2023's Biggest Breakthroughs in Biology and Neuroscience
Quanta Magazine's coverage of biology in 2023, including important research progress into the nature of consciousness, the origins of our microbiomes and the timekeeping mechanisms that govern our lives and development.
Read about more breakthroughs from 2023 at Quanta Magazine: www.quantamagazine.org/the-bi...
00:05 The Investigation of Consciousness
Our minds are constantly taking in new external information while also creating their own internal imagery and narratives. How do we distinguish reality from fantasy? This year, researchers discovered that the brain has a “reality threshold” against which it constantly evaluates processed signals.
- Original story with links to research papers can be found here: www.quantamagazine.org/is-it-...
04:30 Microbiomes Evolve With Us
This year, scientists provided clear evidence that the organisms in our microbiome -the collection of bacteria and other cells that live in our guts and elsewhere on our body - spread between people, especially those with whom we spend the most time. This raises the intriguing possibility that some illnesses that aren’t usually considered communicable might be.
-- Original story with links to research papers can be found here: www.quantamagazine.org/global...
08:43 How Life Keeps Time
The rate at which an embryo develops and the timing of when its tissues mature vary dramatically between species. What controls the ticking of this developmental clock that determines an animal’s final form? This year, a series of careful experiments suggest that mitochondria may very well serve dual roles as both the timekeeper and power source for complex cells.
- Original story with links to research papers can be found here: www.quantamagazine.org/what-m...
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Quanta Magazine is an editorially independent publication supported by the Simons Foundation: www.simonsfoundation.org/
For more 2023 breakthroughs in Biology and Neuroscience be sure to read the Quanta Magazine article: www.quantamagazine.org/the-biggest-discoveries-in-biology-in-2023-20231219/
Hey Quanta, please _never_ blur a screenshot! All of your screenshots of these papers blur out the paragraphs of text, e.g. 2:32. Otherwise, well done.
I wish they had better reproductive technology
Please never stop making these year end wrap up videos; what a treat every year!! Tell me where to donate
Come on bryce treat us with more of your own videos, i miss them 🥲
Agree!
This channel is so great. No clickbait, no random shouting or cussing. Only true and interesting science. Strive on!
pretty stupid to compare a science channel to trashy mr. beast kinds of channels innit?
what channels are you watching about science that have random shouting or cussing? lolll
@@nickallbritton3796the issue is, there are a lot of fake science channels in KZhead which exploit the curiosity of viewers by using click baits and other tricks. Channels like quanta magazine are a true relief from them ❤️
Good to know, thanks! 👍🏻
@@nickallbritton3796 it almost feels like half the replies on this channel are AI generated, ngl.
"When imagination gets really vivid, it can be mistaken for reality" if that doesn't just apply to visual perception, but is a broader concept in general, it once again shows how dangerous fanaticism can be.
That's exactly what I thought about. It's interesting to think that those around us may have varying degrees of a reality threshold that are different from our own.
@@rasnreality threshold? the ability to be take in the most reality as possible? I don’t think I take in it all
They're going to get their fucking minds blown when the research and technology develops enough for them to realize that some "crazies" actually are in covert programs that use wireless technology based on The Frey Effect. Some of those people are trying to tell everyone the truth. Semper Fi
@@whatabouttheearth Could you elaborate more?
@@user-rv9jm4vx8ui’ll elaborate. he is literally telling you exactly what he is. one of those crazies.
Just want to say that the graphic design of this video and quanta in general is fire. Gives me goosbumps. I love the grain trend
That's what you got from this upload ! ? ❤ . Eyes mind heart and soul wide open . NO FEAR !
Absolutely fascinating. I'm so proud to be also working as a scientist in life sciences. Biology really is the science of the 21st century!
IA breathing down your neck
@@Kabodanki We use AI in biotechnology aswell, Biology and bioinformatics go hand in hand.
@TheBioCosmos *cough* *cough* AI *cough*
@@24Kemist Yup! Proving mine and @Kabodanki's point 😊
I wish a could get a job finally, but I only have a master in cell and bachelor in molecular and less than 2 years experience in leading a lab in biotech. Oh well some day
QuantaScience is the only science channel now doing annual summary. Keep it up!
