🧠 The Voice Inside, the Behavior Transplant, and the Sheep Plague

Issue #20 | Wednesday, August 20, 2025 | ⏳ Read Time: ~7 Minutes | 1,348 Words

👋 Welcome to Vet to the Future

I can’t believe we’re hit issue 20 already! Time is sure moving quickly these days. This week’s issue unpacks the boundaries of behavior, cognition, and control. Scientists gave a worm a new personality, decoded silent speech straight from the brain, and revealed how AI is quietly reshaping cancer diagnostics in the clinic. A fourth story shows how we can now track dozens of animals at once—with no collars, chips, or dyes. And just as we look ahead, new evidence suggests sheep may have helped spread ancient plague, adding an unexpected chapter to the zoonotic storybook. What if intelligence isn’t just observed—but transferred, trained, or translated?

⚡ Quick Hits: Your Fast Facts Roundup

🧠 Scientists Vocalize Inner Speech Using Brain Implants
A BCI decodes internal thoughts into words in real time, opening new doors in interspecies and patient communication. 🔗 Read More

🧬 Behavioral Traits Transferred Between Species
In a first, scientists transplanted decision-making behavior from one worm to another. 🔗 Read More

🔬 AI Enhances Cancer Screening at Clinics
From workflow triage to diagnostic sensitivity, machine learning is reshaping oncology. 🔗 Read More

📊 DIPLOMAT Tracks Multiple Animals Without Tags
An AI platform monitors unmarked animals with stunning precision—no collars needed. 🔗 Read More

🐑 Sheep May Have Helped Spread Ancient Plague
Genetic and archaeological evidence points to livestock playing a bigger role in past pandemics. 🔗 Read More

🧪 New H5N1 Swine Studies Raise Pandemic Flags
Veterinary researchers are on high alert as avian flu crosses into pigs. 🔗 Read More

🧠 Veterinary AI: What’s Coming Next
From predictive diagnostics to admin automation, here’s the 2025 outlook. 🔗 Read More

🚨 CDC Headquarters Shooting Impacts Veterinary Staff
A tragic incident prompts calls for increased workplace safety and mental health support. 🔗 Read More

📦 Robot Olympics: Veterinary Applications of Motion AI?
Robots raced, boxed, and climbed—raising questions about future assistive roles in animal care. 🔗 Read More

🧬 AI Gene Hacking Gets Smarter
A new system fine-tunes gene edits with remarkable accuracy, potentially useful in veterinary genomics. 🔗 Read More

🧫 Trojan Horse Bacteria Deliver Targeted Therapy
Engineered microbes sneak cancer-killing viruses directly into tumors. 🔗 Read More

🦈 Great White Sharks Have a DNA Mystery
Geneticists have discovered unexplained anomalies in great white shark DNA that may explain their resilience against disease. 🔗 Read More

🕸️ Spider Conversations Decoded
Using AI, researchers have translated the vibrations of wolf spiders into recognizable patterns of communication. 🔗 Read More

🦅 Falcons Use Wind to Cross Oceans
Tracking studies show falcons exploit wind currents and remote islands to conserve energy during ocean crossings. 🔗 Read More

🧸 AI-Powered Stuffed Animals
Startups are rolling out plush toys embedded with conversational AI designed to comfort and monitor children. 🔗 Read More

🤿 Deep Dives: Big Stories, Bigger Impact

Giving Voice to Inner Speech with BCIs

📝 Futurism Staff | August 14, 2025 | Futurism | 🔗 Read More

The Scoop:
A new brain-computer interface (BCI) has successfully decoded and vocalized a patient’s inner monologue in real time—something previously confined to science fiction. The implant records neural activity linked to internal speech and translates those signals into audible words using machine learning models personalized to the user.

This breakthrough isn’t just about restoring communication to patients with paralysis or speech disorders. It also lays the foundation for future interspecies dialogue, where decoding non-verbal animal cognition could become possible. By mapping brain signals into interpretable forms, BCIs may allow humans to finally bridge the communication gap with animals—or even unlock new ways of understanding how thought itself works.

🧠 Why it matters:
✅ Breakthrough in communication – Offers hope to non-verbal patients and beyond.
✅ Neurology revolution – Provides a tool for therapy, rehabilitation, and diagnostics.
✅ Animal potential – Opens possibilities for studying cognition in other species.

Join the Conversation:
If an animal could “speak” through tech, what would you ask it?

