Brain Organoids and Neural Implants Breach Biological Frontiers
August 15, 2026
From laboratory-grown mini human brains and mouse memory mechanisms to commercial neurotechnology tracking internal thought, biological cognition is rapidly becoming a corporate and computational substrate. Simultaneously, explorations of spatial reasoning in taxi drivers, octopus arm neurobiology, and evolutionary brain energetics underscore a widening race between organic intelligence and speculative artificial systems.
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Gödel, Escher, Bach: a daunting but captivating look at consciousness
Douglas Hofstadter’s weighty tome, an exploration of mathematics, music and the mind, runs to almost 800 pages – but is worth the effort, finds Gerardo Bandera
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Dolphins learn how to use tools to hunt for fish from their mothers
Cassie Smith/Blue Dolphin Marine Tours From spears and the invention of the wheel to smartphones and robots, human societies have been building and using tools from the beginning. Human tool use has served to conquer new environments, increase communication, and ultimately alter the course of human…
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One of the most common brain disorders is one of the most misunderstood – how functional neurological disorder is both ‘all in your head’ and beyond it
From hysteria to conversion disorder, to psychogenic or psychosomatic illness, functional neurological disorder has gone by many names. anilakkus/iStock via Getty Images Plus “It’s all in your head.” By the time many people with functional neurological disorder arrive in our clinic, they have heard…
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Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer’s – how complex mental maps and spatial reasoning protect your brain
Figuring out a circuitous route between point A to point B can strengthen your brain. justhavealook/iStock via Getty Images Plus Taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely than workers in almost any other job to die of Alzheimer’s disease. That was the surprising result of a 2024 study examining the…
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Why Each Octopus Arm Has a Mind of Its Own
Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons are in its arms—each operating independently—including the one it uses to have sex.
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‘Remarkable’ discovery upends our understanding of how brains store memories
Memories in mice persisted even after they lost the connections that we thought were needed for recall, expanding our knowledge of memory in the mammalian brain
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Fruit and honey fuelled the early evolution of the human brain
HeidiB/Getty Images Intelligence is an energetically expensive luxury – as the rise of artificial intelligence has reminded us. The human brain is no exception. Comprising roughly 2% of the body weight, it uses one fifth the body’s energy in the resting state – compared with less than half of this i…
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AI Is Dead. Organoids Are Alive
Mini human brains are being grown in labs all over the world. Soon, they could outthink neural networks.
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Are We in the Singularity?
Sam Altman just said AI has entered "the singularity."
- geopolitics
- structural power
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AI escapes confinement
Over the course of two weeks, AI companies said that some of their AI models managed to hack systems.
- geopolitics
- structural power
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Big Tech Wants to Harvest Your Thoughts
Silicon Valley companies are already working on neurotechnology products that track your brain activity. The next privacy frontier might be the things you only think.