No chemistry?
Watched this a few days ago and came back to rewatch. High quality, informative. Amazing video. Wish it was a bit longer haha.
Hahaha 😂
I wish there was more insight into how bonding and attraction works. Many people find that they are asocial, asexual, aromantic, aplatonic, and afamilial. I would love to know how oxytocin and neural wiring work or don't work to form relationships. I'd also like to gain further insights into the contrast between neurodivergence and trauma.
Wow I didn't know afamilial was a thing, that's definitely me. But I think that's because my family failed to bond with me. You'd think bonding would be so straight forward but it's not. I'm demiromantic and passively have no interest in having a relationship, which a lot of people find strange of me. Things like dating or flirting are alien concepts to me. It's very interesting stuff
@@rosezy755 Never heard of demiromantic before. But, I think I am that too oufff. I am not afamilial though
Those subjects are not very important at the moment and don't have much attention from us scientists. Mostly because of little profit to be made. So don't expect much lol
I know they're getting pretty high level explanations, but I think it's really great that we're hearing from the scientists directly involved in the discoveries in this video!
The world has been dreaming for sustsinable development and happiness in all respects and the microbiome along with mitochondrial pleasure may become a rainbow in this domain. Awesome presentation!! Great message!
Contact me please .
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For me, mitochondria will always be the power house of the cell 😊
I never write KZhead comments, but I just found this channel and I am truly in love with the way the content is represented ❤ As a graphic designer: dear colleagues. the illustration and animation work put in these videos is AMAZING ❤
So surreal… thank you truly for sharing.
I really liked the animation and the format of the presentation. Thank you very much
I really love the quality of your videos. They are really very informative!
Very curious to see where that first one goes with hallucinations. I wonder if they're lookling at sleep at all (probably hard to do) since we seem to believe all our silly hallucinations then. In sleep paralysis especially it's interesting to me the things I'll believe I'm really seeing. Different types of drug trips too... be lovely if they were able to look at the variety along witth disease. Suppose the change over time of day too... I am much more likely to hallucinate when I get tired assuming nothing else is at play.
for sleeping, only part of your brain is conscious and most bits to do with reasoning are unconscious so you don't tend to question things. and if you do, you tend to wake up or wake into a lucid dream. however even in a lucid dream where you are aware you are dreaming... most people can't read a book or tell the time because those specific parts of the brain aren't turned on.
All the times I ever had sleep paralysis, I knew I was having it AS it was happening cuz I knew what it was beforehand from studying and learning about the brain. Same thing with DMT, I thought I was taking a rip off a weed pen but it was DMT 🤣 but I used to spend hours reading the Erowid vaults website learning about each drug and the affects, so when that trip hit me, I was SO excited that my first DMT trip was also a complete surprise like it was my birthday 😂 it wasn't my birthday tho, I was just in a stranger's tent at Electric Forest Festival in Michigan 😂
Im usually not phased by my dreams and it doesnt elicit much of an emotional response when i do dream. Like ill wake up and reflect for a moment how unique the dream was (movie-like). But during the dream i dont experience strong emotional responses. I used to as a child and teen as a result of an irrational fear instilled into my mind about demons. Once i came to the realization its not plausible, i stopped having nightmares. That was until recently, where two specific dreams manifested from some subjects id watched in the day. One being serious abuse occurring in the army for females who are murdered and then its claimed to be suicide. Ended up dreaming a male spiked my water and while i was laying in my bed i heard him walk in and stand behind me but i was paralyzed and unable to move or open my eyes. I realized what he had spiked me with was going to kill me and he was going to do not so good things while my life ebbed away and i could do absolutely nothing. I wanted to scream for help, for anything, but i was entirely paralyzed. Another dream just yesterday i was driving in my car to my job and i got into the parking lot lane to find a parking space and a person walked past the front of my car and as he moved past he pulled out a gun, aimed it at the glass in the front of my car directly pointed at my head from a distance and shot me in the head. I woke up with my heart racing because it felt so incredibly real. This dream happened i figure because my sister told me about a guy with road rage showing off his gun from his window (ghetto area). I mean for YEARS i didn’t experience serious responses to dreams until recently those two. It’s kind of weird how now of all times for some odd reason a few dreams have managed to be surreal after so long of being detached from it.
