The question of whether artificial intelligence can be conscious has moved well beyond science fiction. It now sits at the center of scientific debate and is increasingly shaping discussions about a range of contentious issues, from AI ethics to animal welfare, fetal development, and laboratory-grown brain tissue.

However, according to a new analysis published in Neuron, the science used to answer that question may not actually be measuring what researchers think it is. A research team led by Hakwan Lau at the Institute for Basic Science in South Korea, with collaborators from the Université de Montréal and New York University, argues that many common experimental methods in consciousness research do not separate subjective experience from general information processing.

In the paper, The Ethical Impasse of Current Consciousness Science, the researchers argue that current scientific tools may not be capable of reliably detecting consciousness.

The Measurement Problem

Consciousness research relies heavily on methods such as visual masking, binocular rivalry, and the detection of perceptual limits. These methods usually compare brain responses when a person is aware of something versus when they are not. The idea is that the difference between these two cases shows whether conscious experience is present or not.

Lau and his team challenge this assumption. When experiments make a stimulus invisible, they often reduce both conscious awareness and the brain’s ability to process information about that stimulus. This means that what appears to be a marker of consciousness in the brain may actually reflect general cognitive activity.

“Many current theories of consciousness appear to be supported by a range of experimental findings,” Lau said. “But those findings may actually reflect general information processing rather than consciousness itself — so it remains difficult to conclude that these theories truly explain consciousness.”

A Historical Warning

The authors compare the current situation to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when strong claims about consciousness led to a crisis in psychology. The resulting backlash led to the rise of behaviorism, which focused only on observable behavior and halted consciousness research for many years.

Researchers caution that a similar situation could occur again. As AI systems become more advanced and public interest in machine consciousness increases, scientists are under pressure to provide answers. If researchers make strong claims about consciousness in AI, organoids, or fetuses that lack robust methods to support them, scientific credibility could be undermined.

Better Science Required

The authors suggest a different approach. Conditions like blindsight, in which people with brain damage can respond to stimuli they do not report seeing, offer a more controlled way to study consciousness. Another example is hemispatial neglect, where patients fail to notice one side of their visual field while still having basic perception. For researchers, these conditions provide a rare opportunity to separate awareness from information processing and investigate each process on its own.

These conditions show that subjective experience and information processing are distinct from one another. The team says that building experiments around this difference is needed to make reliable scientific claims about consciousness.

The implications of this study extend far beyond the academic world. Deciding whether non-human entities are conscious has direct legal and ethical concerns. The researchers say that the science behind these decisions must meet high standards.

“Questions about consciousness increasingly carry ethical and societal implications,” Lau said. “If scientific claims about consciousness are going to influence discussions about animal welfare, AI ethics, or bioethics, then the scientific foundations supporting those claims must be especially rigorous.”

The researchers conclude that the most urgent challenge is not deciding whether AI, animals, or organoids are conscious, but developing better tools to identify consciousness if it emerges.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

For much of the past century, fossils from East Africa have shaped our understanding of ape evolution. Now, a jawbone found in the Egyptian desert adds a new dimension to that story.

A team from Mansoura University and the University of Southern California has described a new species, Masripithecus moghraensis, in a study that appeared in the journal Science. The fossil of a lower jaw found at the Wadi Moghra site in northern Egypt, the researchers say, is the first clear evidence of an ape fossil in North Africa. Dating to 17 to 18 million years ago, it predates the known dispersal of early apes into Europe and Asia by at least a million years. This may indicate that early ape evolution extended further north than previously thought.

“We spent five years searching for this kind of fossil because, when we look closely at the early ape family tree, it becomes clear that something is missing — and North Africa holds that missing piece,” said Hesham Sallam, paleontologist at Mansoura University and senior author of the study.

A Jaw That Changes the Map

The fossil is of a lower jaw with several distinctive features. Masripithecus had large canine and premolar teeth, as well as molars with rounded, textured surfaces and a robust jaw. No other ape from the same time period shows this combination of features. According to the researchers, these traits indicate a flexible diet based mainly on fruit, with some harder foods like nuts and seeds. This adaptability would have been important in northern Africa, with increasing seasonal variation in the climate.

Masripithecus stands out among East African apes of similar age by its anatomy. Its place in the ape family tree is even more significant. By combining fossil features and geological data with DNA from living apes, the team found that Masripithecus appears closer to the lineage that eventually gave rise to modern apes than any previously known Early Miocene species.

“It is well known that the fossil record of hominoids in Africa is geographically very biased,” said David Alba, a paleontologist at the University of Barcelona, in an interview with National Geographic. “It is also known that they were present in Saudi Arabia sometime later, so finding them in northern Africa by this time is important, but not totally unexpected.”

A Corridor Between Worlds

This discovery is important for both geography and anatomy. During the Early Miocene, the African and Arabian plates were moving closer to Asia. At times, lower sea levels reduced marine barriers and opened a corridor through northern Africa and the Middle East. The team’s analysis supports the idea that this region played an important role in the early evolution of living apes. This shifts the focus of ape evolution. East Africa, once seen as the main center of ape origins, may have been more of a peripheral branch.

Erik Seiffert, co-author and paleontologist at the University of Southern California, said the discovery changed his own thinking. “For my entire career, I considered it probable that the common ancestor of all living apes lived in or around East Africa. But this new discovery, and our new and novel analyses of hominoid phylogeny and biogeography, now strongly challenge that idea.”

The genus name Masripithecus combines the Arabic word Masr (for Egypt) with the Greek píthēkos, meaning ‘ape’. The species name is a reference to Wadi Moghra, where the remains were found. The researchers expect that more fossils will be found as fieldwork continues in the region. For now, this discovery shows that important parts of evolutionary history may still be hidden in areas yet to be fully explored.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

The concept of the Einstein-Rosen bridge is often understood as a cosmic shortcut, akin to a tunnel that links distant points in spacetime.

While that image makes for compelling science fiction, a new study shows that it does not match the actual physics behind this concept. Recent research suggests that the original bridge theory was not a wormhole but a mathematical feature of how time is structured. This new realization could help solve a persistent problem in physics.

The study, led by Professor Enrique Gaztañaga from the University of Portsmouth, along with K. Sravan Kumar and João Marto, was published in Classical and Quantum Gravity. The researchers suggest that the bridge functions as a mathematical link between two directions of time, one going forward and the other going backward.

Einstein and Rosen’s Original Concept

Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen never directly proposed a shortcut through space in their original 1935 theory. Instead, they were studying how quantum fields behave under conditions of extreme gravity. To keep their equations consistent, they described a link between two copies of spacetime that are mirror images of each other.

