Tiny clusters of brain cells just 'read' braille by touch

At the University of Bristol, clusters of lab-grown brain cells less than a millimetre wide have done something remarkable: they received the feel of braille letters as electrical patterns and passed on signals clear enough for a simple algorithm to name the letter 83% of the time when three clusters worked together. The peer-reviewed work, in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, is an early step toward biohybrid computing — machines that borrow the brain's astonishing energy efficiency. First author Tianyi Liu is careful: the clusters have not learned anything yet. But they can listen, and answer.

SDG 9 · Industry, innovation and infrastructure — Mechanism: tech innovation