@@cynical-4649 This feels like triggered by some trauma of sorts. I face emotional dreams all the time. I believe that these dreams are just warnings your brain reminds you of so that you remain cautious. If someone can kill and then hide it as suicide; then, what prevents them from killing you and covering it up as a suicide too? That is what your brain is probably concerned about. I also had an irrational fear of demons. I still believe they exist, but I doubt they want anything to do with me. I am a mix of very emotional and stone-hearted-->My dreams half the time tend to be emotional and hyper-realistic-->They are typically about someone from a family ending in a tragedy of sorts and while dreaming I would be crying and panicking-->Although, it is sometimes annoying for some reason my concern over their well being and longevity sometimes enables me to enjoy the crying times because it makes me appreciate them more when I live with them/talk to them/reminds me to spend time with them... I think if you want to understand why... All you have to do is find a great psychologist and ask them to interpret your dreams while providing them with your context. If I as a non-psychology student could interpret your dreams and mine well, I bet an experienced dream psychoanalyst would do it better if they truly care about their patient's wishes
How about , nothing is REAL ❤?.
this video is beautifully made, and incredibly educating and insightful, thank you!
8:26 - excellent admission.
For the first one. It seems like it's not just a matter of the Vividness of the imagination that leads one to think that one is dealing with something real, but also the odds that what one sees could be real or imagined. If one starts to see a green goblin out of nowhere, something in us will assume hallucination not reality regardless of how vivid the green goblin may to be. When something totally real but utterly absurd happens our instincts are to pinch an arm just to ensure one is not dreaming... Am I mistaken?
I am not sure that this is even real: "When something totally real but utterly absurd happens our instincts are to pinch an arm just to ensure one is not dreaming..." I have never pinched myself or questioned reality while I was conscious. But, I did sometimes think of dreams as being real.
How does any of this inhance our spices? Help me understand please .
I love the findings which can be very practical- I would hope that we never increase our natural cycles of timing to develop people. The world is already fast enough as it is. We do not need to hasten our own mortality. Production of supplemental and genetically modified cells for therapy is the backbone of any fantasy lore with healing. If our bodies can adapt to healing faster, while stabilizing and retaining theses cellular sequences, we could accomplish more beyond the limitations of flesh and bone.
So interesting 🙌🏼
Wow fascinating! Thank you
Amazing video, can’t wait for next year!
Please keep doing these. Thank you.
It would be interesting to see if Dijkstra's findings with neuroimagery could be compared with self reported results on an aphantasia test; do people who consider themselves to be aphantasic have a noticeably different experience of imagining a fruit than people who consider themselves not to be?
I bet you could even do it as a follow up by contacting the previous participants of the 2023 study !
You could do the comparison between the subject's two modes of thinking, that is perception and imagination
Absolutely underrated comment, that is such a thought provoking idea. I also wonder if aphantasia would cause similar alterations in neurology, to psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia.
Timing is everything!
Fun mini documentary to watch, hopefully this will get others interested in the field of psychology, microbiology. Anima physics.
Fascinating insights! 2023 witnessed so many exciting advances in neuroscience. Thanks for sharing!
that's f...ng amazing! Omg! ... greetings from Brasil!
Nicely done, thank you
Great Video ....thanks 🥰🥰
Fascinating!
Can we have full video of the interview? Thanks!
Such a great video!
really excited for the physics breakthroughs
Do you think because of the transfer of microbiomes during social activity, that's part of the reason why we feel better/refreshed after? I know there's a gut-brain connection where the gut influences some of emotions, wouldn't this just further that?
It would be interesting to have a comparison between a mare and jillass to understand the difference between the mules they produce.