The interpretation of a wormhole came much later. The bridge in the original concept collapses too quickly for anything to travel through it, making it unusable as a passage. Despite this, the idea of a literal tunnel still became popular.

Gaztañaga and his team reexamined the original idea. They do not view the bridge as a path through space, but as a mechanism of how quantum mechanics works in curved spacetime. Their findings suggest that to fully describe what happens near black holes, we need to consider both directions of time, not just the forward-moving one that we experience.

Solving the Information Paradox

This discovery is significant for one of physics’ biggest puzzles, known as the black hole information paradox. In 1974, Stephen Hawking demonstrated that black holes slowly radiate heat and can eventually evaporate, apparently destroying all information about the matter that fell into them. This directly goes against the belief in quantum mechanics that information cannot be destroyed.

The researchers say the paradox arises only when we think of black holes in terms of a single direction of time. When we include both directions in the quantum picture, information persists at the event horizon rather than disappearing. It continues evolving in the time-reversed component of the quantum state. We cannot see this from our perspective, but the information is still there.

Before the Big Bang

The implications for this extend beyond black holes. If time has two mirrored directions at the quantum level, the Big Bang might not be the absolute beginning. It could instead represent a quantum change from a shrinking universe to a growing one, each with its own direction of time. In this case, our universe could be inside a black hole that formed in an even larger cosmos.

The researchers point to a possible clue from observations. The cosmic microwave background displays a persistent imbalance that standard models struggle to explain. Models with mirrored quantum components fit the observational data better, but the researchers are careful to note that they still do not confirm the theory.

Gaztañaga’s team does not intend for the study to replace Einstein’s theory of relativity or standard quantum mechanics. They instead propose that both ideas gain strength when we take the full, time-balanced structure of quantum mechanics seriously. What the Einstein-Rosen bridge may really describe is not a shortcut between galaxies but a window into the hidden structure of time itself.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

A newly described fossil from Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, belongs to the crocodile family tree, but unlike most crocodile-line archosaurs, it walked on two legs, had small arms, and a toothless beak. 

Researchers from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and collaborating institutions described the species Labrujasuchus expectatus in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. This animal belongs to Shuvosauridae, a rare group of ancient crocodile relatives that independently evolved body structures similar to those of bipedal, ostrich-like dinosaurs.

Those dinosaurs evolved much later within a separate lineage. Only a small number of shuvosaur species have been identified to date.

The Triassic Era

The Triassic period, which took place about 252 to 201 million years ago, was a time of accelerated evolutionary change. Many major animal lineages began to vary during this period, leading to a range of unusual forms. Along with shuvosaurs, this period saw the rise of lagerpetids, bipedal relatives of dinosaurs whose lineage eventually gave rise to pterosaurs, and Drepanosaurus, a tree-dwelling reptile with a sloth-like claw and a tail that could grasp surroundings. Labrujasuchus lived among this diverse group of animals.

“We see a lot of the successful strategies for modern animals and non-avian dinosaurs first arise in the Triassic, and shuvosaurs are a great example of that convergent evolution,” said Dr. Alan Turner, lead author on the paper. “Bipedalism is certainly a unique path for crocodile relatives to take, but it’s a path well-trod by dinosaurs and later birds. It obviously worked for these animals.”

The Expected Discovery

The name Labrujasuchus expectatus reflects both the location and the circumstances of its discovery. The genus name comes from ‘Ranchos de los Brujos,’ the old Spanish name for Ghost Ranch, combined with the Greek word suchus for ‘crocodile.’ The species name expectatus is Latin for ‘expected,’ referring to the expectation that this specimen would be found in this area.

Previous discoveries at Ghost Ranch included similar species from both earlier and later Triassic periods. The presence of an evolutionary link between them was expected, and L. expectatus helps fill a gap in the fossil record.

“Finding one shuvosaur from earlier in the Triassic and one from later meant that we paleontologists knew there were probably more from in-between waiting to be discovered and described,” said Dr. Nate Smith, Gretchen Augustyn Director and Curator of the NHMLAC Dinosaur Institute. “We wanted to highlight how the fossil record works.”

Smith also explained the “haunted” history behind the site’s name. Local legend holds that ranchers called the land ‘Ranch of the Witches’ to discourage visitors and protect the cattle operations of the Archuleta brothers. The researchers chose to honor this aspect of regional history with the name they chose.

20 Years at Ghost Ranch

This discovery marks a milestone for the ongoing excavation project at Ghost Ranch, which enters its twentieth year this summer. The site, known internationally through Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings of its red and ochre badlands, contains four active quarries and has produced some of the most well-preserved Triassic fossils. In 1947, paleontologist Edwin H. Colbert documented more than a thousand well-preserved skeletons of a small Triassic dinosaur known as Coelophysis at this location.

The excavation at Hayden Quarry, where L. expectatus was found, is part of this ongoing project. Each summer, teams of paleontologists and volunteers excavate the site, and each season brings new discoveries, sometimes confirming what researchers already anticipated. The researchers note that long gaps in the species fossil record indicate much of the group’s evolutionary history is still unknown. More “Witch Crocs” may still be out there.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

Scientists studying an ancient asteroid crater on the Korean Peninsula have uncovered rock formations that may offer clues to the rise of atmospheric oxygen on Earth.

Researchers from the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) discovered stromatolites inside the Hapcheon impact crater, the only confirmed asteroid impact site in South Korea. Similar stromatolite fossils represent some of the oldest known evidence of life on Earth.

Their findings were published in Communications Earth & Environment, and the discovery suggests that asteroid impacts, often linked to mass extinctions, may also have supported the development of early oxygen-producing life.

The Importance of Stromatolites

Stromatolites are layered rocks made by microorganisms, such as cyanobacteria, which produce oxygen through photosynthesis. Fossilized stromatolites are at least 3.5 billion years old and are some of the earliest evidence of life on Earth.

Scientists think these microbes were central to the Great Oxidation Event, which occurred about 2.4 billion years ago and led to a lasting increase in atmospheric oxygen levels. Learning where and how early stromatolites lived could help explain how Earth became habitable.

The KIGAM team discovered several stromatolites in the northwestern part of the Hapcheon crater, each measuring about 10 to 20 centimeters across. This is the first time that these types of formations have been found at this location.

Life from the Crater

The team suggests that the stromatolites developed in a hydrothermal lake that formed after the asteroid impact. The impact generated enough heat to melt surrounding rock and keep the water warm and rich in minerals for an extended period. These conditions would have supported the growth of early microbial communities.

Geochemical analysis supports this explanation. The stromatolites contain material from both the asteroid and local rock, in addition to signs of changes caused by heat and water. The inner layers show the most evidence of hydrothermal activity, suggesting they formed when the lake was hottest and continued to grow as it cooled. The combination of heat, minerals, and chemical energy found in hydrothermal environments is favorable for microbial life.

