Support us on Patreon: / isaacarthur. ⭐ Support us on Subscribestar: https://www.subscribestar.com/isaac-a… 👥 Facebook Group: / 1583992725237264 📣 Reddit Community: / isaacarthur. 🐦 Follow on Twitter / X: / isaac_a_arthur. 💬 SFIA Discord Server: / discord. Credits: Cosmic Strings – Cracks in the Fabric of the Universe. Written, Produced & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur. Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images.
Chapters. 0:00 Intro — Cracks in the Fabric of the Universe. 6:11 From Defects to Cosmic Strings. 13:31 Civilizations and Cosmic Strings: Tools, Traps, and Temptations. 19:43 Nebula. 20:39 Cousins, Confusions, and What a Discovery Would Mean.
Is Earth’s core a solid or a liquid? Yes. The mysteries of our own planet’s interior have, in many ways, been harder to crack than those of the rest of the cosmos. We can send probes to the edge of the solar system, and the 42 billion light years to the cosmic horizon are largely transparent—a big enough telescope can see the most distant galaxy. But the 6400km to Earth’s center are both opaque to light and far beyond the reach of any conceivable drill. The best we can do for most of our planetary depths is to listen to the faint rumblings of distant earthquakes and then try to piece together how those seismic waves bounce around the interior.
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The US Government is finally treating aging as a modifiable condition. Discover the VITAL-H trial: a $38M federal study testing Rapamycin, Semaglutide, and Dapagliflozin to set the first FDA-approved roadmap for healthy longevity. Some links are affiliate links so we will earn a commission when they are used to purchase products.
Is aging finally becoming a recognized medical priority? In this video, we break down the historic VITAL-H trial, a $38 million initiative funded by ARPA-H (the \.
Anthropic also highlighted an improvement in the model’s creative “taste.” It is reportedly better at maintaining aesthetic consistency and professional quality when generating slide decks, interface designs, and enterprise documentation. This capability is so pronounced that market reports noted a temporary dip in the stock prices of traditional design software companies following the announcement.
Claude Opus 4.7 represents a shift from “AI as a chat interface” to “AI as a reliable coworker.” By focusing on autonomous verification and higher vision resolution, Anthropic is signaling that the next phase of LLMs isn’t just about being smarter—it’s about being more trustworthy in the professional “loops” where humans currently spend most of their time supervising.
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that’s working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
Are we transcending human biology, or are we engineering our own obsolescence? The Biological Singularity is no longer science fiction. AI systems like AlphaFold 3 and ESM3 are actively rewriting the human source code, turning biology into a programmable engineering discipline. But as we approach the death of aging and the dawn of designer reality, a terrifying question emerges: what happens to the global population when the elite become mathematically and biologically superior? We explore Yuval Noah Harari’s warning of the \.
A new study published in Stem Cell Reports demonstrates how a human stem cell-derived model of the intestine can be used to identify potential therapies for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), highlighting glycyrrhizin as a promising candidate for reducing intestinal inflammation and cell death.
The burden of IBD is rising globally, with an estimated 4 million people affected worldwide. The disease is characterized by chronic inflammation of the intestinal wall, leading to symptoms such as persistent diarrhea, abdominal pain, and fatigue. Standard treatments include anti-inflammatory drugs and other immune-targeting therapies, but many patients experience only limited benefit.
High-throughput screening (HTS) offers a promising strategy to discover new IBD therapies but depends on having a reliable model of the human intestinal wall for laboratory testing.
Online now: Li et al. show that sympathetic-derived oxytocin drives adipose lipolysis to supply triglycerides essential for neonatal growth during lactation. Adipocyte-specific oxytocin receptor (Oxtr) deletion impairs milk lipid content and offspring growth, revealing a new link between maternal oxytocin signaling in adipocytes, mammary metabolism, and neonatal nutrition.
