Science The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week Want to become a creative genius? Plus "spontaneous" human combustion and other weird things we learned this week. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Have you ever tried napping with something heavy? What's the weirdest thing you learned this week?

Did the World Just Gain Hundreds of Millions of Alzheimer's Patients? A new definition of Alzheimer's includes people without symptoms. Experts are fiercely divided over whether that makes sense--and whether the new drugs really help. Many have heralded a golden age of Alzheimer's research, excited by the promise of new amyloid-targeting antibodies. Yet a large meta-study of such antibodies concluded that they probably result in "little to no difference" in the decline of memory and of cognitive ability. This July, some ten thousand people descended on London for the Alzheimer's Association International Conference. Another three thousand of us joined virtually. I'm an anthropologist, accustomed to conferences where croissants at coffee breaks count as a luxury. This one opened with six trumpeters dressed as Buckingham Palace guards, followed by dancers who discoed, vogued, and high-kicked through the history of British pop. After the first day's sessions, participants dispersed to parties; at one, singers in sequins belted out covers while someone played an illuminated, transparent violin. One night, the London Eye was lit purple to honor the people in attendance. The mood matched the spectacle. Joanne Pike, the Alzheimer's Association's president and C.E.O., announced that recent advances had brought the campaign against the disease to a "pivotal moment." Maria Carrillo, its chief science officer, hailed a groundswell of progress. That optimism followed decades of disappointment. Between 1974 and 2020, the U.S. government spent roughly twenty billion dollars on Alzheimer's research without seeing the approval of a single treatment designed to act on the disease's underlying biology, let alone stop or reverse its course. Today, Alzheimer's afflicts roughly one in nine Americans over sixty-five and, along with related dementias, has been estimated to cost the economy about three-quarters of a trillion dollars a year. In surveys, it ranks with cancer as the disease people fear most. It typically starts by robbing patients of recent memories--conversations they just had, where they put important objects--before corroding the basic functions of adult independence, from paying bills to managing medications. Eventually, it leaves patients unable to speak, move, swallow, or recognize close relatives.

We fight our nervous energy--but maybe we misunderstand what it's telling us. Long ago, when I was a fledgling journalist, I learned from an eminent editor about the concept of . It was a German word, he explained, that referred to the ability to sit still for a long time. "If you want to be a professional writer, you need," he told me. Although it was important to "get out there" and "report," it was also inevitable that I'd have to plant myself at a desk for whole days and weeks, focussing unremittingly on the production of words; many talented writers, he suggested, had failed to progress because they wrote beautifully but not for long enough.

Bridge Neurotech is planning to build a wearable brain-computer interface that uses ultrasound. Sam Altman-backed Merge Labs has a new competitor in the race to build a brain-computer interface powered by ultrasound. Bridge Neurotech is launching with $13.5 million in funding, including from venture firm General Catalyst, which has also backed major tech companies such as Anduril, Anthropic, Airbnb, and Stripe. The company is the latest in a growing field of startups that aim to translate signals from the brain into useful actions. Elon Musk's Neuralink, plus Synchron, Paradromics, and Precision Neuroscience are all working on brain-computer interfaces to help people who have lost the ability to move or speak.

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Neuroscientists in the US have successfully adapted mice to have functioning human cells inside their own brains. The researchers hope that potential treatments for psychiatric and neurodevelopmental diseases that only occur in humans could now be tested on the laboratory rodents. While mice with brains that are partly human might sound like a Kafkaesque experiment, the scientists said these are not mice that think like humans. The animals are genetically engineered - and surgically altered - so that some of their brain tissue is human. The scientists said their work, published in the journal Nature, external, was carried out with independent ethical scrutiny.

The device made by Flow Neuroscience is approved by the FDA and could help people get off antidepressants--but it costs $2,200. An at-home wearable for the treatment of depression is now available by prescription in the US. With roughly one in six American adults taking an antidepressant medication, Swedish firm Flow Neuroscience is positioning its device as an alternative to traditional drugs. But at the current four-figure price tag, it might take a while for the futuristic-looking headset to catch on with patients. Worn on the forehead for 30 minutes a day and operated with an app, the device provides low-intensity electrical stimulation to the left frontal lobe of the brain, an area involved in regulating mood and emotions.

Who Cares if AI Is Conscious--It's Basically Alive While philosophers ponder AI consciousness, the models have ideas of their own. I spent the waning days of summer grinding away at columns and working on a feature. But I missed a chance at a striking change of scenery--cruising the Galápagos with about a dozen prominent philosophers studying consciousness. The invite described morning classroom discussions tackling knotty questions on the nature of consciousness with marquee names in the field. Afternoons would be spent on island exploration and wading and snorkeling with rare biological species. One look at the agenda and my editor nixed my attendance.

Dogs have developed the ability to parse human speech in ways that mirror our own. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. No, that's not why dogs tilt their heads. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy . "Do you want a, Milton?" "Do you want to go for a, Bernie?" Annnnd, cue the head tilt from your dog. Many dogs turn their heads, perk their ears, and stand at attention when their humans say certain words. There's some serious science and fascinating theories about dogs' ability to understand language.

Image caption, As beautiful as it is complex - a male fly's brain Scientists have managed to compare the fine detail of the brains of male and female flies for the first time, identifying differences they say explain male aggression, courtship and their singing of love songs. The scientists in Cambridge mapped all 124m connections of nerve cells in a male fly's brain, having done the same for a female fly two years ago. The team are clear that the research won't explain differences between men and women because our behaviour is far more complex. But the research could help scientists better understand human behaviour and conditions in which genetic differences affect brain wiring, such as autism and schizophrenia. Prof Gregory Jefferis, of the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology and University of Cambridge, who co-led the research, told BBC News that the breakthrough was a really important new avenue in neuroscience, likening it to the invention of a powerful new telescope in increasing our understanding of the Universe.