Radiocarbon dating of charcoal in the impact breccia shows that the Hapcheon impact occurred about 42,300 years ago. This is much more recent than the geological events usually linked to early life. The researchers frame the crater as a local example of a post-impact environment that was likely common during Earth’s early history.

“This is the first comprehensive evidence suggesting that stromatolites could form in hydrothermal lakes created by asteroid impacts,” said lead author of the study Dr. Jaesoo Lim. “Such environments may have provided favorable conditions for early microbial ecosystems.”

Oxygen Oases Before Atmospheric Oxygen

The implications may extend far beyond a single crater. During Earth’s early history, asteroid impacts occurred far more frequently. If each impact produced a warm, mineral-rich lake where oxygen-producing microbes could flourish, then these craters may have served as isolated ‘oxygen oases’ long before the atmosphere as a whole became oxygen-rich.

The researchers suggest these localized pockets of biological activity could have contributed to the gradual buildup that eventually triggered the Great Oxidation Event.

Implications for Martian Life

This new research builds on a 2021 study in Gondwana Research, where KIGAM scientists first confirmed that the Hapcheon crater was formed by an impact. This new study adds a biological perspective, linking the physical effects of the asteroid impact to the development of life.

The research may also apply to life on Mars. The early Martian environment contained water-filled impact craters similar to those on ancient Earth. The researchers suggest that Martian craters could be good places to search for signs of past microbial life. This study now provides a model for what this type of evidence might look like.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

Many people believe that revoking certain microphone privileges on their phones or smart devices is enough to avoid digital surveillance. However, a new study from Germany shows that this is not the case. Even something as simple as the WiFi router in a local coffee shop could be used to identify individuals.

Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have developed a system that can identify people using only the wireless signals from standard WiFi routers. Their method, called BFId, achieved 99.5% accuracy when tested on 197 subjects, the largest dataset to date in WiFi-based identification studies. The system identifies people without special hardware or direct network access, even when they are not carrying a device.

These results, presented at the 2025 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security in Taipei, raise new questions about whether current privacy protections are enough for a surveillance method that uses technology already found in everyday places.

Using Radio Waves to Sense Surroundings

BFId is difficult to defend against because it exploits how modern WiFi routers work. WiFi 5 routers use a feature called beamforming, which directs wireless signals toward connected devices instead of sending them in all directions. To do this, devices on the network regularly send back signal feedback, known as beamforming feedback information (BFI), so the router can adjust its signal.

These feedback signals travel through the air unencrypted. That means anyone nearby with a regular WiFi adapter set to monitor mode can pick them up and read them, no hacking or special access required, just being close enough and running the right software.

BFI is valuable for identification because it captures how signals bounce off people and objects, creating multiple snapshots of anyone moving nearby. Earlier WiFi identification methods relied on something called channel state information, which provided only a single viewpoint per device. BFId, by contrast, gathers multiple perspectives at once, giving AI models a much richer set of data to work with. Once trained, the system can recognize someone in just a few seconds.

“By observing the propagation of radio waves, we can create an image of the surroundings and of persons who are present,” said Professor Thorsten Strufe, a cybersecurity researcher at KIT’s KASTEL security institute. “This works similar to a normal camera, the difference being that in our case, radio waves instead of light waves are used for the recognition. Thus, it does not matter whether you carry a WiFi device on you or not.”

Existing Infrastructure for Surveillance

Researchers have previously shown that WiFi signals can detect human presence or movement. BFId differs because it does not require any new equipment. Every WiFi 5 router in homes, offices, airports, and cafés already generates BFI. The infrastructure for this type of surveillance already exists, even if scientists have not yet used it for identification.

“This technology turns every router into a potential means for surveillance,” said Julian Todt, one of the study’s co-authors. “If you regularly pass by a café that operates a WiFi network, you could be identified there without noticing it and be recognized later, for example by public authorities or companies.”

Researcher Felix Morsbach noted that intelligence agencies and other groups already have direct surveillance tools at their disposal. However, the widespread presence of wireless networks changes the situation. Security cameras and internet-connected doorbells require installation in specific places, while WiFi networks exist almost everywhere and often go unnoticed.

“The omnipresent wireless networks might become a nearly comprehensive surveillance infrastructure,” Morsbach warned, “with one concerning property: they are invisible and raise no suspicion.”

Regulations Required

The researchers call for stronger privacy protections in the upcoming IEEE 802.11bf WiFi standard, which will formalize WiFi sensing as a feature. They are concerned that without clear safeguards, the same technology used for smart home applications and building security could also be used for identification and tracking.

The team found that the technology is already accurate enough for use, achieving 99.5% accuracy across different walking styles and viewing angles. However, the rules and regulations needed to control its use are not yet in place.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

A recent clinical trial in Sweden found that a single oral dose of psilocybin reduced depressive symptoms within 48 hours in participants suffering from moderate to severe depression. Participants also reported improvements that persisted for more than three months.

The study, carried out at the Northern Stockholm Psychiatric Clinic and published in JAMA Network, is the first randomized, double-blind trial of psilocybin for depression in Sweden. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet followed 35 participants for 12 months, making this one of the more rigorous long-term, placebo-controlled studies of psilocybin therapy for major depressive disorder.

Most antidepressants take anywhere from two to six weeks before patients begin to notice any change, and even then, about two out of three people don’t fully recover after their first round of treatment. If psilocybin’s fast-acting effect holds up in larger studies, it could provide doctors with a much-needed alternative method for treating depression.

Psilocybin vs. Placebo

All 35 participants suffered from recurrent moderate to severe major depressive disorder. Researchers randomly assigned 17 people to receive a 25 mg oral dose of psilocybin and 18 others to receive an active placebo. The placebo was niacin, a vitamin known to cause temporary flushing and tingling sensations to help mimic the experience of taking a drug.

Everyone in the study also participated in five psychotherapy sessions spread over 17 days. This included a session to prepare participants before taking the drug, the dosing session itself, and three follow-up sessions to help process their reported experiences. On the day of treatment, participants wore eyeshades and listened to music for several hours, with clinical staff nearby to monitor their safety.

Clinicians who did not know which treatment participants received used the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), a 0 to 60-point assessment, to measure depressive symptoms at days 8, 15, 42, and 365 after the initial dose.

Clinically Significant Results

By day 8, people who received the psilocybin dose had an average drop in MADRS score of 7.27 points compared with the placebo group. Researchers say that a difference of this size is statistically significant. This difference continued through day 15 and day 42. By the end of the first year, researchers no longer observed a clear difference between the groups.

