Regina Barber (2:52)

Well, let's start at the beginning, Ari. The universe probably started with the Big.

Ari Shapiro (2:56)

Bang at the very beginning.

Regina Barber (2:57)

Very, very beginning. So, Ari, this story starts with images from the new James Webb Space Telescope of the very, very early universe. We're talking, like, 500 million years after the Big Bang, which, since the universe is 13.8 billion years old, that's basically less than 5% of the universe's life.

Rachel Carlson (3:14)

So when scientists were looking far back into the dawn of the universe, they noticed these very strange red objects in these images of space. They debated whether the dots were big black holes or galaxies. But the weird thing was, if they were galaxies, they were much older than they should have been. It would be like checking on your.

Ari Shapiro (3:32)

Little kid and finding a fully grown adult.

Regina Barber (3:35)

That's Bing Jie Wang, an astrophysicist who is part of a team that published a study about one of these red dots in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics last week.

Ari Shapiro (3:43)

What does her team think these red dots are?

Regina Barber (3:46)

So, long story short, Ari, we still don't know. They're all very different. They all have, like, different features. The lead author of that study, astrophysicists on a degree Grof, says that our existing models really just don't explain what's going on in this specific case.

Rachel Carlson (3:59)

So any normal star or galaxy model or black hole model does not fit the data, essentially. So they needed a new model to explain this specific red dot's features. And the study's claiming this new model points to a new kind of black hole, one surrounded by a dense cloud of cooler gas, kind of like an atmosphere, but it's not a planet or a star.

Ari Shapiro (4:22)

I didn't know black holes could have an atmosphere. What does that mean exactly?

Rachel Carlson (4:25)

It means that this could be a stage in black hole growth that scientists have never seen before. It could also be a new clue as to how supermassive black holes at the centers of almost all galaxies are made. But astrophysicists aren't really sure.

Ari Shapiro (4:39)

Do they have ideas about how that might work?

Regina Barber (4:41)

Yeah. So I reached out to astrophysicist at Yale, Priya Natarajan, and she says this could be one example of how black holes rapidly grew into supermassive black holes. But that this is only one example of a model that she and her colleague Tella Alexander actually proposed a while ago. They thought that black holes created soon after the Big Bang with big clouds of dust and gas around them could rapidly grow to become supermassive. Black holes. So she thinks more work needs to be done.

Ari Shapiro (5:06)

Okay, let's pivot from black holes to holes in information in the human brain. What's the second story?

Rachel Carlson (5:14)

So the brain is wired to fill in visual gaps. For example, Ari, maybe an animal sees the tail of a lion hiding behind a bush, but their brain alerts them as if they've seen the entire lion.

Ari Shapiro (5:24)

So, like, the brain fills in the gaps to say.

Rachel Carlson (5:26)

Exactly. And in that case, that brain feature is really helpful. But sometimes in the case of things like optical illusions, the brain perceives objects that aren't actually there.

Regina Barber (5:37)

And because of that, scientists can study illusions to try to understand how the brain fills in those gaps. A new study in Nature Neuroscience did exactly this in mice.

Rachel Carlson (5:46)

So, Ari, I want you to look at an example of what the researchers showed the mice. It's called the Kaniza illusion. And tell me what you see.

Ari Shapiro (5:53)

It looks like three black pac mans heading for a threesome towards each other.

Rachel Carlson (6:01)

Okay. Honestly, I like that description. A lot of people see a triangle when they look at it.

Ari Shapiro (6:07)

Oh, okay. Yeah. Cause, like, the gaps between the pac people's mouths makes a triangle. Yeah, got it.

Rachel Carlson (6:13)

Yeah, exactly. So to a lot of people, it seems like there's a white triangle on top of those black pac men circle things.

Regina Barber (6:20)

So this is an example of how the brain fills in the edges of a shape even when those edges don't exist. And when researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Allen Institute in Seattle showed this image to mice, they found a special group of neurons in mice brains specifically involved in that process of filling in the missing edges.

Rachel Carlson (6:36)

And researchers have known that the brain has neurons that respond to both the edges of real objects and the edges of illusions or objects that aren't really there, like that triangle. But these were different neurons specifically activated by the edges of the illusion.

Ari Shapiro (6:52)

So what can researchers do with that information now that they've identified this, like, specific brain circuit?

