Made from human stem cells, neural organoids are sophisticated models of brain development and diseas. But scientists could only record activity from a small fraction of the organoid’s neurons. Soft, 3D device contains hundreds of miniaturized electrodes and envelopes 91% of the organoid. Device moves organoid research from localized probing to whole-network monitoring and control of neural activity.

The race to develop a virtual scientist — an AI creation that conducts every stage of research, from idea to publication — has consumed researchers, start-up founders, and tech juggernauts alike.

It has also illuminated fundamental philosophical questions about the process of doing science. Is the scientific method really the best approach to learning about the world?

A new paper in Collective Intelligence applies the scientific method to itself, finding that some common strategies that scientists consider gold standards for designing experiments perform worse than random choice. In other words: random exploration may produce better theories than carefully-planned experiments.