Participants’ self-assessments began to show improvement even sooner. Using a self-report version of the MADRS, the group that received the psilocybin dose reported significant improvement starting on the second day; the difference in self-reported assessments between groups persisted until about day 102.

At six weeks, remission rates (defined as a MADRS score below 10) were at 53% in the psilocybin group and 6% in the niacin group. By the end of the year, both groups had similar outcomes, as the placebo group showed gradual improvement over time.

“Our results suggest that psilocybin can provide rapid, clinically meaningful improvement in depression and may serve as an alternative to standard treatment when fast symptom reduction is important,” said lead author Hampus Yngwe, a consultant psychiatrist and PhD student at Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Clinical Neuroscience.

The Psychedelic Caveat

The psychedelic effects of psilocybin made it difficult to keep participants unaware of which treatment they received. After the first year, 94% of those in the psilocybin group and all in the niacin group correctly identified which dose they received.

This is important to note because a person’s expectations can shape how they report their symptoms. The researchers pointed out this limitation and said the effect size might partly be due to participants believing they had received the real drug. Clinician ratings, which were also unaware of the administered doses, showed a similar, though smaller, benefit for the psilocybin group compared to self-reports, which supports this concern.

“We want to understand how factors such as treatment expectations and lack of blinding affect the results, as previous studies may have exaggerated the treatment effects,” Yngwe said.

What Comes Next

Most reported side effects were mild and brief. Headache, anxiety, and hallucinations were the most common adverse effects reported in the psilocybin group. However, two participants experienced severe anxiety that required medical attention in the weeks after dosing. The researchers say this finding highlights the need for careful patient selection and follow-up in future studies.

“It is important to emphasize that the treatment is not risk-free and that some patients may need extra support,” said senior author Johan Lundberg, professor at Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Clinical Neuroscience.

The research team plans to analyze PET scans and biological samples collected before and after dosing to see whether psilocybin changes synaptic density in the brain. This could help explain how the drug produces its rapid antidepressant effect and whether repeated dosing might extend this benefit.

While these results are encouraging, the study only included 35 people at one clinic, which makes it hard to draw broad conclusions about long-term effects. Larger and more diverse studies will be needed before psilocybin therapy could become a standard treatment.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

A new book suggests that artificial intelligence is moving beyond simply processing information and is starting to perceive the world through senses similar to those of humans. This development could change how both people and machines interact with and understand their surroundings.

In his book Perceptive Machines: The Future of Feeling AI and What It Means for Humanity, Professor Rocky Scopelliti explains how machines are starting to sense the world, not just process data from it. Technologies that copy sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste are being developed, and some are already being used.

“We are moving beyond artificial intelligence that thinks,” Scopelliti writes. “We are entering an era of intelligence that perceives.”

Synthetic Senses

These technologies were first applied in the medical field to help people with disabilities. For example, some AI systems can convert sound into touch, light, or movement, allowing deaf people to understand audio information in new ways. Researchers are developing retinal and neural implants to help restore sight to people who are blind. Another concept known as haptic technology allows people to feel touch from afar by recreating the sensation in real time.

Researchers are developing technologies that Scopelliti calls e-noses and e-tongues to mimic the sensations of smell and taste using digital systems. These tools turn signals from smells and tastes into data that can be studied, saved, and recreated. These sensations, which have been historically difficult to replicate, are now becoming programmable.

“For the first time in history, our senses are no longer confined to biology,” Scopelliti writes. “They can be synthetic, digitized, transmitted, and re-engineered.”

Scopelliti points out that these changes demonstrate that machines are moving from simply recording data to actually sensing the world around them. These technologies are beginning to blur the boundary between biological perception and machine interpretation.

The Impending Surveillance Problem

Today’s AI can predict how someone feels by analyzing their voice, facial expressions, or body language. New wearables and surrounding systems might soon be able to sense changes in mood, focus, or intention from very subtle signals. These tools could help doctors detect mental health risks early, help teachers notice when students lose focus, and enable workplaces to adjust to reduce cognitive overload.

The book also examines the risks associated with these new technologies. Scopelliti says that companies and AI systems are increasingly tracking and recording sensory and emotional data, raising new privacy and ethical concerns. Collecting emotional data raises ethical questions about who owns the information, how people can use it, and how others might misuse or manipulate it.

“As these signals are captured and analysed, new questions emerge,” Scopelliti writes. “Who owns your emotional state? Can your reactions be predicted, and influenced, without your knowledge? What happens when environments adapt to shape your behaviour in real time?”

These concerns are more than theoretical. AI can already track small changes in a person’s voice, skin conductance, or movement and use this data to personalize content and influence their decisions. Scopelliti gives examples of systems that have evolved from simple observation to actively shape people’s choices through this type of emotional data.

Protecting Perceptual Rights

“We once built machines to extend our physical capabilities,” Scopelliti concludes. “Now we are building systems that extend, and potentially redefine, our senses.”

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

One of the many frustrating factors that complicate the search for extraterrestrial life is the time and resources spent analyzing false signals. Molecules such as amino acids and fatty acids, which are commonly associated with signs of biological life, can also form in places where life has never existed.

Amino acids have turned up in meteorites, and fatty acids can develop in deep space without any biological input. This overlap between biological and nonbiological chemistry is a recurring challenge for astrobiologists.

Now, a new study in Nature Astronomy suggests that, instead of searching for new types of molecules, scientists should adopt a different approach. Researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science and the University of California, Riverside, say that biological life leaves a statistical signature that can be found in the molecular data spacecraft are already collecting.

“We’re showing that life does not only produce molecules,” said Fabian Klenner, a UC Riverside assistant professor of planetary sciences and co-author of the study. “Life also produces an organizational principle that we can see by applying statistics.”

Limitations of Current Methods

While amino acids and fatty acids are essential for life on Earth, their presence does not always indicate the presence of life. Scientists have found these molecules naturally occurring in meteorites and have also reproduced them in lab simulations of space conditions. Their existence alone is not enough to confirm the existence of life in areas where they are found.

This makes things difficult for planetary scientists. As missions to Mars, Europa, Enceladus, and other intriguing worlds return more detailed chemical data, the real challenge is determining whether those signals indicate signs of life or of chemistry occurring in the absence of biology.

“Astrobiology is fundamentally a forensic science,” said author of the study Gideon Yoffe, a postdoctoral researcher at the Weizmann Institute. “We’re trying to infer processes from incomplete clues, often with very limited data collected by missions that are extraordinarily expensive and infrequent.”

Tracing the Pattern

The researchers adapted a concept from ecology to measure biodiversity. Ecologists often look at two main properties: the richness or number of different species present, and the evenness of their distribution. Healthy ecosystems usually have both high diversity and even distribution, while degraded environments do not.

