DTN 037: A Single-Cell Atlas of Human Brain Just Dropped

The Big Picture

A Groundbreaking Human Brain Cell Atlas Just Dropped

“On Friday, an international team of researchers shared an extraordinarily detailed atlas of human brain cells, mapping its staggering diversity of neurons. The atlas was published as part of a massive package of 21 papers in the journal Science, reporting findings from the BRAIN Initiative’s last five-year funding program, BICCN (BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network). The NIH allocated $100 million for this endeavor, aiming to catalog brain cell types in more depth than ever before.

With hundreds of billions of cells tangled together, mapping the whole brain is like trying to plot every star in the Milky Way. These papers bring scientists closer to being able to identify how someone’s cells work—and how they might falter—from how their genes are regulated. The researchers highlighted several cell types that appear to be strongly linked to neuropsychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. They hope that by understanding the brain at this level of detail, they’ll someday be able to trace brain diseases back to their genetic roots, and find treatments that target them.

“Prior to this data set, it was just a hypothesis that the brain was really complicated,” adds Amy Bernard, the director of life sciences at the Kavli Foundation, who was not involved in this project. “Now, we can see the cellular diversity and wrap our arms around the problem.” (WIRED)

First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by 21 year old computer science student

“The Herculaneum papyri, ancient scrolls housed in the library of a private villa near Pompeii, were buried and carbonized by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. For almost 2,000 years, this lone surviving library from antiquity was buried underground under 20 meters of volcanic mud. In the 1700s, they were excavated, and while they were in some ways preserved by the eruption, they were so fragile that they would turn to dust if mishandled. How do you read a scroll you can’t open?

For hundreds of years, this question went unanswered…until Luke Farritor, a contestant of the Vesuvius Challenge, became the first person in two millennia to see an entire word from within an unopened scroll this August. For that, we are thrilled to award Luke a $40,000 First Letters Prize, which required contestants to find at least 10 letters in a 4 cm2 area in a scroll.” (Vesuvius Challenge)

A comprehensive blueprint for the settlement of Mars

“By 2033, two space agencies (NASA and the CNSA) plan to commence sending crews and payloads to the Red Planet. These and other space agencies envision building bases there that could eventually lead to permanent settlements and the first "Martians." In a recent paper, a Leiden University researcher offers a roadmap for a Martian settlement that leverages recent advancements in technology and offers solutions that emphasize sustainability, efficiency, and the well-being of the settlers.” (Leiden University)

‍

Deep Tech News

• NASA's Psyche Mission Launches to Mysterious Metallic Asteroid
• Biotech startup Mana.bio launches AI-fueled programmable drug therapy
• UK's nuclear fusion site ends experiments after 40 years
• Tumor-destroying sound waves receive FDA approval for liver treatment in humans
• Washington's cryptocurrency lobby is scrambling to contain their "Hamas problem"
• Toyota joins race to try and bring solid-state batteries to mass production
• EHang receives eVTOL certification in China and will begin commercial operations
• New A.I. Tool Diagnoses Brain Tumors on the Operating Table
• ‘Incredible Milestone’ Reached on MARVEL Microreactor Enables Project to Proceed

‍

JPEG of the Week

‍

Peer Review

• Large language models provide useful feedback on research papers
• One small step towards lunar roads, a potentially giant leap for creating infrastructure on the moon
• Scientific productivity as a random walk
• Electric Vehicles Play a Surprising Role in Supporting Grid Resiliency
• NREL Explodes Solar Panel Waste Myths
• Researchers tested AI watermarks and broke all of them
• Lasers deflected using air
• First of its kind material can reconnect severed nerves
• Magnetic fusion plasma engines could carry us across the solar system and into interstellar space
• Record-high 3D printing rate reached by acousto-optical scanning
• Creating a broadband diffractive graphene orbital angular momentum metalens by laser nanoprinting
• Researchers 3D-Print Moon Rover Wheel Prototype With NASA

‍

Funding x M&A

• U.S. hands out $7B for hydrogen hubs
• Didi’s autonomous vehicle arm raises $149M from state investors
• Saronic, a defense startup building autonomous ships, raises $55M
• Japanese VC Beyond Next Ventures raises $67.7M in a first close of its deep tech fund
• Augmented reality startup Mojo Vision raised a $43.5M Series A
• SHINE Technologies, a next-generation fusion tech company, raised $70M in funding
• 3D printing startup Azul raised a $15M Series A
• Bedrock Energy, a startup building geothermal systems, raised an $8.5M seed round
• Arctop, a brain decoding software platform, raised a $10M Series A
• Minds.ai, a semiconductor manufacturing startup, raised a $5.3M seed round
• Alzheimer’s drug startup AstronauTx raised a $61M Series A
• Regent Craft, an all-electric seaglider startup, raised a $60M Series A
• Triastek, a 3D-printing startup for the pharmaceutical industry, raised a $20.4M pre-C round
• Pixelgen Technologies, a spatial proteomics startup for single cells, raised a $7.3M Series A

‍

Miscellanea

iOS 17 forces woman named ‘Siri’ to change her name / Playing Pokemon Red with Reinforcement Learning / How AI could supercharge battery research / Quantum Physics Isn't as Weird as You Think. It's Weirder / The Chatbots Are Now Talking to Each Other / The Annular Solar Eclipse Will Decimate US Solar Energy Output / Officially extinct fish is alive and well, according to DNA analyses / First supernova detected, confirmed, classified and shared by AI / The ozone hole above Antarctica has grown to three times the size of Brazil / Borges and AI / Metals fuse together in space / The Soviet spacecraft cemetery in the Pacific / Man trains home cameras to help repel badgers and foxes / Scientists discover a new phase of high-density, ultra-hot ice / The Creepy New Digital Afterlife Industry / We Finally Know Where Oranges and Lemons Come From / MoMA Acquires First Generative AI Artwork

‍

a digital agency built for the future.

Haus Biographics is a digital agency in NYC that specializes in marketing and communications for deep tech organizations. Check out our website, follow us on Twitter, or say hello@hausb.io

‍