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  Alan Turing and John von Neumann saw it early: the logic of life and the logic of code may be one and the same. Image source: Miguel Romero, Adobe Stock Originally published in thereader.mitpress.mit.edu by Blaise Agüera y Arcas Image source: Miguel Romero, Adobe Stock   I n 1994, a strange, pixelated machine came to life on a computer screen . I t read a string of instructions, copied them, and built a clone of itself — just as the Hungarian-American Polymath John von Neumann had predicted half a century earlier . It was a striking demonstration of a profound idea: that life, at its core, might be computational. This article is adapted from Blaise Agüera y Arcas’s book “ What Is Intelligence? ” An open access edition of the book is available here . Although this is seldom fully appreciated, von Neumann was one of the first to establish a deep link between life and computation . Reproduction, like computation, he showed, could be carried out by machines following ...

Originally published in edition.cnn.com b y Issy Ronald, on September 26, 2.025 Maria Branyas Morera lived to be 117 years old. Courtesy Manel Esteller) When a supercentenarian , someone who is older than 110 years old, is interviewed, they are inevitably asked to share their tips for longevity . But what if their secret could be studied scientifically? What could their genome tell us about ageing and why they avoid the diseases that claim so many other people? If any secrets were uncovered, might they, perhaps, help others to live as long, too? Questions like these are at the heart of a recent paper, published Wednesday in the journal Cell Reports Medicine , which investigated the genome of Maria Branyas Morera , a US-born Spanish woman who died in August 2024 at age 117 years and 168 days, shortly after becoming the world’s oldest living person. Read more  

Immune changes occur in the gut of an Alzheimer’s disease mouse model. A high fiber diet can alleviate these and other disease-related symptoms. Originally published by Laura Tran, PhD, in The Nutshell (The Scientist), on Aug 29, 2025 5 Immune cells can send signals between the gut-brain axis, but researchers found that these cells also migrate into the brain in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease.  Image credit:©iStock, YURY PRONIN The gut is home to a richly diverse community of microbes and nearly 80 percent of the body’s immune cells . This menagerie of gut-derived cel ls send signals along a bidirectional cellular highway, known as the vagus nerve , influencing not only the immune system but also brain function and behavior . Due to this relationship, the gut-brain axis is emerging as a target in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) . However, the immunological features of this axis in AD are not fully understood . This motivated researchers at the Buck Institute for Research on ...

MIT CSAIL researchers developed a tool that can model the shape and movements of fetuses in 3D, potentially assisting doctors in finding abnormalities and making diagnoses. Originally published by Alex Shipps | MIT CSAIL in MT News, on September 15, 2025 Fetal SMPL was trained on 20,000 MRI volumes to predict the location and size of a fetus and create sculpture-like 3D representations. The approach could enable doctors to precisely measure things like the size of a baby’s head and compare these metrics with healthy fetuses at the same age. Credits: Image: Alex Shipps and Yingcheng Liu/MIT CSAIL    For pregnant women, ultrasounds are an informative (and sometimes necessary) procedure . They typically produce two-dimensional black-and-white scans of fetuses that can reveal key insights , including biological sex, approximate size, and abnormalities like heart issues or cleft lip. If your doctor wants a closer look , they may use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) , which us...

MIT engineers find cells hold gene expression on a spectrum, reshaping ideas about cell identity and disease. Originally published by   Aamir Khollam in interestingengineering.com, on  Sep 09, 2025  Epigenetic memory illlstrations MIT engineers have challenged a core idea in biology by showing that epigenetic memory is not simply binary . Their research reveals cells don’t just lock genes in an “on” or “off” state . Instead, they can freeze expression at many points along a spectrum , opening new questions about how cells define their identity. For decades, scientists believed DNA methylation fixed genes in permanent on or off states . This process enables cells to “remember” who they are and prevents, for example, a skin cell from morphing into a neuron. Domitilla Del Vecchio, professor of mechanical and biological engineering at MIT , said her team saw something unexpected. “The textbook understanding was that DNA methylation had a role to lock genes in either...

Identifying the mutations that underly unusual sleep traits can provide insights into the biology of sleep and circadian function in humans . Originally written by Sneha Khedkar, for The Sclientist, on Aug 25, 2025 |   Girl awakening at bed in morning. Child wake up early to go to school. Stretching and yawning. Healthy sleeping.   In the 1990s, a woman approached sleep neurologist Christopher Jones at the University of Utah with an unusual complaint. She would fall asleep very early in the evening and wake up for the day at 2AM . Her odd sleep schedule was preventing her from spending quality time with her loved ones. When she told Jones that some other members of her family experienced a similar sleep pattern , he suspected a genetic cause. Hoping to get some answers, he reached out to Louis Ptáček , a human neurogeneticist at the University of Utah . They suspected that the woman suffered from advanced sleep-phase syndrome : a condition where people find it difficul...

Genetic and anatomical data reveal how the human pelvis acquired its unique shape, enabling our ancestors to walk on two legs. Originally published by Katie Kavanagh , on   27 August 2025 All vertebrate species have a pelvis, but only humans use it for upright, two-legged walking . The evolution of the human pelvis, and our two-legged gait, dates back five million years , but the precise evolutionary process that allowed this to happen has remained a mystery. Now, researchers have mapped key structural changes in the pelvis that first enabled early humans to walk on two legs, and to give birth to babies with large brains and broad shoulders . The study , published in Nature on 27 August 1 , compared the embryonic development of the pelvis between humans and other mammals . They found two crucial evolutionary steps — related to the growth of cartilage and bone in the pelvis — that put humans on a separate evolutionary path to that of other apes. “Everything from the ba...