Yoffe first came across these diversity metrics during his doctoral studies in statistics and data science, where they were used to analyze complex datasets unrelated to biology. He later wondered if the same approach could help distinguish living chemistry from nonliving chemistry.

To test this idea, the team analyzed about 100 datasets of amino acids and fatty acids from sources including microbes, soils, fossils, meteorites, asteroids, and lab-made samples. They found that biological samples had a clear statistical pattern: their amino acid mixtures were more diverse and more evenly spread than those in nonliving material. For fatty acids, the trend was the opposite. Living organisms distribute fatty acids less evenly than nonliving processes do. The researchers believe this difference is a basic sign of biosynthesis.

One surprising result was that the method even worked on old, degraded samples. Fossilized dinosaur eggshells buried for tens of millions of years still showed traces of this statistical pattern.

“That was genuinely surprising,” Klenner said. “The method captured not only the distinction between life and nonlife, but also degrees of preservation and alteration.”

Implications for Upcoming Space Missions

The timing is key. NASA’s Europa Clipper is already on its way to Jupiter’s moon Europa. Scientists are currently planning missions to Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The Mars Perseverance rover is still collecting samples that could one day be brought back to Earth. Each of these missions will produce the molecular data needed for this new approach.

Notably, this method does not require any special instruments. It uses the relative amounts of different molecules, which current and planned mission equipment can already measure. This means the technique could be used on data from past and future missions. The researchers caution that a positive statistical signal does not prove life existed in a sample. Instead, it would be one piece of evidence that suggests life may have been present.

“Any future claim of having found life would require multiple independent lines of evidence, interpreted within the geological and chemical context of a planetary environment,” Klenner said.

The team sees their method as one more tool in the growing set of techniques used to search for life beyond Earth. If several different methods all point to the same sample, such as statistical diversity, chemical makeup, isotopic ratios, and geological context, it becomes much more difficult to dismiss the result.

“Our approach is one more way to assess whether life may have been there,” Klenner said. “And if different techniques all point in the same direction, then that becomes very powerful.”

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

While most fruit flies are known for their attraction to fermenting fruit, one species has evolved to hunt in fast-moving streams in Africa, taking on the role of a predator.

A team of researchers from Lund University has mapped the genome of Drosophila enhydrobia, a fruit fly with a unique life cycle. Its larvae develop underwater in fast-flowing streams, where they prey on black fly and midge larvae. The study, published in Current Biology, reveals how a lineage that was once considered a household nuisance transitioned into a new ecological world and identifies the genetic changes that supported this shift.

“We’re talking about a fruit fly that has completely turned its lifestyle upside down,” said Marcus Stensmyr, biology researcher at Lund University and lead author of the study. “From feeding on yeast and rotting fruit, it has become a specialized predator in running water.”

Museomics Provides an Answer

D. enhydrobia has not been observed in the wild since 1981. To obtain genetic material, the research team located a single pinned specimen in a natural history museum in Zurich and used modern DNA techniques to extract an almost complete genome without damaging the specimen.

This method, called museomics, is part of a wider effort to recover genetic information from museum collections that wasn’t accessible when the specimens were first collected. The Zurich specimen, preserved for about 40 years, still contained enough intact DNA for the researchers to conduct both phylogenetic and comparative genomic studies. Earlier technology could not have achieved this result.

Not an Evolutionary Loner

One of the main findings is that D. enhydrobia is not as biologically isolated as once believed. Genomic analysis shows it belongs to a group of flies linked to water-adjacent habitats, mostly in South Asia. Its relatives already possess traits that have evolved into an extreme aquatic lifestyle in this species.

“What at first looked like an evolutionary mystery turned out to be an extreme elaboration of something that already existed,” Stensmyr said. “That makes the story both more understandable and, in a way, even more fascinating.”

A Genome Trimmed for a Different Life

Genomic analysis reveals evidence of genetic trade-offs associated with adaptation to an aquatic environment. The analysis shows that the species has lost several gene families involved in smell, taste, and metabolism, which fruit flies that feed on fermenting food typically rely on. For a species whose relatives rely on chemosensory detection to find food and mates, these losses are significant. The remaining sensory genes display signs of intensified selection, suggesting adaptation to new ecological pressures.

“It’s as if it has fewer tools in the toolbox, but the tools that remain are all the more finely tuned for this particular environment,” said Hamid Ghanavi, a biology researcher at Lund University and co-author of the study.

The findings suggest that major evolutionary shifts can involve losing functions that no longer serve a species, while refining those that do.

The Potential of Museum Collections

In addition to its evolutionary findings, the study is a prime example of the value of natural history collections worldwide. Specimens collected many years ago can now provide new genetic insights thanks to modern sequencing technology.

For species that have disappeared from the wild or gone unobserved for years, museum archives may offer the only source of available biological material. The D. enhydrobia specimen examined in this study serves as an example of this; without it, the genetic history of this unusual fruit fly would have remained unknown.

Stensmyr said his team has only scratched the surface of what those collections might contain. Continued advances in ancient DNA recovery could make museum archives a significant resource for tracking how species have evolved over time and how they might respond to future environmental shifts.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

Most people assume dreaming is something exclusive to sleep; however, a new study from the Paris Brain Institute suggests otherwise.

The study found that the strange, shifting mental experiences we usually associate with dreaming can also occur while we are awake. These episodes leave a measurable trace in the brain. The results, published in Cell Reports, challenge the common idea that dreaming and waking thought are completely separate experiences.

“Being awake is not synonymous with being attentive, fully aware of one’s surroundings, or able to act and think rationally,” said Delphine Oudiette, co-leader of the institute’s DreamTeam and senior author of the study. “We now know that there is a continuum between wakefulness and sleep, with intermediate states such as mind-wandering or mind-blanking, during which certain regions of the brain may be asleep.”

at the Edge of Sleep

To investigate how the brain transitions from wakefulness to sleep, the researchers worked with 92 people who often take naps and could describe their thoughts when prompted. The experiment was based on a method used by Thomas Edison, who would fall asleep while holding a heavy object. When he drifted off, the object would fall and wake him up, allowing him to recall what he was thinking at the edge of sleep.

In this study, participants held a bottle as they became drowsy. If the bottle dropped or an alarm sounded, they were asked to describe what they had been thinking about in the last ten seconds. They also rated their experiences based on how strange, changeable, spontaneous, and awake they felt. Throughout the process, the researchers recorded their brain activity using an EEG. The researchers then used a clustering algorithm to group the mental experiences based on the data. This allowed the team to identify patterns in participants’ reports without imposing predefined categories.

Four Separate Mental States

The analysis revealed four distinct types of mental states, rather than the two categories people usually expect (awake and asleep).

