Hi, AI • Tech News

✈️ Scientists Create a Sleep-Improving Patch Engineers at the University of Texas at Austin have developed a soft patch called NEUSLeeP that helps people enter REM sleep faster and stay in that stage longer—without drugs or surgery. 💻 The flexible patch combines gentle ultrasound stimulation with electrodes that read brain activity. This allows it to reach deep brain regions associated with REM sleep while tracking the brain's response in real time from outside the skull. In a study involving 28 people, those who used the patch entered REM sleep 43 minutes earlier and stayed in that stage about 16 minutes longer than during a control night. Both healthy participants and people with sleep problems spent more time in REM sleep, but only healthy participants fell into it faster. 🔍 The benefits weren't limited to sleep timing. In healthy participants, the stimulation increased heart rate variability, and brain scans showed changes in circuits involved in emotion processing. REM sleep disruptions are associated with depression, anxiety, and PTSD—in the future, researchers plan to test whether the patch can help people with these conditions. Would you try a patch like this? ❤️ — Yes, sounds safer than pills 🔥 — I already sleep well @hiaimediaen

🎧 Post-Mortem Human Brain Tissue Learned to Imitate Piano Notes Scientists in Montpellier connected living slices of human cortex to a robotic hand and an electronic piano. After three days of training, the tissue learned to imitate piano notes played by humans by controlling a robotic hand, according to the preprint. Researchers obtained the tissue from donors no more than 12 hours after death. A 300-micron-thick brain slice was maintained in culture on an array of 60 electrodes. They randomly selected six electrodes: three as "motor" channels and three as "sensory" channels. ⏳ For the first three days, the researchers controlled the setup themselves. They sent a weak electrical pulse to one of the "motor" electrodes, causing the robot to bend the finger linked to that electrode and press a key. A microphone picked up the sound, software identified the note, and a pulse was sent to the corresponding "sensory" electrode. At this stage, the tissue wasn't making any choices. It simply had to learn the association between two events that repeatedly occurred one after the other. There was no feedback on whether it got anything right or wrong-learning depended entirely on the timing of the signals. On the fourth day, the researchers reversed the process. A human played one of the notes, the software identified it, and it stimulated the corresponding sensory channel. The researchers then measured which motor channel responded most strongly, and the robot moved the finger associated with that channel. If the tissue had learned the association, the robot pressed the corresponding key. 👍 According to the authors, accuracy increased from 31% to 58.5%, compared with a 33% chance level. Three of the 16 brain slices learned all three associations, while another seven learned two out of three. When the same brain slices were tested using untrained electrodes, performance remained around chance level. Pharmacological inhibition of neurotransmission also disrupted the acquired behavior. The authors interpret the results as evidence of acquired bidirectional plasticity in the human brain tissue. Are experiments like this ethical? ❤️ — Yes, absolutely 🔥 — No, this is wrong @hiamediaen

💡 Scientists Have Identified a Type of Light That May Prevent Nearsightedness Researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and the University of Alabama have found that indigo light with wavelengths of roughly 419–446 nanometers may completely prevent nearsightedness. However, this specific portion of the spectrum is virtually absent from most modern white LED lights, unlike in sunlight. According to the researchers, the finding may help explain a long-known observation: children who spend more time outdoors are less likely to become nearsighted. 🔍 In an experiment with tree shrews—mammals whose eyes are similar to human eyes—the scientists fitted them with tiny glasses containing lenses designed to create a strong signal for myopia development. The tree shrews were then kept under lighting with different spectral compositions, while researchers regularly measured eye length and changes in refraction. When indigo light was added, the eye elongation characteristic of myopia was suppressed. According to study co-author Richard Lang, this effect may also apply to humans. 🌐 The discovery could help address the emerging "myopia epidemic." By 2050, an estimated 5 billion people may have myopia, with nearly 1 billion experiencing high myopia. @hiaimediaen

🔥 Personalized Cancer Vaccine Shows Efficacy in Phase 3 Trial Moderna and Merck have announced positive Phase 3 results for Intismeran Autogene (V940), their personalized mRNA cancer therapy, in patients with melanoma—one of the deadliest forms of skin cancer. The trial included 1,137 patients with stage IIB-IV melanoma whose tumors had been completely removed. Patients received either Intismeran Autogene (V940) together with the immunotherapy drug Keytruda or Keytruda alone. The combination treatment showed a significant improvement over Keytruda alone, reducing the risk of cancer recurrence and distant metastasis. There is no single vaccine that can work for every patient. After surgery, scientists sequence the tumor's DNA and compare it with the patient's healthy cells to identify mutations unique to the cancer. AI then helps select the most promising targets from thousands of candidates—only up to 34 neoantigens can be encoded in a single vaccine. "The idea of creating mRNA therapies tailored to individual patients' cancers has long been little more than a dream, but we have now begun to turn that dream into reality," said Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel. 💰 Moderna shares jumped about 177% in a single day, pushing the company's market capitalization above $69B. For comparison, at the height of demand for its COVID-19 vaccine in September 2021, Moderna was worth more than $180B. ✅ This marks the first positive Phase 3 result for an mRNA cancer therapy. However, the companies have not yet disclosed detailed results on the treatment's effect on overall survival. The treatment is not yet approved, and the trial is continuing to evaluate overall survival. Moderna and Merck plan to present the full results and discuss regulatory filings with health authorities. Is this a breakthrough in medicine? ❤️ — Yes, absolutely! 🤔 — We need the final results @hiaimediaen

👨 An "AI Resurrection" of the Bride's Father Nearly Ruined the Wedding This was the surprise the groom had prepared for his bride. An hour before the reception, the groom's mother handed the wedding planner a flash drive with a "message from the dad" of the bride, a man who had died six years earlier. "He and the groom used AI to make a video where her dad sits in an armchair, blinks, and wishes his daughter a happy marriage. The host and I said right away that it was creepy and that you can't play something like that without the bride's consent," says wedding planner Anna. 🎁 Despite the warnings, the groom insisted on showing the message anyway. The bride was not delighted when she saw the AI clone of her father. "Turn it off, that's not my dad. Even his voice was wrong," she said, and left the wedding. Still, she did come back later, but the evening was already spoiled. Would you be happy with a surprise like that? ❤️ — Yes, it comes straight from the heart 🔥 — No, that's awful! @hiaimediaen