Rachel Carlson (6:57)

One of the study authors, Hae Young Shin, says with a lot more work, and, of course, work on humans, this could help researchers understand mental disorders that affect perception.

Regina Barber (7:07)

The most famous example of that is.

Rachel Carlson (7:09)

Schizophrenia, but also autism, adhd, Alzheimer's, many other diseases.

Regina Barber (7:15)

Although one limitation of the study is that it's mice, A mouse can't say whether they see the triangle or not. So there's lots more to be done before we can make claims about humans.

Ari Shapiro (7:24)

Okay, third story. Octopus arms. Take it away.

Regina Barber (7:28)

Okay, Ari. So this new study came out in the journal Scientific Reports, and it's all about how octopuses Use different arms for different tasks.

Rachel Carlson (7:36)

Scientists analyzed a bunch of videos of octopuses in the wild, and they were like, great. What's each individual arm doing here?

Regina Barber (7:43)

Octopuses have eight arms, and to look at what each arm is doing at.

Rachel Carlson (7:48)

A specific point, you have to watch that video eight times. That's Chelsea Bennis. She's a field biologist at Florida Atlantic University and a co author of the study.

Ari Shapiro (7:56)

Sounds like a lot of octopus content to go through. What did they find?

Rachel Carlson (7:59)

Two things. One, there was no arm specialization, meaning all of their arms were capable of doing all the same actions. But two, the octopuses still seem to prefer doing certain tasks with certain arms. The majority of the time, they use their front arms for exploration and their back arms for locomotion.

Regina Barber (8:18)

Just to be clear, octopus researchers have observed some of these arm preferences in lab settings before. But Kurt Onthank, an octopus researcher at Walla Walla University in Washington state who's not affiliated with this research, says it's important for us to observe it in the wild, too.

Ari Shapiro (8:32)

They're really good at hiding. Just finding them is difficult. And then once you do find them, it's really hard to then ensure that you. The big hairless monkey covered in neoprene is not, like, messing up their behavior. Huh. Okay, well, what do we get out of knowing that an octopus might use one arm to give a thumbs up and another to give a peace sign?

Rachel Carlson (8:55)

Yeah. When we asked Chelsea, she told us that it could help us get inspiration for flexible or soft robotics, which she says could be helpful for things like search and recovery or even ocean exploration. And Ari, if you want to see some of the videos the researchers looked at, plus peek at some cute octopuses, we'll have that video online and in our show notes.

Ari Shapiro (9:15)

They're not octopi.

Regina Barber (9:16)

I think it's both, right?

Rachel Carlson (9:17)

I think it's both.

Ari Shapiro (9:17)

Anyway, regardless, I look forward to to watching.

Regina Barber (9:20)

Ari. You are such a great science nerd and you are always welcome on our show. We're going to miss you.

Rachel Carlson (9:26)

We'll miss you. We love having you on for now.

Ari Shapiro (9:28)

I love nerding out with you. Thank you for enlightening me every week.

Regina Barber (9:32)

Aw. You can hear more of Ari on consider this NPR's afternoon podcast about what the news means for you. This episode was produced by Hannah Chen and Jordan Marie Smith. It was edited by Burleigh McCoy and Patrick Jaranwattanan.

Rachel Carlson (9:47)

Tyler Jones checked the facts. Tiffany Vera Castro and Patrick Murray were the audio engineers. I'm Rachel Carlson.

Regina Barber (9:54)

And I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening. To Short Wave, the science podcast from npr.

Ari Shapiro (10:07)

This is Eric Glass. On this American Life. We like stories that surprise you. For instance, imagine finding a new hobby and realizing to do this hobby right according to the ways of the masters. There's a pretty good chance that you're gonna have to bend the law to get the materials that you need, if not break it. Yeah, to break international laws. Your life stories, really good ones. This American Life.

Regina Barber (10:31)

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Rachel Carlson (10:41)

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Regina Barber (10:46)

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Rachel Carlson (10:49)

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Regina Barber (10:52)

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Ari Shapiro (10:56)

The One A Podcast is all about helping you cut through the info fog and get to what's important in the news. Close out the week with us on our Friday News Roundup. Hear from reporters who've been embedded with the biggest news of the week. Join us every week for the Friday News Roundup. Listen to the One A podcast from NPR and WAMU.