One type consisted of quick, involuntary flashes of images or memories that seemed to come out of nowhere. Another was grounded in the outside world, with people noticing sounds or staying tuned in to their surroundings. A third was filled with strange, dream-like experiences, such as seeing tiny aliens or feeling ants crawling on the skin, with scenes shifting rapidly. The last type focused on logical, focused thinking, such as planning or mentally running through a schedule.

All four types of mental states were found at every stage the researchers measured, including when participants were fully awake, just falling asleep, or in light sleep. This means that dream-like thoughts can happen while awake, and logical thinking can occur during sleep.

One participant, who was fully awake, said she saw ants crawling over her body with crossword puzzles in the background. Another participant, who was asleep by all measures, spent that same time mentally planning the next day’s schedule.

“The mental states traditionally associated with dreaming can arise just as well when we are asleep as when we are awake,” said lead author Nicolas Decat, a PhD student at the Paris Brain Institute. “The content of our thoughts does not follow the boundaries between waking and sleep.”

A Distinct Brain Pattern

The researchers also found a specific pattern in the brain linked to dream-like experiences. EEG data showed that the connection between the front and back parts of the brain, which are important for logical thinking and visual processing, became weaker during these states. When this connection is reduced, the brain seems less able to organize thoughts logically.

A Tool for Insomnia Diagnosis

These results could help improve the diagnosis of some sleep disorders. For example, people with paradoxical insomnia often say they feel awake all night, even when sleep tests show they were asleep. Traditional methods typically rely on brainwave patterns, which do not always align with patients’ subjective experience.

Oudiette said the study suggests using mental content as a new way to diagnose insomnia. This approach may more closely match what patients actually experience each night and could eventually help identify objective markers of the condition.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

A new study shows that one psychedelic experience doesn’t just alter how a person feels; it may also change the brain itself. Researchers at UC San Francisco and Imperial College London found that a single 25 mg dose of psilocybin produces signs of likely anatomical changes in the brain that persist for at least a month after the experience.

Published in Nature Communications, the study was conducted in healthy adults with no prior psychedelic use. These results may help explain why psilocybin-assisted therapy is being explored as a treatment for depression, anxiety, and addiction.

The researchers identified a key mechanism behind these changes. Instead of focusing on a single brain region, they identified brain entropy as a key factor linking the experience to later outcomes.

What the Brain Looks Like on Psilocybin

Brain entropy refers to the diversity of neural activity happening at any given moment. A low-entropy brain tends to fall into predictable, repetitive patterns. A high-entropy brain is processing a richer, more varied stream of information. Within 60 minutes of taking the 25 mg dose, EEG recordings showed a sharp spike in entropy.

This increase in entropy persisted longer than the drug’s immediate effects. People who experienced the biggest jumps in entropy also reported more psychological insight the next day, saying they felt a deeper sense of emotional self-awareness. These insights coincided with improvements in well-being that lasted for at least two to four weeks.

“Psychedelic means ‘psyche-revealing,’ or making the psyche visible,” said senior author Robin Carhart-Harris, PhD, the Ralph Metzner Distinguished Professor of Neurology at UCSF. “Our data shows that such experiences of psychological insight relate to an entropic quality of brain activity and how both are involved in causing subsequent improvements in mental health.”

How the Study Was Designed

The study included 28 healthy adults with no mental health diagnoses. The experiment had two phases. First, each person received a very low 1 mg dose of psilocybin, which acted as a placebo. Researchers then tracked their brain activity and structure using EEG, MRI, and diffusion tensor imaging over the next few weeks.

One month later, those same participants received the 25 mg dose. The researchers then repeated the same series of brain scans and assessments.

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), a technique that measures water movement along neural pathways, showed that participants’ brain connections were more structurally intact a month after the high dose. This finding is the opposite of what typically happens with aging, which tends to weaken these connections. The most noticeable changes were in pathways linking the front and middle parts of the brain, areas involved in self-reflection, emotional regulation, and decision-making.

The Trip Is the Treatment

All but one participant described the 25 mg experience as the most unusual state of consciousness they had ever experienced. The other person ranked it among their top five. A month later, the group also performed better on a test of cognitive flexibility, which measures how well a person can adapt their thinking to new information.

Author Taylor Lyons, PhD, a research associate at Imperial College London, pointed to this chain of effects as the study’s most significant takeaway.

“Psilocybin seems to loosen up stereotyped patterns of brain activity and give people the ability to revise entrenched patterns of thought,” Lyons said. “The fact that these changes track with insight and improved well-being is especially exciting.”

These results could guide future research. If brain entropy during the experience predicts how well the treatment works, scientists might be able to use it to calibrate dosage in real time. This could help ensure patients get enough to support insight and recovery, without so much that it causes excessive stimulation.

What Comes Next

Carhart-Harris noted that the therapeutic promise of psilocybin has been recognized for years. This study now provides new details about the biological mechanisms that may underlie its effects.

“We already knew psilocybin could be helpful for treating mental illness,” Carhart-Harris said. “But now we have a much better understanding of how.”

Microdosing is typically associated with psychedelics, specifically small, sub-perceptual doses of psilocybin or LSD that some people use to improve focus, mood, or anxiety. However, a new national survey upends this common association.

A research team at the University of California, San Diego, found that cannabis is the most widely microdosed substance in the United States. An estimated 24 million adults reported having microdosed cannabis at some point, nearly double the number who reported microdosing psilocybin or LSD. The study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, is among the first to examine national patterns of microdosing across multiple substances.

“Microdosing is often discussed in the context of psychedelics like psilocybin or LSD, but what surprised us most was that cannabis microdosing was almost twice as common,” said Kevin Yang, MD, a resident physician in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine and first author of the study. “That suggests conversations about microdosing may be overlooking a large group of people who are using small amounts of cannabis in similar ways.”

Survey Results

The team surveyed 1,525 adults across the U.S. in late 2023 using a probability-based panel designed to reflect the U.S. population to understand these trends nationally. They asked people whether they had ever intentionally taken very small amounts—roughly one-fifth to one-twentieth of a usual recreational dose—of substances like cannabis, psilocybin, LSD, or MDMA. The idea behind microdosing is to avoid the strong psychoactive effects while still hoping for subtle benefits.

About 9.4% of adults said they had microdosed cannabis at some point, compared to 5.3% for psilocybin, 4.8% for LSD, and 2.2% for MDMA. While fewer people reported currently microdosing, cannabis still led the way, with 3.3% of adults saying they use it in this way now.

People’s reasons for microdosing varied depending on the substance. Most cannabis microdosers said they were looking for medical benefits, like easing anxiety, depression, or chronic pain. On the other hand, those who microdosed psychedelics or MDMA tended to be after a gentler version of the recreational effects, rather than using them for health reasons.