Convince at least THREE Senses. Starting with sound, then connect visually with them, and typically touch or smell will bring them back into "Our Reality". Yes, I have rocks in my head. Frontal cortex to be exact
A whole Universe inside Us 🙌
fr
1899
ayo what you mean by that 🤨📸
Informative
For mitochondria I really think looking into the sodium potassium pump would help with the study? Cuz isn’t that also involved with the regulation of energy/ dna encryption?? I could be a broken record. But I feel maybe is similar to synaptic functions.
Amazing~
I would argue that the setup was so 'fine' that it was 50/50 that a subject would report "seeing" an image on a screen vs not seeing the image; even if NOT told to imagine anything at all. What I would suggest is to develop a more concrete test for imagination to test this hypothesis.
I love this channel you learn a lot
On the 1st one; kinda interesting cuz when I trip balls I see heaps of stuff happening but remain fairly certain it's all imagined, does the threshold then disappear because I'm conscious of my imagination or is the 'gradual meter' so to say heavily moderated by the perceived probability that something is real? Or both? or something else? Good stuff
Thank you scientists. May dogma fizzle out of our cultures and accelerated scientific progress ensue.
sometimes we see some patterns like a sketch or something when seeing a blurry or noise image. Like say we see some cracks that look like a face or something, this sometimes when asked to someone else they may not see what we see. So even though the noisy screen does not display that lines someone might see them (our brain might be overlap them onto the screen). Am i right?
The "internal timer" you refer to is its Frequency, use the frequencies opposing "internal timer" to speed it along. For instance, using love to clear hate and harmony to heal chaos.
Yes Djikstra, that is because reality is sense perception. Imagination is cognition of sense perception. There is no reality, but sense perception and cognition, which is why they act the same way. Cognition makes sense of sense perception, but it is also free from sense perception, which allows imagination to exist. Cognition is thought. So cognition of sense perception is imagination. Does this make sense? Gotta love these scientists.
You know that thing when you look at a bright light and you get a sort of dot or blurred line in your visual field that often looks colored or dimmed, that effect has absolutely nothing to do woth anything in your eyes, and if you train yourself you can make those effects apear, disappear and change even when you didn't look at a bright light, this is because it is essentially a lagging adjustment your visual cortex makes to male you see contrasts better it is hard to do if you cant produce images by visualisation already, but it can be done, one way to see it vividly, is to use a decently strong led lamp and look straight ahead while you drag it across your visual field, while not following the light with your eyes. This produces a very easy to see light spaghetti, in a dark room you can see it very easily, and it is not that hard to train yourself to make it entierly disappear and come back at will. This effect is not about visualisation in some more obtuse way, it is really like seeing it, and it is pretty much the same effect. When you have learned to do this it can also be done without the might but it is more difficult, but with practice you can see and imagine images in full detail as well after a while, but the more detailed the more like dreaming and the less like seeing it becomes, i suspect that this is not necessarily about different parts of the visual cortex being used, more so that when you start seeing more detail the input from your eyes become more and more ignored and so the sensation of seeing actually feels different as well.
i am diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and ive always said if i imagine that i will see something i ALWAYS ALWAYS see it, so before she even mentioned schizophrenia i was already thinking about bringing this up to my psychiatrist
Interesting stuff 🤔
How do this work for people who have aphantasia? When you ask them to imagine diagonal lines, they can't, but they still have imagination and can plan for the future.
This particular test wouldn't work with people with aphantasia, but fundamentally it's a completely different thing. This talks about "once the brain generates something, how can it tell if it's real?", but it says nothing about the actual process that allows the brain to "make things". In the case of aphantasia, they cant make *images* in their mind, but, for example, they can tell their inner monologue is not a voice coming from outside, so the process of reality treshold very much does exist in people with aphantasia, its just that not as many processes use it
Thanks heroes, God bless good friends , great noble people, amen
2:15, wouldn't imagination when specific objects are shown activate areas in the brain responsible for recall of that object? (like a banana) Conversely wouldn't being shown faint lines cause the mind to try to make something of them since they are not necessarily specific objects (like staring at clouds or a patterned wall for a very long time we can imagine and see things that arent there but are relative to the information presented)? I'm just curious if the perky effect has been thoroughly disproven or if these are 2 totally independent phenomenon?
