“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)

“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)

“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)