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Scientists Develop Pea-Sized Brain to Study Stephen Hawking's Disease

British physicist Stephen Hawking answers questions during an interview in 2007. Photo: Reuters/Charles W Luzier
British physicist Stephen Hawking answers questions during an interview in 2007. Photo: Reuters/Charles W Luzier
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Scientists Develop Pea-Sized Brain to Study Stephen Hawking's Disease

British physicist Stephen Hawking answers questions during an interview in 2007. Photo: Reuters/Charles W Luzier
British physicist Stephen Hawking answers questions during an interview in 2007. Photo: Reuters/Charles W Luzier

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have developed a pea-sized brain to study amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), in a new step that could lead to testing new treatment methods.

ALS, which killed the world renowned physicist Stephen Hawking at the age of 76, is a currently untreatable neurodegenerative disease that leads to rapid cognitive decline and paralysis. Because the neurological symptoms don't show up until later in life, scientists know very little about how it starts.

During the study published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, the researchers isolated stem cells from patients with ALS, and managed to grow them into "brain organoids" similar to a fetus' brain after about a dozen weeks of growing. The little blobs can't think, but can give the researchers much information about the structure, diversity, and reaction of cells in specific parts of the growing brain.

Using living brains in such experiments is impossible, at least on the ethical level, but these pea-sized "mini brains" can be beneficial for research purposes.

To get to even that simple level of development takes scientists a lot more time than nature itself to get a human's stem cells to proliferate into the millions and grow into something resembling a 'mini-brain'.

In previous efforts, researchers managed to grow brain organoids derived from the stem cells of those with Parkinson's disease for about 30 days and of Alzheimer's disease for 84 days. Researchers at Cambridge have now grown a pea-sized mini-brain to study amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) for nearly a year.

The team hopes their technique of growing organoid models of neurological disease will help identify further potential drug targets in the future.

"We currently have no very effective options for treating ALS, and while there is much more work to be done following our discovery, it at least offers hope that it may in time be possible to prevent or to slow down the disease process," explains neurologist András Lakatos from the University of Cambridge.

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Tourist Coins Pose Giant Problem at N. Ireland's Famous Causeway Site

Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)
Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)
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Tourist Coins Pose Giant Problem at N. Ireland's Famous Causeway Site

Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)
Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)

Northern Ireland's Giant Causeway draws close to one million visitors a year but their habit of wedging tiny coins in cracks between the rocks -- to bring love or luck -- is damaging the world-famous wonder.

Now authorities are urging tourists to keep their coins in their pockets to preserve the spectacular landscape.

Some 40,000 columns mark the causeway, Northern Ireland's first UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Geologists say the natural phenomenon was created by an outpouring of basalt lava 60 million years ago.

Legend has it that the causeway was formed by Irish giant Finn McCool.

In recent decades, visitors have pushed thousands of coins into fissures in the rocks.

The gesture is "a token of love or luck", according to Cliff Henry, the causeway's nature engagement officer.

But the coins rapidly corrode and expand, causing the basalt to flake and leaving "unsightly" rust-colored streaks, Henry told AFP.

He pointed to streaks on a rock and gingerly prized out a US cent with a set of keys.

"We get a lot of euros and dollar cents. But coins from literally all over the world -- any currency you can think of, pretty much -- we have had it here," he said.

A report by the British Geological Survey in 2021 revealed that the coins were "doing some serious damage" and something had to be done about it, he noted.

Signs are now in place around the site appealing to tourists to "leave no trace".
"Once some visitors see other people have done it, they feel that they need to add to it," causeway tour guide Joan Kennedy told AFP.

She and her colleagues now gently but firmly tell tourists to desist.

At the exit from the causeway, a US couple said they were "distressed" to hear of the damage the metal caused.

"Our guide mentioned as we came up that people had been putting coins into the stones. It's really terrible to hear that," said Robert Lewis, a 75-year-old from Florida.

"It's kind of like damaging any kind of nature when you are doing something like that, putting something foreign into nature. It's not good," said his wife, Geri, 70.

As part of a £30,000 ($40,000) conservation project, stone masons recently removed as many coins as they could -- without causing further damage -- from 10 test sites around the causeway.

Henry said the trial was successful and is to be expanded across the causeway.

"If we can get all those coins removed to start with that will help the situation and hopefully no more coins will be put in," he said.

"If visitors see fewer coins in the stones and hear appeals to stop the damaging practice, the problem can maybe be solved.

"We know that visitors love and cherish the Giant's Causeway, and many form deep personal connections to it, so we want this natural wonder to remain special for future generations."