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Iconic Tapestry of Picasso's 'Guernica' Is Back at the UN

In this Jan. 2, 2018, file photo, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley walks past a tapestry woven by Atelier J. de la Baume-Durrbach of Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" as she arrives to speak to reporters at United Nations headquarters. (AP)
In this Jan. 2, 2018, file photo, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley walks past a tapestry woven by Atelier J. de la Baume-Durrbach of Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" as she arrives to speak to reporters at United Nations headquarters. (AP)
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Iconic Tapestry of Picasso's 'Guernica' Is Back at the UN

In this Jan. 2, 2018, file photo, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley walks past a tapestry woven by Atelier J. de la Baume-Durrbach of Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" as she arrives to speak to reporters at United Nations headquarters. (AP)
In this Jan. 2, 2018, file photo, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley walks past a tapestry woven by Atelier J. de la Baume-Durrbach of Pablo Picasso's "Guernica" as she arrives to speak to reporters at United Nations headquarters. (AP)

The iconic tapestry of Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica,” which is considered by numerous art critics as perhaps the most powerful anti-war painting in history, returned to its place of honor at the United Nations on Saturday after a year-long absence that angered and dismayed many UN diplomats and staff.

The tapestry of the painting, woven by Atelier J. de la Baume-Durrbach, was re-hung Saturday outside the Security Council, the UN’s most powerful body charged with ensuring international peace and security. Since February 2021, the yellow wall where it had hung had been empty.

The tapestry was commissioned in 1955 by former US vice president and New York governor Nelson Rockefeller and offered to the UN on loan in 1984.

The Rockefeller family donated the land to build the UN complex after the world body was founded on the ashes of World War II, in the words of the UN Charter, “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”

When the United Nations headquarters was undergoing a major renovation starting in 2009, the tapestry was returned to the Rockefeller Foundation for safekeeping. It was reinstalled in September 2013 when the renovations were completed.

Early last year, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Jr., the son of the late vice president and governor who owns the “Guernica” tapestry, notified the United Nations of his intention to retrieve it. The UN returned it to him in February 2021.

Rockefeller said in a statement Saturday that the tapestry was being returned on loan to the United Nations, and he intends to donate the work to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the future.

“The Guernica tapestry with its probing symbolism -- its depiction of horrific aspects of human nature -- wrestles with the cruelty, darkness, and also a seed of hope within humanity.” Rockefeller said in a statement. “The Guernica tapestry is meant to be experienced and interpreted, with Picasso refusing to share its message when asked.”

Rockefeller said he was “delighted and deeply grateful, along with my family for the careful stewardship” of the tapestry by the United Nations and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

“I am grateful that the tapestry will be able to continue to reach a broader segment of the world’s population and magnify its ability to touch lives and educate,” he said.

In a Dec. 1, 2021 letter to Rockefeller, the UN said Guterres wrote: “This is most welcome news as we end a difficult year of global hardship and strife.”

“The Guernica tapestry speaks to the world about the urgent need to advance international peace and security,” the UN chief wrote. “We are honored to serve as careful stewards of this one-of-a-kind iconic work – as we draw inspiration from its message.”

The original painting, Picasso’s protest of the bombing of the Basque capital of Guernica during the Spanish civil war, is in Spain.

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Scientists Produce Painstaking Wiring Diagram of a Mouse’s Brain

This image provided by the Allen Institute on April 8, 2025, shows a digital representation of neurons in a section of a mouse's brain, part of a project to create the largest map to date of brain wiring and function, in Seattle, Wash. (Forrest Collman/Allen Institute via AP)
This image provided by the Allen Institute on April 8, 2025, shows a digital representation of neurons in a section of a mouse's brain, part of a project to create the largest map to date of brain wiring and function, in Seattle, Wash. (Forrest Collman/Allen Institute via AP)
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Scientists Produce Painstaking Wiring Diagram of a Mouse’s Brain

This image provided by the Allen Institute on April 8, 2025, shows a digital representation of neurons in a section of a mouse's brain, part of a project to create the largest map to date of brain wiring and function, in Seattle, Wash. (Forrest Collman/Allen Institute via AP)
This image provided by the Allen Institute on April 8, 2025, shows a digital representation of neurons in a section of a mouse's brain, part of a project to create the largest map to date of brain wiring and function, in Seattle, Wash. (Forrest Collman/Allen Institute via AP)

Neuroscientists have produced the largest wiring diagram and functional map of a mammalian brain to date using tissue from a part of a mouse's cerebral cortex involved in vision, an achievement that could offer insight into how the human brain works.

They worked out the cerebral architecture in a tissue sample the size of a grain of sand bearing more than 200,000 cells including roughly 84,000 nerve cells, called neurons, and about 524 million connections between these neurons at junctions called synapses. In all, they collected data that covers about 3.4 miles (5.4 kilometers) of neuronal wiring in a part of the brain that processes visual information from the eyes.

"The millions of synapses and hundreds of thousands of cells come in such a diversity of shapes and sizes, and contain a massive complexity. Looking at their complexity gives, at least us, a sense of awe about the sheer complexity of our own minds," said neuroscientist Forrest Collman of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, one of the lead scientists in the research published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The cerebral cortex is the brain's outer layer, the main site of conscious perceptions, judgments and the planning and execution of movements.

"Scientists have been studying the structure and anatomy of the brain - including the morphology of different cell types and how they connect - for over a century. Simultaneously, they've been characterizing the function of neurons - for example, what information they process," said neuroscientist Andreas Tolias of Baylor College of Medicine, one of the research leaders.

"However, understanding how neuronal function emerges at the circuit level has been challenging, since we need to study both function and wiring in the same neurons. Our study represents the largest effort to date to systematically unify brain structure and function within a single individual mouse," Tolias added.

While there are notable differences between mouse and human brains, many organizational principles remain conserved across species.

The research focused upon a part of this region called the primary visual cortex, involved in the first stage of the brain's processing of visual information.

The research was conducted by the MICrONS, short for Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks, a scientific consortium involving more than 150 scientists from various institutions.

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine created a map of neural activity in a cubic millimeter of the primary visual cortex by recording brain cell responses while the laboratory mouse ran on a treadmill while watching a variety of video images, including from "The Matrix" films. The mouse had been genetically modified to make these cells emit a fluorescent substance when the neurons were active.

The same neurons were then imaged at the Allen Institute. Those images were assembled in three dimensions, and Princeton University researchers used artificial intelligence and machine learning to reconstruct the neurons and their connection patterns.

The brain is populated by a network of cells including neurons that are activated by sensory stimuli such as sight or sound or touch and are connected by synapses. Cognitive function involves the interplay between the activation of neurons and the connections among the brain cells.

The researchers see practical benefits from this type of research.

"First, understanding brain wiring rules can shed light on various neurological and psychiatric disorders, including autism and schizophrenia, which may arise from subtle wiring abnormalities. Second, knowing precisely how neuronal wiring shapes brain function allows us to uncover fundamental mechanisms of cognition," Tolias said.

One key finding highlighted in the research involved a map of how connections involving a broad class of neurons in the brain called inhibitory cells are organized. When these neurons become active, they make the cells to which they are connected less active. This stands in contrast to excitatory cells, which make the cells to which they connect more likely to become active. Inhibitory cells represent about 15% of the cortical neurons.

"We found many more highly specific patterns of inhibition than many, including us, were expecting to find," Collman said.

"Inhibitory cells don't just randomly connect to all the excitatory cells around them, but instead pick out very specific kinds of neurons to connect to. Further, it was known that there are four major kinds of inhibitory neurons in the cortex, but the patterns of specificity break up these categories into much finer groups," Collman said.