This can help in the treatment of the healing process of different types of damage and control of different diseases 👍
Have any breakthroughs been made regarding longevity?
Can u plz link the research paper
I have to say, from the 3 "breakthroughs" only the cell-acceleration thing sounds like something that is actually new knowledge. The microbiome thing is known for decades now too
This really peaks my curiosity as to the role of mitochondrial regulation in development of the nervous system and the development of autism!
It would be interesting if there was also biggest breakthrough in environmental science and ecology
Very interesting
amazing
"You are the average of 5 people closest to you" have never been so true
Do you know what this meant, we don’t need to build large Language models for specific function for imagination or perception. I work with autogenerate agents, where each agent is given one task and their responsibility is to do that specific task. In this case, one agent describes what it should imagine. The other agent creates image out of it and send to the original thinking agent. This happens back and forth, but in our mind this communication happens so fast.
Over their heads professor.
What is "risperidal" ? (Linnaean classification) What does it eat and what are it's metabolic products and (pheremone-like vs excreted) byproducts ?
It seems to me the way we distinguish between imagination and reality is relatively simple: we ask other people or look for feedback from other sources. It's why we ask " Are you seeing this? Did that just happen?" when something unexpected occurs. I think when you see or hear things that other people deny, your response will depend on your socialization (i.e. how much have you been taught to trust your own experiences?) and the relative intensity of the experience (i.e. did you just glimpse it once or is it ongoing?). I think the fact this is more of a spectrum makes a ton of sense to me; kids have a far more fluid idea of imagination and reality, but are socialized over time to discount the more imaginary aspects of their inner worlds and to distrust their own experiences. Women especially are socialized to question their experiences and discount things that have happened to them. If someone has persistent hallucinations, this may be distressing for many reasons, but one of them is probably that you can't make your internal sense of reality match up with what other people are able to confirm.
And that's not even to mention anthropological studies of peoples who believe in the supernatural, where someone reporting that they'd seen a spirit would be a completely normal thing to hear. In that case, a sensory stimulus that we might call a hallucination, their society would consider perfectly real. I highly recommend the book Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes for a perspective on such a society.
As long as discoveries are for humanity and don;t have a price tag.
This is so cool
Nice, just wonder who is the designer created those beautiful graphics/animation (like the brain and banana)? Would love to know them
Thanks Cornell biologist
I wish there was a recap of discoveries in earth and planetary science:(
I think it is more of a disease originating in our social apparatuses, and the behaviour and stressed states create a scenario where you close of and can begin sort of dreaming while awake in a sense. This doesn't account for everything, but i think the anti social aspect is really the more defining trait of that particular disease and we habe many predespositions that can make it easier or harder to hallucinate visually or audibly. Have you ever heard of a sick person get hallucinations that are abstract and not at all anthropomorphized innterms of agency or narrative prior to showong other symptoms, i havent reviewed a lot of cases, but i think the anti social and mental isolation is the primary aspect and hallucination can happen like it can in any healthy brain, but people have different predisposition to enable healthy hallucination so to speak.
the question they're trying to answer is different though. they are trying to see what happens in the brain/on a molecular level, not to answer why hallucinations exist.
From a mind-body interaction perpective, I wonder if the nature of the reality threshold is physical or mental or a mixture of both.
Yes! What type of experiment do you think would have to be developed to test this?
@@naanbread7896 Well, I am thinking about testing it with newborns. Their brains are supposed to see more than imagine. The brain, specifically the default mode network, is a simulator. I guess the reality threshold has to do with the way the brain filters sensory signals which are compared with the simulated mental image for prediction errors.
As someone who has psychoses problems(schizophrenia) Having good sleep and food comes a long way in being able to better distinguish between the imagined and reality. Being fit and then imagining or thinking back of a image or something someone said. Is a no brainer. Try that when your exhausted and sickly.
mitichondria, the pacemaker of the cell!
