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Meet a mouse whose brain cortex is made up of human cells
“Xenocortical mice” are a dramatic demonstration of organoid technologies. A dramatic demonstration of the combined power of genetic engineering and stem-cell technology to reshape biology.
Neuroscientist engineered mice to stop growing their own cortex and hippocampus. Then they handed the empty space to human brain organoids. Lab-grown neural tissue. The human cells didn’t just survive. They divided, spread, and within weeks took over most of the vacated territory.
The mice with no human cells still walked, still squeaked, still looked like mice. They just couldn’t remember the maze. The mice carrying human tissue could. The human cells weren’t squatting in borrowed space. They were doing cognitive work. Not because a mouse can think like a person. Because the line between species is no longer a wall. It’s a design decision.
- https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/16/1144210/meet-a-mouse-whose-brain-cortex-is-made-up-of-human-cells/
Stop monitoring technologies in isolation. Watch the intersections. The biggest disruptions increasingly happen when previously separate technologies collide.
The other prompts:
Cockroach Milk, How to Blow Your Nose, and Mosquito Printers: The Ig Nobels of 2026
Every year, the prizes recognize the weirdest research that often raises some very serious scientific questions.
https://www.wired.com/story/cockroach-milk-mosquito-printers-ig-nobels-of-2026/
7 Dutch water innovations built for a world of floods and drought
Sponge cities, floating dikes, digital twinning, ocean clean-up, hydraloop, sand motors, and drinking-water filtration.
https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/7-dutch-water-innovations-built-for-a-world-of-floods-and-drought
When We Lose Our Identity to AI
For thousands of years, humans have known who they are by comparing themselves to two things: other humans and the natural world. Artificial intelligence has just become a third mirror — and unlike the other two, this one talks back, remembers everything, and may soon know us better than we know ourselves.
https://futuristspeaker.com/business-trends/when-we-lose-our-identity-to-ai/
Google Mapped a Fruit Fly’s Brain. Now It’s Playing Doom and Super Mario 64
Researchers published a complete map of a male fruit fly’s nervous system, and programmers are already making it play video games.
Phlotonics turns silicon photonics into real-time insight for the bioeconomy
The most powerful, life-saving medicines in the world today are grown inside high-tech tanks filled with living cells. Yet, despite the sophistication of modern biopharma, the scientists and operators running these multi-million-dollar bioreactors are essentially flying blind
American schools weren’t broken until Silicon Valley used a lie to convince them they were—now reading and math scores are plummeting
Read “The shallows”.
https://fortune.com/article/american-schools-silicon-valley-lie-edtech-chromebook-ai-back-to-school/
Your car is selling your data
The amount of data about you that many cars collect — and sell to third parties — is staggering.
https://www.theverge.com/column/994172/your-car-is-selling-your-data
Should we give self-aware AI systems a dignified death, leading futurologist asks
The question of how to ethically decommission an AI system may sound like the least of humanity’s current concerns, but a world-renowned AI expert says it’s a challenge we need to address now—before synthetic consciousness becomes reality.
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-aware-ai-dignified-death-futurologist.html
Gartner Unveils Top Strategic Predictions for 2027 and Beyond
10 billion autonomous agents, cost exhaustion attack creating excessive AI cost, disposable applications, enterprise-owned energy, insurers, not regulators, will drive AI governance, embedded AI FinOps and AI accountability.
