MIT researchers have engineered bacteria to behave like transistors, making it possible to build living “circuit boards” that can be printed onto growth material in a Petri dish. In conventional electronics, transistors act as switches that control whether electrical current flows. In the biological system developed at MIT, engineered bacteria perform a similar role by [...]
A Lampsy Health, fundada por Vicente Garção, Leonor Pereira e Joana Pinto, vai representar Portugal na final internacional do Global Tech Innovator, em novembro, durante a Web Summit, onde vai competir com os vencedores nacionais de mais de 20 países.
The post Candeeiro que deteta crises de epilepsia leva a Lampsy Health à final do Global Tech Innovator 2026 appeared first on Tek Notícias.
The normally genteel world of international space policy turned ugly this week as several prominent US space companies—including SpaceX, Blue Origin, Stoke Space, K2, and Starcloud—pulled out of a high-profile French space summit organized by the country's president, Emmanuel Macron.
Politico first reported the diplomatic turmoil, saying that the White House "pressured" US space companies to skip Macron's space summit in Paris next week. Since then, the companies have largely pulled out of the meeting without commenting publicly, though some US representation remains on the two-day program.
Multiple sources confirmed to Ars that an official with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, or OSTP, led the call with US space companies late last week. The call was convened in response to queries from US industry about the French meeting, which is not part of the traditional circuit of international space conferences.
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The human brain is remarkably adept at juggling different kinds of information, allowing us to switch rapidly between tasks and adapt our behavior as circumstances change. A new study by MIT neuroscientists takes a closer look at how the brain accomplishes this, providing evidence for flexible neural modules that may help support this cognitive versatility.
Using mice, scientists found that a group of neurons in the prefrontal cortex could switch between retaining sensory information and maintaining an action plan in working memory.
“We found that the brain doesn’t dedicate a separate group of neurons for every type of information,” says Yuma Osako, an MIT postdoc and the lead author of the new study. “Instead, it uses the same populations of neurons to perform the same computation on different kinds of information, which means the same subset of neurons can hold both an action and a sensory stimulus in working memory,”
The findings also lend support to a longstanding theory known as compositionality—the idea that cognition can be constructed by combining and reusing neural components.
“One of the solutions that’s always been proposed has been this idea of compositionality — that you can take pieces of cognition that perform part of a task and reuse them in another task,” says Timothy Buschman, a professor at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, and the senior author of the paper, in a statement.
Another way to see this is to view it as “cognitive Legos,” Buschman suggests. Instead of building a new neural circuit when a new task starts, the brain reuses existing circuits and combines them in different ways.
To see how this neural network operates, the scientists trained mice to compare two tones and respond depending on whether the sounds matched. As the mice performed the tasks, the scientists recorded electrical activity from thousands of neurons.
“When mice do tasks that test whether memory computations can be reused, the answer is they are,” notes Mriganka Sur, the Newton Professor of Neuroscience at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. “There are subspaces of functional activity in the prefrontal cortex that can be the substrate of mixing and matching toward flexible cognition.”
Two important components of the task allowed the researchers to examine how different kinds of information were maintained. First, the mice had to remember the initial tone for a short period. They then had to retain their decision and form an action plan.
In the parietal cortex, neurons were dedicated to storing information about the tone. However, researchers found something different in the prefrontal cortex: a specific group of neurons could switch roles.
During one stage of the task, the circuit helped maintain a sensory memory. During another, the same population was involved in maintaining an action plan. This flexibility may help explain how a finite number of neurons can support an enormous range of behaviors.
“Our everyday life requires us to temporarily hold many different kinds of information. One big question is how the brain can represent an unlimited variability of information using only a finite number of neurons,” Osako says.
The researchers view these reusable neural circuits as potential building blocks for flexible cognition. More broadly, the findings suggest that the brain may be less like a machine filled with components dedicated to individual tasks and more like an interconnected system that continually repurposes its existing neural resources.
The recent study appeared in the journal Nature.
Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.
2,000 years ago, ancient Roman engineers were building structures that have withstood the test of time remarkably well, many of which remain standing today. At the heart of their success lies a mystery: what were the secrets of ancient Roman concrete that made these buildings so durable?
Now, MIT researchers are drawing from this curiously durable technology of the ancient world to help them develop modern building materials that can last longer, and potentially even reduce the carbon footprint of modern construction—all while managing to self-repair itself by healing small cracks.
The mystery of Roman concrete became a fascination for MIT Associate Professor Admir Masic, who has spent many years now investigating the chemistry and other properties of this durable ancient technology. Based on his research, the material’s longevity isn’t just a product of the ingredients used by its ancient creators: the secret of Roman concrete also has to do with its manufacturing process.
This, according to Masic, seems to be at the heart of the material’s unusual ability to repair itself after cracks begin to form.
In 2023, Masic and his colleagues began looking at samples of lime that were very rich in calcium, which researchers call “lime clasts.” These clasts are ubiquitous throughout concrete found in ancient Roman constructions, although they were long discounted as being the byproducts of imperfections in the mixing process.
However, closer inspection revealed something remarkable about these lime clasts: as cracks form in the concrete, water can gradually enter the material, allowing calcium within the lime casts to dissolve and then recrystallize, effectively sealing the newly formed openings.
Now, that discovery is propelling the development of modern concrete that incorporates calcium-rich lime clasts, thanks to a partnership between Masic and Italian entrepreneur Paolo Sabatini, who joined forces to develop a commercial version now being produced by Dmat, a company they co-founded in 2021.
Part of the strength of Dmat’s approach is the fact that they have developed additives that can be added to existing kinds of concrete and mortar, rather than requiring builders to acquire new and unfamiliar materials.
“We can now offer an extremely competitively priced, self-healing product that is easy to implement and available worldwide,” Masic recently told MIT News.
“What’s exciting to me is that this material could become the industry standard without requiring companies to change how they operate,” he added.
Beyond its ability to strengthen the durability of concrete, Dmat’s new technology can also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 40 percent compared to those in traditional concrete. Presently, the new material is already being used in several infrastructure projects in parts of Europe, with eventual plans for expansion into the United States and other countries.
Widespread implementation and scalability like this is important, according to Masic and his colleagues, since large volumes of concrete are produced throughout the world, the production of which accounts for as much as 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions.
Extending the life of structures while simultaneously reducing the emissions associated with their construction would therefore hold significant environmental benefits.
“At Dmat, we like to view concrete as an ecosystem,” Sabatini recently said in a statement. Successfully introducing a new material, he argues, requires considering not merely its chemistry, but cost, transportation, certification, and compatibility with established construction practices.
Notably, Dmat’s approach differs from other examples of modern experimental self-healing concretes, which generally rely on bacteria or polymers. Instead, by placing the focus on ancient techniques used by Roman engineers that long remained overlooked and misunderstood, Masic and his colleagues have developed an innovative new technology with roots that go back almost two millennia.
“There’s something profound about how ancient builders, without our modern chemistry, engineered self-healing material that still stands today,” Masic notes.
“My group research and work with Dmat is to make the modern built environment better by applying the best lessons from the past to today’s challenges,” he adds.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.
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