Mental Health and Policy Patterns

The study found that people who rated their mental health as poor were more likely to report microdosing any substance. About 21% of adults with poor mental health said they had microdosed cannabis, compared to about 8% of those who described their health as excellent.

It is not yet clear whether people are microdosing as a way to cope with mental health challenges or for other reasons. Since the study was cross-sectional, capturing data at a single point in time, the researchers could not determine whether microdosing influences mental health or if people with mental health concerns are simply more drawn to the practice.

The study also found that people microdosed psychedelics more often in places that have decriminalized possession. This suggests that changes in policy may influence both access to these substances and people’s willingness to report using them.

The Evidence Gap

Although many people report microdosing, the researchers note that scientific evidence of its effects remains limited. Researchers have conducted few placebo-controlled trials, and those studies have produced inconsistent results so far. Most people who microdose do not test their substances, which raises concerns about contamination and dosing mistakes, especially with unregulated psychedelics.

Senior author Eric Leas, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor at the UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health, pointed to a gap between public enthusiasm and clinical evidence. “There’s a lot of anecdotal enthusiasm around microdosing, especially for mental health,” Leas said. “But we still need rigorous studies to determine whether these perceived benefits are real, who might benefit and what the potential risks could be.”

These findings come at a time when cannabis legalization and psychedelic policy reforms are changing laws across the United States. As these changes continue, the researchers emphasize that understanding how and why people microdose will become increasingly important.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

The idea that memories might not correspond to real events but could actually be illusions created by chance from cosmic static has been discussed in physics for more than a century. Recently, three physicists examined the logic behind this idea and found that arguments on both sides may be fundamentally circular.

A recent study published in the journal Entropy by Santa Fe Institute Professor David Wolpert, physicist Carlo Rovelli, and Jordan Scharnhorst revisits the Boltzmann brain hypothesis. This thought experiment, based on statistical mechanics, suggests that random fluctuations in entropy could, in theory, create a fully formed brain with false memories and a sense of a coherent past.

Rather than trying to prove or disprove the Boltzmann brain hypothesis, the researchers focused on identifying a structural flaw in the way scientists have debated the issue.

Where the Logic Breaks Down

The Boltzmann brain paradox comes from the H theorem, developed by Austrian mathematician and physicist Ludwig Boltzmann. This idea is key to statistical mechanics and supports the second law of thermodynamics, which explains why disorder (or entropy) increases over time and why we perceive time as moving forward. However, the H theorem itself treats the past and the future identically in its equations.

This symmetry creates a problem. If entropy can decrease in the future just as easily as it increased in the past, then the patterns that form our memories could just as likely come from random fluctuations as from real events. In other words, our memories might not necessarily correspond to actual past events.

The usual response is that this scenario is extremely unlikely. The chance of a functioning brain forming from random thermal noise is so small that it would take much longer than the current age of the universe for it to happen. However, the new study shows that this argument depends on assumptions that may not even be justified.

A Never-Ending Circle

To clarify the debate, the researchers created a mathematical framework that models the universe’s entropy as a time-symmetric Markov process, which they call the “entropy conjecture.” In this framework, they identified a key issue: physics alone cannot determine which moment in time to use as a reference point. That choice must be assumed.

This assumption leads to circular reasoning. Arguments against the Boltzmann brain hypothesis, including those that appeal to the second law of thermodynamics, usually assume that our memories accurately record real events. Yet the main reason to trust our memories is that the second law suggests they should be reliable. In other words, the conclusion relies on the premise, and the premise relies on the conclusion.

Arguments in favor of the hypothesis show the same circularity. The study finds that the Boltzmann brain hypothesis and the standard “past hypothesis,” which assumes the universe began in a low-entropy state at the Big Bang, have the same structure. Each approach analyzes the problem from a different moment in time, changing only which moment it treats as fixed.

Reframing the Question

The researchers stress that their findings are meant to diagnose the problem, not to give a final answer. Their study does not decide whether the Boltzmann brain hypothesis is true or whether our memories are real, but it does show that current arguments do not properly answer the question.

The team formalized the entropy conjecture as a mathematical process and revealed a problem earlier studies overlooked: every argument in this debate depends on assumptions about which facts to treat as fixed, and physics alone cannot resolve the issue.

Fundamentally, any real resolution has to come from outside the math—whether from prior beliefs, or from Bayesian reasoning. That, the authors suggest, underscores why the debate has continued to go in circles for so long.

The recent study, “Disentangling Boltzmann Brains, the Time-Asymmetry of Memory, and the Second Law,” appeared in the journal Entropy. 

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

In 1775, British diplomat Sir William Hamilton developed plans for a mechanical model that would recreate the eruption of Mount Vesuvius through light, movement, and clockwork. While the device was never built, his design was preserved in a Bordeaux library for more than 200 years.

Now, a pair of engineering students at the University of Melbourne has brought Hamilton’s concept to life for the first time.

Sir William Hamilton was more than a diplomat. Serving as ambassador to Naples and Sicily from 1765 to 1800, he became a leading amateur volcanologist of his time. He observed eruptions of Vesuvius in 1767, 1779, and 1794, and meticulously recorded the changes to the volcano’s 4,000-foot crater after each event.

Hamilton based his design for the Vesuvius model on a 1771 watercolor by British-Italian artist Pietro Fabris, Night View of a Current of Lava, which showed the bright glow of lava at night. He intended to recreate this effect mechanically, using light and movement to simulate an eruption. Although it is unclear whether he ever built a prototype, his detailed plans, which survived at the Bordeaux Municipal Library, served as the basis for the recent reconstruction.

Reconstructing a Lost Design

Dr. Richard Gillespie, Senior Curator in the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, initiated the reconstruction project and oversaw its progress from concept to completion.

“It is fitting that after 250 years exactly, our students have brought this dormant project to life,” Gillespie said. “It is a wonderful piece of science communication. People around the world have always been fascinated by the immense power of volcanoes.”

Master of Mechatronics student Xinyu (Jasmine) Xu and Master of Mechanical Engineering student Yuji (Andy) Zeng spent three months constructing the device in the university’s Creator Space workshop. They adapted Hamilton’s original clockwork design to use modern materials, including laser-cut timber, acrylic, programmable LED lighting, and electronic control systems, while maintaining the intended visual effect. Many of the engineering challenges they encountered were similar to those Hamilton likely faced with his original concept.

“We still faced some of the challenges that Hamilton faced,” Zeng said. “The light had to be designed and balanced so the mechanisms were hidden from view.”

Concealing the machinery to maintain the illusion was central to Hamilton’s vision. To achieve this, the students had to think as both engineers and visual effects designers.

