Daily briefing: The brain builds a sentence neuron by neuron

You have full access to this article via your institution. Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here . Researchers transplanted cells between embryos of a warty comb jelly ( Mnemiopsis leidyi , right) and a starlet sea anemone ( Nematostella vectensis , left) — organisms that belong to entirely different branches of the tree of life. (Paul R. Sterry/Nature Photographers Ltd/Alamy, Phil Degginger/Science Photo Library) Researchers have discovered a new ‘embryonic organizer’ in marine predators called comb jellies (Ctenophora) and successfully transplanted them into sea anemones (Cnidaria). Organizer cells determine an organism’s body axis — a map that plots where various parts of the embryo should develop. After the transplant, the anemones developed a second body axis, complete with extra mouths and pharynxes . The findings support the idea that the emergence of organizing activity was a key step in animal evolution, says evolutionary developmental biologist Ulrich Technau. Nature | 6 min read Reference: Nature paper Researchers have tracked the electrical activity of individual brain cells during conversation in real time, capturing how sentences are built before a single word is spoken. By observing these neurons in a brain region called the frontotemporal cortex, scientists have discovered that individual neurons act as specialized linguistic building blocks . …