An AI “mind-reading” tool can reconstruct what you’re looking at based on a brain scan

A new AI tool can guess what you’re looking at just by analyzing your brain scans—and recreate that image with remarkable precision. It can go the other way too, and predict a person’s brain activity based on what they’re looking at.  In the image above, for example, the left-hand image of each pair is what…

Young organs may not be a fountain of youth for recipients

Around this time last year I was attending an aging conference in Manchester, listening to a talk about fly aging, when my phone started pinging. News outlets were reporting that a hot mic had caught Russia’s and China’s leaders discussing the possibility of living forever. “With the developments of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously…

The specter of AI-enabled bioweapons is a wake-up call for biotech

In recent weeks, leaders of some of the biggest AI companies have warned that the very tech they are developing is dangerous. Last weekend, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei argued that AI carries serious risk and that progress should be slowed. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded on X: “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the…

Meet a mouse whose brain cortex is made up of human cells

Multiple cameras tracked a mouse as it wandered around a small arena. A computer charted its position and speed, leaving Pong-like traces on a monitor.  The reason to watch this rodent so carefully? Nearly half its brain volume had been replaced with human cells. The effort to mix the brain tissues of distant species is…

AI models need more data about biology, and OpenAI is paying to create it

Last year, the clinical trial policy analyst Ruxandra Teslo posted an idea for super-charging medical AI systems: use data from failed biotech companies. By bidding at their bankruptcy proceedings, she proposed, it might be possible to obtain detailed regulatory filings, manufacturing strategies, and safety data—information usually kept hidden as valuable trade secrets. She called these…

Donated livers can be made biologically younger

Once an organ is removed from a donor’s body, the clock starts ticking. Surgeons usually flush the organ with a preservative solution, bag it, and put it on ice—where it immediately starts to degrade. The team has a matter of hours to get it into a recipient’s body. There’s another option—one that has been growing…

Meet the under-35s shaping the future of biotech

Every year, MIT Technology Review puts together a list of some of the brightest and best young minds working across science and technology. Our 35 Innovators Under 35 are the ones to watch—people whose research and technical work stands to shape the future of their fields. This year, the list includes nine people who are…

Healthcare AI’s next test is integration
Healthcare AI’s next test is integration

The entrance of major AI companies into healthcare is a meaningful and welcome development, accelerating the technical foundation available to the industry. Their models are increasingly capable of processing long clinical records, interpreting complex terminology, comparing documentation against evidence and generating coherent summaries from large volumes of information. For clinicians, operators, and administrative teams who…

This geneticist’s age-reversal tech could help restore sight

Yuancheng (Ryan) Lu is obsessed with aging. And with eyes. As he steps outside the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, his aviator glasses darken automatically in the sun. Age-related blindness runs in his family. A great-aunt in China, the story goes, was killed crossing a road because she couldn’t see oncoming traffic. And Lu’s own…

A startup claims it’s found a drug to make your blood young

I knew I’d officially become a ‘longevity influencer’ this month when a company called Generation Lab reached out to offer me the chance to write about—and even receive—their new rejuvenation treatment, an injectable combination of two existing drugs which they call 1-Generation. This wasn’t just any antiaging treatment, either. A company fact sheet says that it…