🧬 Signals, Silences, & Sensing

Issue #24 | Wednesday, October 8, 2025 | ⏳ Read Time: ~8 Minutes | 1,691 Words

👋 Welcome to Vet to the Future

From synthetic neurons to ancient DNA, this week blurs boundaries between life and code. Researchers have built artificial nerve cells that talk like the real thing, taught machines to read pain from mouse faces, and even turned skin into eggs that formed embryos. Meanwhile, a mammoth tooth unearthed in Siberia carries bacterial whispers from a million years ago—proof that life’s circuitry has always been rewriting itself.

Medicine’s next era may not distinguish between designing and diagnosing. What matters is how we use these tools—with empathy, foresight, and a sense of wonder.

⚡ Quick Hits: Your Fast Facts Roundup

🤖 Machine-Learning Sound-Evoked Pain Behaviors from Facial Grimace and Body Cues in Mice
AI reads subtle facial and body cues to quantify pain in mice. 🔗 Read More

🦠 Possible pet-to-human transmission of resistant bacteria reported
Signals of potential resistant bacteria transmission across species. 🔗 Read More

🧠 ‘Sugar switch’ in the brain offers new path to treating depression
Neural sugar sensing points to a fresh path for treating mood disorders. 🔗 Read More

🤖 Artificial neuron blurs line between technology and biology
A synthetic neuron behaves like the real thing at the signaling level. 🔗 Read More

🧬 Scientists Made Human Eggs from Skin Cells and Used Them to Form Embryos
A leap in in-vitro gametogenesis with profound implications. 🔗 Read More

🦣 Ancient mammoth tooth reveals oldest known bacterial DNA
Ancient DNA in a fossil tooth pushes the microbial record further back in time. 🔗 Read More

🐕 Evaluation of a Rapid Test for Detecting Ampicillin‐Resistant UTI Infections in Dogs and Cats
A rapid in-clinic assay flags antibiotic resistance within hours. 🔗 Read More

🔬 World-famous primatologist Jane Goodall dead at 91
A farewell to a trailblazer whose work redefined our understanding of primates. 🔗 Read More

🦇 Bats create a silent frequency band to detect prey through Doppler shift compensation
How echolocators tune their sonar to pull prey signals out of noisy backgrounds. 🔗 Read More

🤖 Camera-packin’ AI assistive device is like a white cane on steroids
A wearable system interprets surroundings to guide users through complex spaces. 🔗 Read More

🫀 The Evolution Of Portable ECGs
From cart to pocket—how heart monitoring leapt into the wearable era. 🔗 Read More

👁 Next-gen imaging tech could catch sight-stealing diseases early
Dual imaging approaches aim to detect eye disease much earlier. 🔗 Read More

🎗️ Goodbye colonoscopy? Simple stool test detects 90% of colorectal cancers
A noninvasive test shows high sensitivity for colorectal cancer detection. 🔗 Read More

🩻 The Future of Radiology And Artificial Intelligence
Where algorithmic tools are earning their keep in imaging workflows. 🔗 Read More

🧪 Machine-learning for quantitative histopathology of piglet image data
Machine learning standardizes slide features for reproducible pathology. 🔗 Read More

🩺 The quick sequential organ failure assessment score as a predictor of mortality in septic dogs
A quick score assessed as a mortality predictor for canine sepsis. 🔗 Read More

🧬 Dangerous AI-Designed Proteins Could Evade Today’s Biosecurity Software
Why designer proteins could slip past today’s biosecurity checks. 🔗 Read More

⌚ Smart wearable device developed to monitor muscle health
A sensor tracks muscle condition to support rehab and performance. 🔗 Read More

🫀 Use of Artificial Intelligence to Detect Cardiac Rhythm Disturbances in Veterinary Patients with Diabetes: A Scoping Review
A map of AI methods for detecting arrhythmias in veterinary patients. 🔗 Read More

🪴 Scientists unlock secret to Venus flytrap’s hair-trigger response
Mechanosensing secrets behind the plant’s hair-trigger snap. 🔗 Read More

🐈 Study finds if caught early enough, felines can survive bird flu
Early detection and care may improve outcomes for cats with H5N1. 🔗 Read More

🦣 Megafauna was the meat of choice for South American hunters
Evidence points to Ice Age hunters favoring now-extinct giants. 🔗 Read More

🤿 Deep Dives: Big Stories, Bigger Impact

Machine-Learning-Guided Video Analysis Identifies Pain Behaviors in Mice

📝 bioRxiv | Oct 02, 2025 | Source 🔗 Read More

🔍 The Scoop
This preprint outlines an ML pipeline that analyzes high-frame-rate video of mice during acoustic stimulation, detecting pain-linked micro-movements and facial grimace and comparing model outputs to expert human scoring.

The authors probe generalization across strains and settings and discuss confounders such as lighting and camera angles. The vision: scalable, objective ethology that can reduce bias and enable continuous welfare monitoring.

🧠 Why it matters:
✅ Objective welfare – Automates pain scoring to reduce observer bias.
✅ Scalable – Supports continuous, high-throughput behavioral assessment.
✅ Translational – Concept could adapt to veterinary patients in clinics.

Join the Conversation:
Where in your workflow could an automated pain-behavior flagger save time or improve care?