Can you please post chemistry updates???
that bit about the mitochondria producing adenosine triphosphate makes me think of what exercise and vitamins people would be doing. I myself am starting to use N-Acetyl Cysteine for hopes that it might clear up my make up when it comes to a foundry job. Clearly being around carcinogens is one thing but its when you add smoking and alcohol to the equation instead of vitamin b and amoxicillin that it begins to take a huge toll on health.
Has anyone checked for mitochondrial differences in cancer cells? Could there be chemical present that stimulates/activates and regulates a metabolic governor in the mitochondria?
Excellent point.
powerhouse of the cell!
This shit is why i love biology
Wow. And the mitochondria are not even an original part of the cell. They’re microscopic aliens precisely tuning life on the planetary level. This new role is both surprising and extremely enlightening. It’s an explanation of the mechanics of evolution and differentiation. It’s good to see some folks are thinking out there.
Wow, the mitochondria truly is the powerhouse of the cell.
I'm curious what the Perky Effect would mean to someone with aphantasia
Biology and Neuroscience are starting to scratch the surface of what the Masters have known for thousands of years. Congratulations.
which is?
@@Danny-qt5vt You have to find that out on your own, just like I did. I was an atheist at one point, but I did my own research on the Mysteries, and I now understand that all of science is based on very old mystical Hermetic knowledge. I don't think I can say much more than this, because nobody who has to ask these questions seems to have the capacity to understand. Not trying to offend you, but it really is a personal quest of understanding... I majored in biochemistry, but I realized that science is actually the last one to the party of knowledge, and this idea is just not explainable to people who don't already know about history and the Mystery schools of ancient civilizations.
anyone else notice Ms. Cuadros's necklace shifting/flipping up and down as she was talking? 9:07
Hi what is the name and title of the first researchers? thanks :)
Wow!
The imagination study could be very clarifying for NDEs and other type of paranormal phenomena. It would be interesting to map the brain of someone during an OBE and see how it relates to
I approve the fact that the lady observed the tradition of announcing the true nature of mitochondria...
I gotta say, this video was pretty interesting but also a bit sketchy at the same time. I mean, sure, the things they talked about with the brain, microbiome, and mitochondria was quite informative, but I'm not entirely convinced about how in-depth their analysis was and what the implications of their findings could be. They started off with the Perky effect and how the brain can tell the difference between real and imagined sensations, which is an amazing idea. But I'm not sure how useful that is in the real world, other than just being cool to know. They also talked about how the microbiome affects our health, which is really important, but they didn't go into a lot of detail about how exactly that happens and how we can use that knowledge to help people.
Time and energy are always connected in physics!
It's because energy is a measure of the capacity to do something, and action requires time, by definition.
@@grantbartley483 As the Numidian Berber (now 🇩🇿) St Augustin said : What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not.
@@quandide Time is the only unity of the metric system that is not based in a constant of nature abstract from other things. It is based in the nuclear resonance frequency of Cs. Think about it. Is the only constant that is still defined by something arbitrary that varies from atom to atom instead of a fundamental constant. That shows that we don't really understand time. We observe it, we know when it dilates, but we don't understand it.
@@quandide Yes. We can say that the reality of time is whatever metaphysical principle is responsible for the experience of duration (or for the duration of experience, if you prefer). So time is intimately connected with experience too, since no durationless experience. Beyond that, it seems difficult to say anything useful.
Niceeeee❤❤❤
As a teenager who's growing slowed when he was 14, I want to see if the 3rd research topic can apply to Mitochondria in my bones. I wanna see if their gene regulatory networks can be stimulated to give me an extra height boost before it's too late 👀
interesting idea
You could probably just drink a bunch of milk to get your growth spurt.
The Mitochondria is the Clocktower of the Cell?!
I admire scientists and I am grateful that some people find this fascinating because, to me, it's the most boring thing in the world. I was attracted by the title but gave up watching halfway through.
it's that time of the year again
Is this the greatest breakthrough in neuroscience? Gradual meter? Nevertheless, very diverse speakers. Great job.