Transplanting Behavior Between Worms

📝 Michael Irving | August 15, 2025 | New Atlas | 🔗 Read More

The Scoop:
In a first-of-its-kind experiment, researchers transplanted behavioral traits from one worm species into another. By manipulating neurons, they encoded the decision-making patterns of a donor and successfully programmed a recipient to respond in the same way.

The finding suggests that behavior, like a piece of code, can be packaged and installed across species lines. Beyond its scientific novelty, the discovery invites new approaches to behavioral therapy, training, and even ecological management. But it also raises thorny questions about whether manipulating an animal’s “software” is ethical—or even safe in the long term.

🧠 Why it matters:
✅ Proof of behavioral transfer – Demonstrates learning-like patterns can be encoded.
✅ Training potential – Could help shape or correct animal behaviors.
✅ Ethical crossroads – Raises deep questions about altering sentience.

Join the Conversation:
Should behavior ever be programmed into animals—or is that a step too far?

AI Is Reshaping Clinical Oncology Workflows

📝 DVM360 Editorial Staff | August 14, 2025 | DVM360 | 🔗 Read More

The Scoop:
Veterinary oncology is undergoing a quiet transformation as AI systems begin screening patients for cancer. These tools can detect subtle anomalies in imaging, prioritize high-risk cases, and optimize clinic workflows to ensure patients don’t get lost in bottlenecks.

By taking on repetitive screening tasks, AI frees veterinarians to focus on clinical judgment and care. Early reports suggest these systems may reduce time-to-diagnosis significantly, giving patients faster access to treatment. The downstream effect is both improved efficiency for hospitals and better odds for pets battling cancer.

🧠 Why it matters:
✅ Faster cancer detection – Improves odds of early intervention.
✅ Workflow efficiency – Reduces bottlenecks and burnout.
✅ Training opportunities – Offers clinicians AI-guided insights.

Join the Conversation:
Would you trust an AI to flag potential cancer in your own pet?

DIPLOMAT: Multi-Animal Tracking Without Tags

📝 bioRxiv Contributors | August 14, 2025 | bioRxiv | 🔗 Read More

The Scoop:
DIPLOMAT, a new AI-driven platform, allows researchers to track multiple unmarked animals simultaneously without physical tags. Using advanced detection and self-supervised learning, it maintains identity even in dynamic, fast-moving groups.

This is a leap forward in ethology and conservation science, as it eliminates the need for collars, chips, or dyes that can stress animals. With broad cross-species applications, DIPLOMAT opens doors for studying everything from bird flocks to rodent colonies—capturing natural behavior at scale without human interference.

🧠 Why it matters:
✅ Non-invasive – Tracks animals without disrupting natural behavior.
✅ Scalable – Handles dozens of individuals in real time.
✅ Cross-species – Applicable in lab, field, or zoo settings.

Join the Conversation:
What would you study if you could observe animals this closely—without touching them?

🙌🏼 Impressive Animals 🐾

Sheep and the Secret History of Plague

📝 Mary Van Beusekom, MS | August 12, 2025 | University of Minnesota | 🔗 Read More

The Scoop:
Ancient DNA evidence reveals that sheep likely carried Yersinia pestis, the bacterium behind the plague, across regions of Asia and Europe. For centuries, rodents and fleas were considered the main culprits, but livestock may have quietly fueled outbreaks that shaped entire civilizations.

The findings highlight how domesticated animals—living at the center of human economies—may have been underestimated as vectors. By reframing plague history, researchers hope to improve today’s livestock surveillance, ensuring we don’t miss similar zoonotic connections in the future.

🧠 Why it matters:
✅ Revises history – Livestock may have been overlooked plague carriers.
✅ Modern relevance – Highlights gaps in current surveillance protocols.
✅ Broader lesson – Shows how animals shape pandemics over centuries.

Join the Conversation:
What ancient lessons are we still missing in the fight against zoonotic outbreaks?

💊℞: Dose of Humor

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🎬 Closing Thoughts

Behavior that can be transplanted. Thoughts that can be spoken without a mouth. Diagnostics that arrive before the clinician even asks. This issue reminded us that intelligence isn’t fixed to a form—it flows. Between species. Between neurons. Between tools we build and lives we protect. And as for those plague-spreading sheep? They remind us that the past still shapes the pathogens—and the perceptions—we carry today.

Cheers,
— Ross

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