Possible Pet-to-Human Transmission of Resistant Bacteria Reported

📝 By Chris Dall, MA | Oct 02, 2025 | Source: University of Minnesota 🔗 Read More

🔍 The Scoop
UK researchers identified nearly identical E. coli plasmids in pets and owners, confirming bidirectional antimicrobial-resistance exchange. No severe illness occurred, but it highlights the porous barrier between households and hospitals.

For veterinarians, it’s a One Health reminder: our infection-control advice matters at every kitchen counter.

🧠 Why It Matters
✅ One Health urgency – Resistance moves freely across species.
✅ Surveillance need – Clinics as early-warning sentinels.
✅ Client education – Shared microbiomes need shared responsibility.

💬 Join the Conversation
Could routine screening for AMR in companion animals become standard preventive care?

‘Sugar Switch’ in the Brain Offers New Path to Treating Depression

📝 By Bronwyn Thompson | Oct 5, 2025 | Source: New Atlas 🔗 Read More

🔍 The Scoop
Glucose-sensing neurons in the hypothalamus regulate mood by linking energy balance to dopamine circuits. When disrupted, they trigger depression-like behavior in mice.

The discovery reframes mood disorders as partly metabolic. For animals, it underscores how diet, stress, and neurochemistry interact—informing both welfare and behavior medicine.

🧠 Why It Matters
✅ New targets – Energy metabolism as a lever for mental health.
✅ Behavioral parallels – Shared pathways across mammals.
✅ Integrated care – Links nutrition to neurochemistry.

💬 Join the Conversation
Could metabolic screening become part of behavioral workups in veterinary care?

Artificial Neuron Blurs Line Between Technology and Biology

📝 By Paul McClure | Sept 30, 2025 | Source: New Atlas 🔗 Read More

🔍 The Scoop
At the University of Zurich, researchers built a synthetic neuron that mimics electrical and ionic signaling of real cells. It fires, rests, and recovers like its organic counterpart, allowing direct integration with living tissue.

Such hybrid circuits could restore spinal pathways, power prosthetics, or model disease. For veterinary neurology, it hints at implants that might return motion to paralyzed animals—or replace lost neural networks after trauma.

🧠 Why It Matters
✅ Neural repair – Synthetic neurons could restore lost signaling.
✅ Hybrid modeling – Study brain disease across digital-biological systems.
✅ Biointegration – Opens path to biocompatible implants in animals.

💬 Join the Conversation
Would you implant a “neuronal patch” if it could reverse paralysis in pets?

Scientists Made Human Eggs from Skin Cells and Used Them to Form Embryos

📝 By Emily Mullin | Sept 30, 2025 | Source: Wired 🔗 Read More

🔍 The Scoop
This article is from human medicine but has direct implications for veterinary care, diagnostics, and reproductive science.
Researchers reprogrammed human skin cells into egg-like cells, then fertilized them to form early embryos. The feat, achieved by a Japanese team, brings in-vitro gametogenesis from mice into the human realm.

The method guides pluripotent cells through germline fate and combines them with donor sperm. None were implanted, but the milestone expands what’s possible in fertility and conservation biology alike.

Veterinary reproduction could follow—restoring fertility in valuable or endangered species from mere tissue samples.

🧠 Why It Matters
✅ Conservation breeding – Restore viable lines from somatic cells.
✅ Fertility restoration – Address reproductive disorders in animals.
✅ Genetic insight – Model gametogenesis across species.

💬 Join the Conversation
Would labs pursuing endangered-species cloning adopt this approach—or does it cross an ethical line?

🙌🏼 Impressive Animals 🐾

Ancient Mammoth Tooth Reveals Oldest Known Bacterial DNA

📝 By Cell | Sept 02, 2025 | Source: Cell 🔗 Read More

🔍 The Scoop
A 1.2-million-year-old mammoth molar recovered from Siberian permafrost contained the oldest bacterial DNA ever sequenced. The microbes resemble modern ruminant gut flora, showing remarkable continuity across epochs.

For clinicians and microbiologists, it’s a reminder that symbiosis—between host and microbe—has been the planet’s most enduring partnership.

🧠 Why It Matters
✅ Evolutionary continuity – Gut microbiomes predate modern species.
✅ Comparative genomics – Links ancient and modern animal health.
✅ Preservation insight – Microbes as time capsules of ecology.

💬 Join the Conversation
If we could resurrect extinct microbiomes, should we—and why?

💊℞: Dose of Humor

📣 Support Vet to the Future!

Love this newsletter? Buy me a coffee and support my work! ☕ ko-fi.com/rossimiano 

📢 Want to sponsor Vet to the Future? Let’s talk!

You're still here? Awesome. Since you're clearly a newsletter connoisseur, here's another one I think you'll appreciate.

🎬 Closing Thoughts

The line between living and designed grows thinner each week. Synthetic neurons pulse beside organic ones; algorithms empathize with mice; DNA spans a million years of memory.

Our task isn’t to slow this convergence but to steer it—with ethics, empathy, and curiosity. Because whether we’re healing bodies or debugging biology, the future of veterinary medicine is already thinking with us.

As always, stay curious and stay scrappy.
The future is already here—it just hasn’t made it to every clinic yet.

Cheers,
— Ross

📩 Want to submit a story? Let’s connect → [email protected]!