Science Education in a Different Era

Hamilton designed the mechanical volcano as an early way to share scientific concepts with the public, allowing people to see how a volcanic eruption works without traveling to Vesuvius. By the mid-1700s, Italy had become a destination for European scholars and nobility, with Vesuvius as a main attraction. Hamilton saw that scientific shows and excitement could spark the public’s curiosity.

The finished project is now a main feature of The Grand Tour exhibition at the university’s Baillieu Library, on display until June 28, 2026. The show features artwork, records, and objects that show the importance of eighteenth-century European travel, while Hamilton’s device shows how art and engineering come together.

Research engineer Andrew Kogios, who supervised the students during construction, noted that the experience gave them hands-on engineering beyond the classroom.

“From selecting materials and 3D printing, to troubleshooting electronics and satisfying requirements, working collaboratively with Yuji and Xinyu has been extremely rewarding,” Kogios said. “Experiences like these, supplementing their university studies, position them well for their future endeavors.”

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

Researchers at a field station in Panama observed a katydid with striking hot-pink coloration in the rainforest. Rather than assuming the coloration was simply a genetic anomaly, they monitored the insect to document what would occur over time. Eleven days later, it was completely green.

The findings, published in Ecology, center on Arota festae, a leaf-mimicking katydid found in Panama, Colombia, and Suriname. This observation is shifting researchers’ understanding of dynamic camouflage in relation to the changing colors of rainforest leaves.

More Than a Mutation

The discovery happened on March 27, 2025, at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s field station on Barro Colorado Island. Dr. Benito Wainwright, the lead author from the University of St Andrews, observed an adult female A. festae with a bright, hot pink color under a research station light. Since this color is so rare, the team kept the insect in natural conditions and checked on its appearance every day.

The katydid retained its pink coloration for four days, which then faded to a lighter shade. By the eleventh day, it had matched the typical green coloration of the species. The insect survived long enough to mate and died naturally the following month.

“Finding this individual was a genuine surprise,” Wainwright said. “Rather than a bizarre genetic quirk, this may actually be a finely tuned survival strategy that tracks the life cycle of the rainforest leaves this insect is trying to resemble.”

Camouflage That Changes With the Forest

This color change is connected to a process called delayed greening. In many tropical plants, new leaves start out pink or red and turn green as they grow. On Barro Colorado Island, about a third of plant species show this color pattern year-round, so pink leaves are always present in the forest.

A katydid that changes color in step with this pattern can stay hidden in its environment. The research team suggests that A. festae may have evolved to match its color transition to the leaf color cycle, allowing it to blend in at each stage rather than maintaining a single color.

A First in the Scientific Record

Pink katydids have been documented in scientific literature since 1878, but have generally been regarded as rare and disadvantageous mutations. This new observation challenges that interpretation. There are no previous records of a katydid completing a full color transition within a single adult stage; therefore, this appears to be the first documented case.

Dr. Matt Greenwell from the University of Reading, who co-authored the study, explained the finding as an example of how exactly the rainforest can influence the animals that live there.

“You would think that a bright pink insect in a mostly green forest would stand out to predators like a worker in a high-vis jacket,” Greenwell said. “The idea that an insect might gradually shift color to keep pace with the leaves it mimics shows how dynamic the rainforest can be, and is a remarkable example of camouflage in action.”

More Questions Than Answers

The researchers point out that their findings are based on a single observed individual, which limits the study. They still do not know whether this color shift occurs across the species, what biological mechanisms drive it, or whether environmental or internal factors trigger it.

Still, this finding offers a new way to think about insect camouflage. Rather than seeing color as fixed, A. festae shows that some species may have evolved to adjust their color as the environment changes, staying hidden by following ongoing changes instead of matching just one background.

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.

Dreams can seem to occur at random, from everyday scenarios to unpredictable, surreal experiences. Now, a new study shows that our personal traits as well as real-life events and experiences actually shape what we dream about, creating patterns in our subconscious.

The study, published in Communications Psychology, analyzed thousands of dream and waking experience reports collected over four years. The researchers used natural language processing tools to quantify the structure of dreams. They found that personal traits like how often someone daydreams, their attitudes about dreams, and their sleep quality all influence dream content. Major shared life events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, also impacted what people dreamed about.

“Our findings show that dreams are not just a reflection of past experiences, but a dynamic process shaped by who we are and what we live through,” said Valentina Elce, researcher at the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca and lead author of the study.

Four Years of Dream Reports

The main dataset included 207 adults aged 18 to 70 who kept a dream diary for two weeks. Each morning, they wrote down everything they remembered from the night’s sleep. Once a day, at a random time, they also recorded what they had been thinking about in the previous 15 minutes. This created a set of waking experience reports to compare with their dream reports.

In addition to the daily records, the researchers collected detailed information about each participant’s sleep habits, cognitive skills, personality, and psychological traits. By the end, they had gathered 1,687 dream reports and 2,843 waking reports from the main group, plus 351 dream reports from 80 people during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Italy in spring 2020.

Dreams Reorganize Reality

When researchers compared participants’ reported dream experiences with situations they reported experiencing while awake, they noticed that dreams don’t simply replay scenarios from our daily lives. Instead, dreams seem to mix familiar places like workplaces, hospitals, and schools into new scenes that blend memories with imagination. Compared to reported waking experiences, the reported dreams tended to focus more on visual details, feature more characters, and make less logical sense. They were also less self-focused and less driven by conscious thinking.

These dream transformations weren’t the same for everyone. Participants who spent more time daydreaming during the day tended to have dreams that jumped rapidly from one scene to another. Those who placed more importance on dreams described them as more vivid and immersive. Sleep quality also played a role: participants who slept poorly showed different patterns in dream content when compared with those who slept better.

Pandemic Influenced Dreams

The lockdown dataset gave researchers a unique opportunity to see how a major external stressor, such as a pandemic, could affect dreams across an entire population.

Dreams recorded during the strict lockdown period were more emotionally intense and mentioned restrictions and limitations more often than dreams from later years. As people adjusted to the new situation, these differences faded. The results suggest that dreams reflect both our personal psychology and the social conditions we share.

AI as a Tool for Studying Consciousness

The team used three large language models, LLaMA 3, ChatGPT-4, and ChatGPT-4 Turbo, to rate dream reports on 16 different features, such as mood, excitement, strangeness, social content, spatial details, and freedom of movement. They combined the scores from the three models and checked them against human ratings. The results showed that these language processing tools could analyze the structure of dream reports as reliably as trained human evaluators. This finding could have uses that extend far beyond this study.

“By combining large-scale data with computational methods, we were able to uncover patterns in dream content that were previously difficult to detect,” Elce said. “This opens new possibilities for studying consciousness, memory, and mental health in a scalable and reproducible way.”

Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.